Page 42 of Black Curtain

“How would I know what I see?” He turned, staring at Nick with utter loathing. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking at. But I know it ain’t Nick Tanaka.”

“It is, though,” I said, quiet. “It is Nick, Dex. You might not like what happened to him, or what it turned him into for a while, but that wasn’t Nick’s fault.”

Dex glared at me.

“I didn’t ask your opinion on anything, doc…”

“Hey.” Black’s voice hardened. “Watch it, Dex.”

Dexter went on as if Black hadn’t spoken.

He continued to aim his words at me.

“…So unless you plan toshrinkme for your own amusement, doc, or you and Quentin intend to turn me over to the cops, hopin’ they’ll charge me for shooting something that ain’t even alive… you damned well better let me go free. Or I might be filing a few charges of my own. And I’ll have plenty to tell them about––”

A different voice cut him off that time.

“Oh, Jesus…shut up,Dex.”

Kiko stepped forward, pushing past Black, and past me.

She walked over and plopped down on the couch next to Dex.

Her small, but leanly muscled body folded into a half cross-legged pose, facing him on the Navajo-patterned fabric. She frowned, openly studying his face.

“Dex,” she said. “He wasn’t himself. He is now. I know you can see it.”

Dex opened his mouth, but Kiko cut him off.

“This isn’t even about Nick. Or about Black. Or about Miri. It’s about you and me. AndI’mthe one you should be talking to about it. Not Nick. Not Miri or Black, who you hurt with all of this. Not with your shitty comments to Jax.”

Dex started to open his mouth again, but Kiko held up a hand.

“Dexter Orville Houston… you arenotin love with me. You just aren’t. You had a shitty breakup after an even shittier divorce, and then we had like five years of shit from all sides. Vampire shit. Seer shit. Dragon shit. Shit with humans being turned into zombies for that crazy fuck, Charles. Bombs going off. Being trapped with vampires in the desert…”

She stared into his face. “I get it, okay? We all get it. But you don’t need to keep doing this. I know you’ve been talking to that counselor… and to Yarli…”

I flinched.

I didn’t know either of those things.

“Dex.” Kiko took one of his big hands in her two small ones, and pulled it into her lap. “You lost it. Okay? You had a bad fucking day, and you cracked. No one hates you for that. No one’s even mad at you. But we want you to come back now. Okay? We want you back. We miss you. Black fuckingneedsyou. You know he does. More to the point, you’re one of us, like it or not. You’re part of our fucked family…like it or not.So you can be mad, sure. You can hate us, sure. You can quit, sure. No one will stop you, Dexter. Hell, Black’ll probably give you enough in pension that you’d never have to work again. But we don’twantyou to go. None of us do. Nick doesn’t, either. He’s been begging to come see you ever since he recovered enough for that to even be possible.”

I watched in shock as Dex gripped her hand back.

He wiped his eyes, his big shoulders slumping.

None of the rest of us moved.

Kiko shook his hand and arm where she held him.

“Come back, Dex,” she urged. “We love you, you big goof. And I’m not okay from all this stuff either. I’ve been seeing people professionally, too. And talking to Miri. And Jax. And yes, Yarli. I think all of us are going to need a few decades of therapy after this shit. But it should be getting better now. The boss is back to normal, okay? So is Miri…”

Dex let out a humorless laugh, almost a choking sound.

“Whatever the fuck that means.”

Kiko’s voice turned impatient. “Youknowwhat that means. It means things are no weirder than they ever were with the boss. No more dragon. No more weird portals. Even most of the seers are gone now. All of Charles’ people. Most of the others. Okay?”

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