Page 23 of The Mourning Throne
“I guess. It calms me down.”
“We’ve got something better than a cigarette,” Lex said, voice light. “Something that’ll actually help.”
The streetlamp caught the moment Ollie’s face shifted. His mouth flattened, lashes flicked downward, and his eyes narrowed enough to register unease. “Like what?”
“Not likethat,” Lex added, hands up in surrender, laughing. “No drugs or hardcore shit. Just somewhere that isn’t so packed. It was hard to hear myself think in the club.”
Morgan stepped forward, slow. Calm. “You look like you’ve had a long night.”
The way Ollie’s fingers clenched around the filter gave more away than his silence. But he didn’t back up.
Didn’t run.
Didn’tscream.
Lex tilted his head, watching for any more signs of fear. “You came here alone, didn’t you?”
Ollie nodded after a second. “I was supposed to meet a couple people but I think they blew me off. Blind date included.”
“Seriously? Damn,” Lex said. “No offense, but they totally missed out. You’re the most interesting person we’ve met all night.”
That got Ollie—a laugh, dry and quick, but real.
“Come with us,” Lex offered, gentler now. “You won’t have to talk if you don’t want to. We can get bad food, relax, smoke—tell me that doesn’t sound more fun than wasting your time here.”
Ollie looked between them. The noise of the club had vanished entirely—out here, it was just silent. Warm. With something starting to rot in the trash down the alley.
But there was a flicker in his expression, as if hewantedto say yes. Needed to.
“…Just for a little while,” Ollie said. “Sorry, I probably seem stupid—London can be…”
“Dangerous?” Lex asked quietly.
Ollie nodded.
Morgan gestured down the alley. “Our car’s around the corner.”
“Oh—I, um—should I grab my jacket from the check or—?”
“You won’t need it,” Lex said, already moving off the wall.
Ollie really should’ve screamed, not followed them.
It shouldn’t be this easy.
The car was too quiet.
Not a comfortable, companionable kind of quiet—the kind Lex liked when it was Morgan driving, windows rolled down too far on the highway, and him curled lazily in the passenger seat, rewatching Morgan’s latest bloody horror show he’d recorded only a few minutes before.
This was different.
Lex couldfeelthis kind of quiet. It dug under his nails, threatened to choke him.
Ollie sat rigid in the back seat, one hand still twitching at the end of his shirt like he wasn’t sure what to do with it. His knee bounced, just slightly.
The kind of anxious movement that almost made Lex feel bad for him.
Almost.
