Page 16 of All Saints Day
“Fucked up as it is to say, I can’t wait until we get this over with—so I don’t have to keep walking on eggshells around Compton and the other guys in my unit.” Dennis shakes his head, sitting down beside Q, allowing Sébastien to serve him a cup of hotel coffee zhuzhed up with a few cardamom pods and some sweetened condensed milk.
Sébastien continues to watch Dennis warily out of the corner of his eye, ever distrustful of law enforcement after a life largely spent as a criminal.
“I used to have a few places I could go where I didn’t feel like I had to be constantly looking over my shoulder.” Dennis takes the coffee with a deferential nod to Sébastien, blowing carefully across the steaming surface before gingerly taking a sip.
“Well, you won’t have to suffer for much longer,” Seb sniffs, doing his best to keep the outright disdain from his voice, but I still kick his shin underneath the table. He’s going to have to learn to play nice. Dennis is one of us, after all.
“Indeed,” Quentin jumps in, eager to steer us away from any potential friction between Seb and Dennis and back toward the important business of planning Louise’s rescue mission. “We willhave a very narrow window to get Compton from DC to the Windmill compound in rural West Virginia.”
Dennis nods solemnly.
“I make the grab after Caz disables all of Compton’s devices. Once the big dog goes dark, that’s bound to tip off the Windmill, but as long as we get him out of the office in a timely manner, we should be on the road before they can give us any real trouble.”
“Yeah, as long as everything goes off without a hitch, we should actually be able to give the Windmill a solid false signal that will make it look as if Compton’s devices have only flickered in and out. That way, it will look like Compton is still safely on FBI premises until we’ve gotten a good lead on our escape,” I interject.
“Best-case scenario, we’re able to use Compton as a meat shield all the way to wherever they’re keeping Louise locked up,” Seb adds with no small amount of sarcasm.
“Worst-case scenario, we end up dropped into the lion’s den with no way out—and we get ripped to shreds as soon as we clear the threshold,” Quentin chimes the dire pronouncement cheerfully for effect.
Dennis’ eyes cast anxiously around the room.
“You’re all totally out of your minds,” he whispers incredulously under his breath.
“So says the guy who’s going to have the head of Behavioral Sciences at gunpoint for most of this exercise.” Seb crosses his arms, laughing dryly.
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Dennis drags a hand over his mouth. “Louise may have had no problem breaking the rules all the time, but for me this is like pulling teeth.”
“You can really see why she called you ‘Apple Polisher’ McBride,” Seb sniffs haughtily.
Dennis, who had already been winding up to make another statement, fell silent, a bewildered expression opening his features slightly too wide, as if he had the wind knocked out of him.
I give Sébastien a warning glare. I know he doesn’t like Dennismuch on principle, but he’s one of our fated mates—and using the private insult Louise had reserved for him seemed unusually cruel.
“Did she really call me that?” he asks softly, his lips curving into a tremulous smile.
Suddenly chastened, Seb blushed deeply, his eyes cast down as he clarifies.
“It was said playfully—‘Dennis Apple-Polisher McBride’ like it was your full title.” He shrugs, lifting his maroon eyes to meet Dennis’ blue-green ones.
Dennis nods solemnly, blinking away tears as stoically as he can.
I watch Seb squirm, immediately regretful of his petty jab.
“I only teased you because it was clearly a sign of affection,” Seb snorts, crossing his massive arms over his broad chest. “I may or may not have been slightly jealous.” He shrugs dismissively.
Dennis’ lips quirk upward in a genuine smile as he sniffles back more tears.
“She’s called me worse to my face, mind you.” He shakes his head, and all of us laugh.
A momentary silence falls over the room before Quentin pierces the quiet with his soft words.
“Look at all of us, positively unraveling without our little Lucifer to keep us sinners knit together.” He wrings his hands, and I am once again forced to imagine the possible future where Quentin falls prey to heat sickness because our lopsided pack can’t meet his needs.
“Somehow it’s worse than the last time—when Compton tried to tell us Louise had died.” He pauses meaningfully, his eyes traveling around the room—meeting the gaze of the remaining Saints one by one before he speaks again. “When they said you’d all killed her…”
I struggle to swallow as Dennis’ stare pins me with a lingering accusation.
“I can’t explain it, but even though I had every reason to hate you three—I can’t seem to find it in my heart to condemn you—even if I hate some of the things you’ve done…” Dennis trails off, and I’m not sure whether he’s talking about us kidnapping Louise and keeping her captive, or about all of us fucking her.
