Page 97 of By the Pint

“Dima!” Joey gasped, jumping to her feet when she saw me, and noticing that, even though I tried, I could not force a smile.

“What’s happened?” Holly said, rushing up to me, but I brushed her aside.

Mate?Goldie said into my mind.

“Mal. I want Mal,” I eventually managed to squeeze out.

“What is it, buddy?” Mal said, emerging from the kitchen, bowl of cereal in one hand and spoon in the other. He froze when he saw me. His huge onyx frame going stiff. He placed his breakfast/supper on a nearby side table, and quicker than was physically possible, crossed the space to me, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me into the impossible warmth of his chest. A few moments later, his wings joined his arms, literally shielding me from the outside world. From everything and everyone else.

And I let myself go.

Wailing until it turned to crying, and crying until it turned to sobbing. And still, long after I stopped making noise and leaking all over him, and everybody else had toddled off to work with the promise of crying sick and coming home if I needed them, Mal held me.

31.

Casey

The next few days passed like a rusty blade being dragged through an open wound. The turning facility was located in the City of the Undead, obviously, so Killian and I travelled back to Chez Killian. Over the few weeks I’d been away, he’d miraculously managed to keep the mansion upright. If he’d had any parties, he’d done an impressive job of tidying up afterwards. No mess, no cans of Blooze about the place, no lurking cantankerous centaur and his loquacious half-human wife. Perhaps my little six-hundred-and-twenty-year-old master had finally grown up.

Killian had taken over my mind-blocking training, since no matter how good I felt like I was getting, Dima had always found a way to break in.“If you don’t lock it down tightly, the hackers will figure you out, and you’ll be …”Dima had drawn a line over his neck with his thumb.

But either Killian wasn’t as skilled as Dima, or I’d somehow mastered the practice, because no matter what hetried, no matter how long he spent, Killian could not find a way into my mind.

I hoped it was the latter, but if it were the former, I hoped the hackers had similar skill sets to my master, not Dima, because I was out of time.

Out of time and out of options.

It was the right decision. I mean, it was the only decision. Five to eight years of dying a slow and agonised death, or an extreme amount of pain for a short amount of time followed by sweet, oblivious eternity.

Okay yeah, I’d heard the turning process was painful. The worst. Like being turned inside out and dragged through puddles of vinegar and seawater and fucking fire, but that wasn’t necessarily the pain I was referring to.

I turned over on my couch to face the TV. I hadn’t slept much. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t gone to the gym. I couldn’t even remember how long it was before you lost muscle mass through not exercising. This thought alone should have scared the hell out of me. I was about to enter immortality with a potentially less than perfect physique. But I couldn’t muster the energy to give a shit.

I missed him. Dima. Like so fucking much. I wasn’t even sure I had the capacity to miss someone, but there I was. Crying every time I thought about him, and the many, many ways he saved me.

The wingball channel had been on since I arrived. The players’ and the crowd’s shouts, the rubber squeak on the wingboards, the goal buzzer, filled my room with the familiarity of my suite back at Constellations. I could almost pretend he was here, hovering at the other corner of the sofa, his quilt spread out over both of us.

Killian had accidentally packed Dima’s quilt in with my things. I cried for an entire afternoon after discovering it.It seemed to simultaneously make the pain worse and more bearable. I hugged it to my face and breathed in the lingering metallic scent of him.

In the past, I’d always been so glad to be out of someone’s company. At the end of a party, or a meeting, or a game, I would shut the door to my rooms and be alone and just … breathe. Even Killian, as much as I loved him in a paternal sort of way, once he’d gone to bed for the day, or taken himself off to the library to continue his studies, I would relax. Just be myself. Drink my Mai Tais. Shop online for whatever I wanted. Watch the game alone.

But with Dima, I realised it was the opposite. I wasn’t holding my breath until the moment he left. I found I breathed more easily with him around. I was myself. Flaws and weaknesses all out on show for him.

And he never shied away. He never said I was too much, or not enough. He was just there. Expecting nothing from me. Giving me everything. Every single fibre of his being was mine for the taking.

He’d loved me. From the moment we met in booth one-eleven. That much was obvious now. He’d said,I’m not the kind of guy that can give half my heart. He’d gone all in from the beginning. He’d seen into my mind, seen the worst parts of me, and decided that even though they excessively outweighed the good, he would love me regardless.

I didn’t deserve him.

I was an awful person. I knew what would happen. Even though I couldn’t see into his thoughts like he did with mine, I knew he was falling for me. And I fucking let it happen because I thought the benefits I would reap from his tutelage far outweighed the risks to his heart.

I put myself before him. I let him fall hard for me. I fucking let it all happen because I was a selfish shit. And the worst part was, he knew. He knew I knew that was going tohappen, and he still helped me. Even though his own risk was so ridiculously, excruciatingly high. Because that’s the kind of guy he was.

Brilliant and selfless, and even if I worked tirelessly on bettering myself for another ten thousand years, I’d still never deserve him.

More than anything, I wished I could go back in time. Back before the Bloodsuckers in Business Conference. Before I met Dima. Take my chances with the hackers. Despite knowing my odds would have been shit to none. Back to before I met Killian. I could have stayed in wingball. Been happy with my lot. Maybe become a coach, or team manager, or something along those lines. Just lived a peaceful, normal, human life. One that most people would sell their right arms for.

Or back further still. To the moments in my childhood when I decided that being the guy everyone feared, being the guy who people went out of their way to placate, was the most suitable life choice.

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