Page 52 of All Saints Day
“Well then, make it make sense, Francis,” Tin-tin hisses, but at the sound of the name ‘Francis’, Frank’s eyelids begin to droop.
“I can’t.” Frank appears to struggle against his heavy lids, his voice thready.
“Can’t or won’t?” Quentin brings his face in close to Frank’s.
“Can’t,” Frank groans desperately as he endures the full spectrum of Louise and Quentin’s scents together.
“If you don’t give us what we want, what we need the easy way, we’re going to have to do it the hard way,” Quentin threatens, his other spidery white hand crawling up over Frank’s clavicles to rest palm-down on Frank’s Adam’s apple, Tin-tin keeping Frank’s head raked back with that fistful of hair.
This draws a cruel smile across Frank’s face.
“Go ahead and pull out all the stops on the torture Q, Louise isn’t the only one who can take a beating,” he laughs weakly. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounds relieved to be tortured—possibly to death—for information.
“Oh, honey,” Louise tuts in a baby voice, pouting her lips. “We’re not going to hurt you—not like that anyway,” she drawls, reaching over to run her finger down the line of Frank’s nose, giving the tip a playful boop at the end.
Caz and Dennis have been so quiet this entire time that I nearly forgot that they were in the room with us until the pair of them let loose a few dry chuckles.
In truth, I myself had begun to feel like a fly on the wall—all but out of body as I absorbed the scene before me. Now, I feel my lips curl into a smile as Loulu and Q press in close to Frank—the grin dying on his lips as he grasps for understanding.
“Don’t look so confused.” Quentin tightens his grip on Frank’s hair, making Frank wince. “In all the time that Louise was held captive at the Windmill, you never once used the suppressant melters on her.”
Frank’s eyes widen, all the muscles along his jaw ticking madly.
“It wasn’t because you didn’t think they’d be effective—it’s because you knew that Louise could withstand any kind of horrible torture you put her through, but she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of her fated mate once she was in heat or close to it.”
Frank starts struggling in earnest now, his breaths coming fast and ragged as he struggles against his bonds—against Quentin’s hold.
“You hid that little detail from Rook too—so that he couldn’t give you away to Lowry.”
“Q, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Frank blurts out, but Louise cuts in before he can finish making his plea.
“If you can’t tell us here and now, then we’ll just have to see how long you can hang tough through rut denial from two of your fated mates while they’re in heat,” she levels the blow.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Frank stammers, his eyes darting sideways to find me at my place—on the edge of my seat on the frayed edge of the interrogation lamp’s beam. “Seb, tell them! They can’t let him have her.”
I just cross my arms over my chest and kick back, my face veiled from Frank in shadow, denying him a lifeline as his panic begins to swallow him up.
Just as I recede into the dark, Dennis steps into the light.
“Sounds like we have our answer, why don’t you two head to get some rest with Seb and Caz.” He taps both Louise and Quentin on the shoulder—the pair seeming to wake from their trance—letting Frank loose before starting their retreat. “We have a lot of preparations to make before the information extraction—you’ve done plenty here tonight. I’m just going to have a few words with Frank and I’ll be right over, okay?”
Caz and I exchange nods with Dennis and one another—herding the exhausted and adrenaline-sick Louise and Quentin out into the cool night air.
Chapter 18
Frank
That loud ringing sound, a flash of light.
Have I lost time again?
For a moment, the past is present. It’s the day after Christmas, my thirty-second birthday.
Well, not actually my thirty-second birthday—Francis Castle was born on the twenty-sixth of October, but Frank Stone was born a day after Christmas. Partly because it was better for his undercover work to have his ‘friends’ and coworkers be largely unavailable to get closer to him with birthday gifts or celebrations—everything blending into the celebration of the winter holidays and new year’s—allowing Frank Stone to stay background noise in his own life.
In my life.
But fated mates are a funny thing. No matter how much you might stray from your course, or try to deny the truth—you’ll just keep getting pulled back into your place written into the stars, again and again.
