Page 14 of Black Bird

His pale, tattooed torso gleamed bright with sunlight. He shielded his eyes with a hand at his brow and looked down over himself. Unscathed. His chest heaved up and down and a single tear crept over his cheekbone. He let go of the curtain, swiping it away and pretending it never happened. No one would blame him for it had they seen it. Over two centuries in the dark and yet here he stood. It wasn’t enough. He pushed the dark curtain fully over, his bedroom filling with the one thing he cowered from all these years.

Athan unlocked the sliding glass door to his unused balcony and ripped the metal bar free of its spot along the track that kept it wedged shut. He slid it open, the crisp autumn air rushing in and kissing his skin as he stepped barefoot out onto the concrete deck. He breathed deeply, staring for a long moment down at his feet before slowly raising his eyes across Boston. And when he did—his breath caught in his throat.

It was hard not to think of the girl that had given him this. Hard not to agree with Rhaena when she had told him that he needed to stay away from her. Being around her would cause problems and she had been right. He couldn’t afford to get thrown off this case. It would ruin his livelihood and that of those that he could care less about, but also promised to protect. There was also that issue of the bargain he’d made with Dahlia, and the lingering promise of his freedom in the years to come that hung in the fucked up balance of his immortal life. As he stared over the city, utterly silent and eternally grateful … her face flashed across his mind.

“Thank you …” he breathed, unwilling to close his pale blue eyes.

Maybe this was best for everyone. He didn’t deserve the right to be in her company anyway.

Rhaena had gotten plenty of curious stares from her colleagues in the training center this morning when she took her frustration from Athan’s dismissal out on the dummy that sat half beaten to shreds over a mat in the back corner. The more she’d thought about how stupid she must have looked as she stood there nearly naked in his living room, the harder she hit. Rivulets of sweat trailed down her neck and chest as she threw punch after punch, wishing it had been his handsome face instead. She didn’t truly understand why she was so angry with him. They both knew what they were to each other. If she was being honest with herself, she’d admit that the honesty he’d offered about seeing that girl’s face over and over again in his mind had made her a little … jealous. She knew that the only other person he’d shared a bed with was someone who had hurt him. Someone who had seen him as nothing more than a pretty slave and forced him to do things against his will. She knew the sacrifices Athan had made to get himself out, and it ate at her.

But it had only been the two of them all these years and while she wasn’t immortal, Rhaena hardly aged. Had he been thinking of that girl in a way that would eventually lead their vic into his bed? Or was it just the guilt he felt for what he’d done to her and the fact that she was alive when she shouldn’t be? Everything about the situation was fucked. Either way … rejection sucks. She’d pushed past the burn in her muscles as the dummy’s head rocked back and forth from her continued assault. This needed to leave her system before she laid eyes on that girl in the hospital today. She’d have to get her shit together before dealing with all of Athan’s questions about her later, too.

Rhaena pondered that while she showered off in the women’s locker room. He shared a cigarette with her? What had that conversation been like? She’d have to feel her out when she got there. Ask her own questions. From the way Athan had looked at her as he’d knelt on the kitchen floor, he had already seemed like he was somehow attached. Rhaena had never seen that look in his eyes before. It was as if he hadn’t even realized that he wasn’t his usual, morally gray, brooding self anymore.

After she toweled off and dressed, she made her way to their desks to grab files and sign out their laptops. Captain Foley had snuck up behind her as she filled her tumbler in the break room, pouring his coffee and smiling over at her.

“I wish I had more detectives as dedicated as you, Gloves.”

“I appreciate it, sir. The case isn’t gonna figure itself out.” She snapped the lid on her cup and stole a straw from the container on the counter. Foley stirred milk into his coffee and leaned his back against the countertop.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, peering at her beneath lowered brows. She tried not to let on that it made her nervous.

“Of course, sir.”

“Did Kane seem a bit off to you yesterday? Anything I should be worried about?”

Rhaena rubbed at her sore knuckles and pressed her mouth into a tight line. Athan hadn’t been as discreet about his shock as he’d thought. Or maybe he didn’t realize how gray his skin had looked when he’d opened that file in the captain’s office.

“No, sir. He’s fine. He’s got some personal issues he’s dealing with. I wouldn’t expect him to be forthcoming about any of that. He’s a pretty private person.”

Foley smiled. “Creepy sometimes, isn’t he?” Rhaena huffed a laugh.

“Maybe sometimes.”

“I need you both to be at your best with this case. Not to sound curt, but I could give a shit less about the personal lives of anybody in this precinct. That is, until it interferes with your work. I’m counting on you two to keep the feds off our backs and these vics off the street. Boston can’t afford to have a serial killer, and we can’t afford to let it happen.” His dark finger pointed at her as he spoke. Rhaena nodded.

“I understand, sir. We’ll figure this out.”

“I saw you signed out the computers. Where you headed?”

“To the hospital. Gonna go question the witness.”

Foley raised his brows. “I thought Kane was taking care of that yesterday?” Rhaena sipped from her straw.

“He did, but she’s still in pretty rough shape. He said she lost consciousness before he could finish. I have some questions of my own.”

“Yikes. Alright, then. I’ll leave you to it.” Foley paused in the doorway of the break room and looked back over his broad shoulder at her. “Oh, and Northwood?” Rhaena lifted her chin. “Straighten that arm a little more when you hit. You won’t have to ice those knuckles as often.” He smirked at her and continued to his office.

It wasn’t weird, she kept reminding herself as she drove uptown to the community hospital. Foley had seemed to enjoy watching her train and mentioned several times that she should have been in some branch of the armed forces. She didn’t know the extent of what the captain had seen or lived through in his years of service to his country. Rhaena supposed that was something a small part of her captain missed when he now sat behind a desk at the 12th. The fact that he took any notice at all made her feel a little proud. He made it obvious that he saw something in her that others didn’t, and she thrived on that. She wondered if that might have been her problem. Maybe she was living her life just seeking someone’s approval—anyone’sapproval. She sighed deeply as she sat at the stoplight a few blocks away from the hospital entrance. Her loneliness was getting the better of her.

Her phone dinged and she looked down at it, swiping open the screen and reading the text from Kane. “What an idiot.” She smirked, checking the status of the traffic light as she texted back a snarky response. She pictured him at least smiling at it, knowing her own smile was the only reason he’d sent it. He felt bad about the way they’d left things, she could tell. This was the only way his personality allowed him to soften the blow. If she was being honest, she felt a bit guilty about beingthe reason for the blurred lines between them. It wasn’t Athan’s fault that he was fighting off the feelings they’d agreed they wouldn’t have, when she was making it difficult to hide her own. It had to put him in a hard place, and he was going through enough already. She needed him focused.Sheneeded to focus. There wasn’t any room for this shit in their current situation. Rhaena wondered a moment later if he was up right now because he may have actually tried to eat real food. Wondered what else he might be testing while he was at home. She texted him again.

Me: it just occurred to me that you might actually be serious about food. I’m sorry, I’m not used to that yet.

Me: wanna start with something lighter? maybe a sandwich?

When he didn’t immediately respond, Rhaena tried not to think that maybe he’d taken her insult personally. Text messages never really relayed the right sort of meaning behind what people were actually trying to put off. Maybe he was taking a shower or rolled back over to try and sleep. She hoped he wasn’t doing something stupid.

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