“EVERYTHING IS GOING to be okay.”
Connor’s voice soothes me as I raise my hand to knock on Jes’s door in the basement. Having my best friend here is comforting as hell.
“It’s been fucking awful without you, man,” I grumble.
His lips press into a firm line. “I know. I’m so sorry, Omega.”
I wave it off and pound on the door.
“It’s open,” a pleasant voice chirps out.
With Connor on my heels, I push through the door and I’m immediately weirded out. Bosefus wasn’t lying. Jes is a total hippie.
Incense permeate the room, and I instantly associate the smell with Love. This is her scent. Why in the hell does she smell like another man’s apartment? My guard is up as I search for Jes.
Tons of concert posters line the walls and ceilings. The bed that juts out along one wall is covered with a blanket that says I love hemp. And thigh-high stacks of CDs line the walls on the carpet.
I look at Connor, thankful to see the same surprised expression on his face.
“Jes?” I bark out.
“Over here.”
I storm over to the other side of the bed to see a man lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He brings his questionable homemade cigarette to his lips and takes a hit.
“Want some, man?” he offers before he blows a puff of smoke into the air.
“No,” Connor and I answer in unison.
Jes winks at us as he deposits the joint into an ashtray and sits up. “I’ve been waiting for you both.”
I glare at him. This fucker acts like he’s the damn Oracle from The Matrix.
He stands and points to a sofa. “Please, sit. May I offer you something to drink?”
Both Connor and I nod as we take our seats on the couch. I study Jes as he saunters over to his mini fridge. The man is well over six feet tall but despite his frame being lanky, it’s a strong one. His long, brown hair hangs just past his shoulders in an unkempt fashion. I smirk once I notice he’s wearing a Black Sabbath reunion concert T-shirt from ’95.
He retrieves three water bottles from the fridge and tosses one to each of us, keeping one for himself. I catch it easily, but I raise a confused brow at him when I see the dark, crimson liquid instead of water inside.
“What the fuck is this?” I demand.
He grins at me, and my lips fight against my desire to be angry. The bastard wins, and I smile back at him.
“Wine.”
“You have wine in your water bottles,” Connor says quietly. “That’s really fucking weird.”
Jes and I both chuckle.
I like this guy.
Why the hell do I like this hippie?
For all I know, he’s fucking my woman on the side. His room is saturated by the smell I’ve always associated with her. The thought sickens me and I squash it, choosing to focus on this mysterious man that might could help me.
“I make my own wine. It’s a hobby of mine,” he explains.
Connor and I meet each other’s gazes. His eyes widen and he shrugs his shoulders. If Connor is cool with this dude, so am I.
“Bosefus sent me. Said I needed to see you,” I blurt out. Might as well get right to it.
Jes narrows his eyes at me and sits on the edge of the bed. “Leviathans don’t typically come to see me. Well, aside from Love. Love is lovely.”
Connor must sense my impending storm and pats my knee. “Jes, Omega is seriously territorial when it comes to that woman. I can tell you’re a good, friendly guy. So, if you cherish your life, I would not poke this bear,” he warns Jes.
Jes bursts out into laughter, and the rage that was just surging through me dissipates. I can’t even stay fucking mad at this guy.
“I don’t want her,” he laughs. “She borrows my CDs all the time. We’re both hardcore Nirvana fans. I get her bootlegged stuff only I own.”
A relieved breath rushes from me. “I knew she had a thing for Kurt Cobain, but he’s dead, so he’s of no threat to me.”
Jes smirks at me. “Is anyone ever really dead?”
I think of the damned souls next door—the ones that screamed in agony. They may be dead, but they are certainly still existing. A shudder rakes its way through me.
“I guess not. So, why are we here?” I question and pinch the top of my nose. I’m tired and fucking stressed. I would rather be at home with Love on my cock than here in this weirdo’s basement.
“Clarence tells me you are well, Connor,” Jes pronounces to my best friend, ignoring my question.
Connor smiles. “I’m really well, actually. We have a baby on the way.”
Jes’s face spreads into a wide grin. “A baby made in love,” he sighs wistfully. “I was pretty proud of that one.”
Connor’s gaze finds mine and he stiffens. “I don’t follow.”
“Of course not. You aren’t meant to follow. Just know, I rewrote that program. I amaze myself sometimes. My father says I live to fix things—find solutions to problems. He doesn’t know that I’m really just keen on finding loopholes.”
Connor glances over at me again then shrugs. Neither one of us knows what the fuck Jes even means.
“So, you’re some sort of computer programmer? You have some insight into what the fuck is going on around here?” I demand, desperate for answers.
“Something like that. Do you want to stop me?” he queries, amusement outwardly dancing on his quirked up lips but a subtle ferocity lying below the surface of his kind features.
I frown at him. “No, but I think you could help us. Pallas wants Love and me to do some recon for him. Luc is really attempting to fuck some shit up.”
“Aren’t you a Leviathan?”
Cringing, I nod. “I am.”
“So, why do you want to help HEA?”
Question of the fucking hour.
“I don’t know. Because I miss it here. Because the people here are good. Because Pallas was always the father I never had. Because I want to be with Love and Luc is threatening that. Because the screams of the damned will haunt me until the end of time. I was always really fucking badass at being good. Now, I really fucking suck at being bad.”
His eyes narrow as he regards me. “Yeah, you kind of suck. I’ve seen your files.”
I gape at him.
“Jes,” Connor huffs in exasperation, reminding him of my temper.
Jes grins at me. That fucking bastard. And stupidly, I smile back.
“You’re fucking unbelievable,” I gripe. “Why can’t I hate you like I feel inclined to?”
He chuckles. “You couldn’t hate anyone if you tried.”
I roll my eyes. “I hate Luc.”
“Omega, hate is a waste of time. Focus on Love. Love is all you need,” he says, the last part coming out in a singsong voice, eerily sounding like John Lennon.
“If only that were truly the way. I’d take her and haul ass so far from here,” I grumble to myself.
His eyes gleam, and he winks. “Nurture the love in your heart. Protect the Love of your life. And help me with a little task. A vacation might be deserved after that.”
I mull his cryptic words over. A vacation? “I don’t understand.”
He beams again. “Connor, can you hand me that MacBook under the sofa?”
Connor pulls a shiny, white computer out from beneath him, and it reminds me of Luc’s black one. Jes takes it from him and opens it. While he produces a Boba Fett Lego flash drive from his pocket and inserts it into the side, I ask him the question I’ve been dying to ask.
“Are you really some head honcho here?”
He taps away on the computer and then plucks the drive out. “Something like that,” he evades. “Now, this drive is encrypted with a virus. It cracks passwords. I need you to take it to HEL and get me something.”
“Some dude named Zodiac mans the server room,” I start, but he waves me off.
“I have access to HEL’s server. Those goofs could never keep me out. Every time they write new programs to keep me away, I write new ones to let me back in. Sometimes, I crash their server for fun. Like when they make me angry.”
Connor and I exchange glances. It seems impossible for this guy to ever get pissed about anything.
“I can’t imagine you ever getting angry,” I chuckle.
He frowns at me. “When they took Love, I was angry. When they tried to tamper with Alpha”—he drags his gaze over to Connor—“I was angry. And when they got you, Omega, I was angry.”
“Oh.” I feel like a fucking doofus.
“I’ve roamed all over their network. It’s clean. Luc harbors information elsewhere because he knows I’ll find it if it’s linked to their server.”
I stare at the flash drive in my palm. “You’re going to make me go down there, into his hellhole, and put this in his computer?”
He nods and smiles as if it’s the easiest damn thing in the world.
“I don’t know—”
“That’s right,” he interrupts. “Omega, you don’t know. Trust me. Do this and I can fix this. But you’ll need to go there straightaway. One of my contacts has e-mailed me. Luc isn’t in his office. The time is now.”
He’s not in his office because he’s with Love.
Hope blooms in my chest.
Thoughts of Love and me together forever rush through me.
No HEL.
No Devil.
No stupid fucking job working as Luc’s minion.
My plans to end the evil incarnate are thwarted the moment Jes reaches out and grips my bicep.
Motherfucker! Not again!
“Touch him again and I’ll kick your ass,” I snarl to Benji.
He snaps his head over to me and glares. “Why do you care about what I do to him? He was talking to my girl. Pinhead is a fucking loser and shouldn’t be in the same vicinity as my girlfriend, much less talking to her.”
Ever since I started freshman year in high school, I’ve felt very out of place. I hit puberty and have filled out. Most of the kids fear me even though I’ve done nothing to make them feel that way. I annihilate on the football field, but outside of that, I’m quiet and keep to myself.
I’ve observed most of the kids in this school, including Benji and Ronnie, the kid he calls Pinhead. Both are pretty good guys. Benji is the all-American football star, and he has tried to become chummy with me during practices and in the locker room. It’s not him, the reason I don’t want to be happy and have friends. It’s the fact that I always worry about her while I’m at school.
She’s weak these days. A couple of years ago, Dad hit her so hard upside the head that she hasn’t been the same ever since. Some days, she stares at the wall, and I have to rush to get the house clean as soon as I get home from school so he won’t beat her. We’ve been lucky so far, but I’m afraid, one of these days, she’ll zone out when I have to stay late for football practice. Thankfully, they both attend my games and I can keep an eye on her from the stands. Dad, our town’s only bank’s president, has an image to uphold in front of his friends. If it weren’t from his order, I wouldn’t be playing football in the first place.
“He was just being nice. Lori was asking for his help about a math problem. It was innocent, Benji, and you know it.”
Lori, her brunette hair pulled back in a ponytail, peers at me with teary, thankful eyes. I watched for ten minutes as she attempted to explain this to him. With each passing second, Benji and Lori remind me of my parents.
“What, you want her too?” he snaps.
I roll my eyes at him. “No, I do not want her. I’m just telling you to leave Ronnie alone.”
Everyone has taken to calling him Pinhead. But not me. He has a fucking name.
Lori smiles at me, and when I look at Ronnie, he gapes at me. I flash them both a crooked smile.
“You’re really going to defend that dork to me. We’re brothers on the football field. Where is your loyalty?” Benji demands. His fists are balled, and his body thrums with the need to pounce.
It won’t be wise if he does. I lift weights at night in my bedroom, because one of these days, I intend on using my fists on a certain man who lives with me. Teach him what it feels like to get the shit beat out of him. My body is twice as thick as Benji’s. I won’t lose to this quarterback.
“You can’t go your whole life bullying everyone who pisses you off. It may work in high school, but it doesn’t fucking work in the real world,” I tell him as I think of my dad. “After high school, this is the sort of shit you would get hauled off to jail for.”
I wish my dad would get hauled off for damn sure.
“What are you? The police?” He laughs back at me, but I see the wheels turning. He’s lost the inner fire to pick on Ronnie.
“Not now. But later? Possibly. It makes you a bigger man to defend the defenseless, not attack them. You want loyalty? Brotherhood? Be a fucking man and stop acting like a fifth-grade kid,” I growl.
The entire hallway is silenced at our standoff.
“I am a man,” Benji blurts back, his cheeks taking on a light-pink hue. Embarrassment shines in his eyes.
“What if someone messed with Bralon? He’s skinny for his age and picks his nose a lot,” I chuckle as I think about Benji’s thirteen-year-old brother.
“I would be pissed. He has learning disabilities. It isn’t his fault he’s the way he is,” he barks.
Like I said, Benji isn’t a bad guy. I’ve observed him for nearly a year.
“Exactly. Protect the innocent, Benji. Protect them from hate. Ronnie is someone’s little brother or someone’s child. He doesn’t deserve to get his ass kicked for helping another person in kindness.”
Nobody in the hallway breathes as Benji and I converse.
Benji observes me with astonished eyes. “Are you really going to be a cop?”
“Maybe. This town sure as hell needs a couple of badass cops. Have you seen the bullshit graffiti on Main Street?”
Benji’s nostrils flare. “Some fucker tagged my grandpa’s barber shop.”
I smile at him and pat him on the shoulder. “So do something about those people. Not these.”
He squares his shoulders as I let my hand fall away. With fierce determination, he storms over to Ronnie, who flinches.
When he slings his hand out, I at first think he’ll hit the kid but I exhale in relief upon realizing what is happening before me.
“Thanks for helping my girlfriend, Ronnie.”
Ronnie stares back but holds his hand out to accept the handshake. “If your brother ever needs any help with his schoolwork, I tutor after school.”
The bell rings for class and everyone parts ways, no doubt feeling much lighter and inspired.
“Oh, Leviathan, you need a vacation badly.” Jes smiles broadly at me as he removes his hand from my arm. “Whatever happened with the rest of the story anyway?”
I flick my gaze over to a bewildered Connor.
“Benji and Ronnie went on to be partners at our town’s police department while I chose to go off and join the Marines.” My smile is wistful. “They’re still there. Those two guys have zero tolerance for bullying and work heavily with the schools to prevent what they can.”
“What about Lori?” he questions, though I suspect he already knows the answer.
I smile. “She married Benji. And her sister married Ronnie.”
Jes chuckles. “Omega, you like fixing stuff too—the unfixable. I like you. I really like you.”
My chest swells with pride. I don’t know why I care if Jes likes me or not, but I do. I feel really fucking good about it.
“I like you too, man.”
We all stand, and Jes hugs me.
“Make me proud, Leviathan.”