Page 23 of The Sinner and the Scholar
Something flickers in his eyes, and he lets go of me before looking outside the window.
“How can we get them to trust us?” I ask. “Without being obvious, because the current methods are taking too long. The Entity wants more information, and all we have to give now is that they broke into our supply trunk and refused to take lessons.”
I know they have the missing manuscript. I’d hoped Thea would come to me for help by now, but I’m still on the outside.
Cisco raises his brows. “Find common ground.”
“With assassins?”
“With women,” he corrects. “With people. Humans. They have hopes and dreams like all of us.”
“Do they?” Zeke reclines on the cot and digs into his jeans. Deep in thought, he pulls out a cigarette and taps it on the packet. “Actually, Wes and the bookish one both talk in nerd. Try her.”
“She’s the one who walked out of class,” I remind him as I take the cigarette. He should know better.
Zeke gives me a dry smile. “That means you’re under her skin. Keep pushing. Or let me fuck one of them and learn their secrets that way. Women say things in bed.”
I ignore him, as do Cisco and Dom. We’re used to his crude methods by now. Sometimes we need that risky wildness in the group, or we’ll never get anything done. But sometimes, Zeke’s death wish makes my skin crawl.
Especially with… I open my hand to look at the crushed cigarette. The paper is torn, and its innards have spilled onto my skin in a sickly reminder of what we’re facing. I confiscate Zeke’s cigarette pack, smack him over the head, and then hand it to Dom, who I know will dispose of it properly.
Zeke’s brows join in the middle, but he says nothing.
“What’s one thing,” he once asked me. “One thing you would change if you could turn back time?”
It was about four years ago. We’d just met. I was in the States on a research trip—studying the mystical leylines and reporting back to the Entity about the authenticity of it all when a possessed man in a subway attacked me. Zeke happened to be there, lurking about in a hoodie and hiding his face. He was the last person on that platform I expected to come to my rescue, but he did.
I was in a chokehold when a bullet whizzed by my cheek and hit my attacker between the eyes. At first, I thought it was a lucky hit, but Zeke had a knack for hitting his mark—he still does. The bullet didn’t kill the demon, but it slowed him down.
It gave us time to escape. Zeke took me through a network of hidden tunnels to emerge back topside amid a busy city. I offered to buy him a drink. He accepted.
It turned out Zeke was a wanted man. What he did for me put him at risk of being discovered by the authorities. I couldn’t leave him—he saved my life—so I convinced the Entity to bring him into the fold.
“One thing.”
“I have too many things,” I replied to Zeke as he downed his beer. “But maybe I’d find a way to…”
“What?” he asked, a wry smirk on his face. “Don’t go shy on me now.”
I studied the foamy residue in my empty glass, and thought how worse it appeared without the beer to prop it up.
“I’d find a way to bring someone back that I lost,” I confessed.
“Who?”
“Anyone. So I don’t have to be alone.”
So I can break the cycle of people dying around me.
I found Zeke staring at his empty glass, much like I had looked at mine. On the way to the bar, he’d told me about his baby sister. The blood on his hands. His self-made mission to hunt things that went bump in the night, in particular, any demon that used fire. His failure at finding peace. But there was something else… or rather, someone else.
“What’s your one thing?” I prompted.
He slid me a smirk. “Smaller dick.”
I chuckled and rolled my eyes. We both knew it was a lie. But voicing his one thing must hurt him, so I didn’t push it.
“Seriously,” Zeke said, doubling down. “It’s too big.”
