Always?

Chapter 11

Alice grinned as she walked over, jumped over the back of the green couch skillfully and landed right beside Cai, who was eyeing her warily. “Who do you work for?” she asked as she grabbed the knife, which was attached to her leg and aimed it right at his heart. She smiled up at him while raising an eyebrow.

“What?” Cai choked out as he eyed the knife.

“Who do you work for?” Alice repeated, pressing the knife slightly deeper. She knew a surprisingly small amount of force was needed to stab someone in the heart in the middle of a fight, but while stationary, she would need much more than usual. Little Jack over there didn’t seem to know that, so she pressed a little deeper, eliciting a sharp gasp from the man.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he choked out.

“You’re someone’s Jack. Who’s?” Matt said, glaring, he leaned over the back of the armchair, which Helios had now begun occupying. “If you don’t give us the answers we want, Alice and Oliver will swap places. Alice has morals, Oliver doesn’t. And he’s something of a sadist.”

“I don’t know much,” he said quickly. “It hadn’t been long since I joined, and everyone was wary of me. Please, believe me.”

“Wary why?”

“The boss liked me.”

“Right?” Ani muttered, a little confused as she tilted her head.

“He liked me a little too much,” Cai replied; with how close she was, Ani had felt the man flinch before he tensed every muscle. He gasped sharply before forcing his muscles to relax. She stared at the knife she was holding and how much she had stabbed him with. Ooh, the muscle tensing would hurt.

Oh. “Tell us what you do know,” Alice said, pressing the knife deeper. “We want it all. They’re all dead, and we might be next.”

“Please,” he whispered, staring at her, and then he switched to stare at Amber. “Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t want any of this. Please.”

“He sure is a s**t jack,” Oliver muttered in French. “Aren’t they all jack of all trades? Why is he so scared of being hurt? Remind me never to tell him anything. We’ve barely done anything, and he’s already cracking. If someone got his hands on him and he knew everything about us, we’d be so screwed.”

“He’s not a masochist,” Matt deadpanned also in French. Alice snorted, but she said nothing. “Of course, he’s scared. Leave him alone. Alice has a knife close to his heart, I’d be scared too.”

“I worked for a small group,” Cai replied, sweat beading down his skin; Alice wasn’t sure if it was the pain from the wound, which had yet to heal or his fear. “The boss picked me up one day. I was homeless, and I picked his pocket. He caught me.”

“You picked a leader’s pocket?” Max asked, confused.

“I was homeless and starving, and he looked loaded. He took me in a year ago and gave me a place to sleep and food to eat, all with the one rule that when he died, I would take over.”

“What? You couldn’t wait for him to retire?” Atlas muttered. Alice flicked her gaze over to Oliver, and he seemed to be staring at Atlas, an emotion in his eye she didn’t quite know how to pinpoint.

Cai swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up at him. “You don’t retire, you die. He made that clear when I first agreed to take over.”

“Right, right, of course,” Alice said. “Death not retire, sure. What else?”

“That’s all I knew. He wouldn’t tell me things because he wasn’t sure if I was loyal. He knew I didn’t like pain.”

“He wanted you to take over, but you didn’t know anything?” Matt asked, frowning.

“He was paranoid, always sure someone was out to get him. So, I knew nothing. None of us knew anything. And when he favoured me over members who had been with him for much longer, well, they didn’t like that.”

“Well,” Amber said, checking her nails. “The paranoia didn’t do him well. He still died.”

“How do you know?” Cai choked out.

“I saw how you looked blankly at all the corpses, but when your eyes landed on who I’m sure was the leader, something similar to a smile crossed your face, so I assume you didn’t like him very much. And somewhere deep down inside of you, I’m sure you’re glad he’s dead.”

Cai hung his head, and after almost a minute of silence, he nodded ever so slightly. “Does that make me a bad person?” he whispered.

Oliver snorted. “We’re not the best people to ask.”

Max threw a pillow at him as he glared. Oliver dodged the pillow but shrugged. Max frowned a little, but he walked over to Cai, standing behind the couch. He placed his hand on his shoulder, gently and gave him a light squeeze. “No, Cai, you’re not a bad person for being grateful that a bad man died.”

“Right, so what do we do now?” Alec deadpanned.

The group spent about fifteen minutes getting their s**t together, gathering their thoughts and arguing in multiple languages, playing a round of rock, paper and scissors before Alec finally nodded, clapping his hands together. “We have a plan.”

“Great, when can I leave?” Cai asked.

He smiled. “You don’t.”

They couldn’t let whoever had been tailing them know they were onto them, so that things would go on as usual. “Atlas is going back to work, which we know he wants to; Oliver will, in fact, be going with him as his manager and bodyguard.”

“I thought he didn’t want to,” Cai whispered.

“He lost in rock, paper, scissors.”

“That’s why you played that?”

“Yes. Anyway, Matt will be staying here. Helios and Max, you two keep doing what you’re doing, thrive and vibe. We will keep you safe and figure out who wants our asses.”

“And what about me?” Cai asked nervously as his eyes wandered around everyone in the room.

Oliver grinned. “You’re going to be coming on runs with us. I’ll see if Damian has anything for us.”

~*~