Agent of Chaos (The X-Files: Origins #1)(22)

“Like I said, disturbing.” Phoebe poked around the room, searching for more proof that he wasn’t taking care of himself.

Mulder took the paperback out of his back pocket and dropped it on the nightstand.

Gimble looked through the rest of the murder books, as Phoebe called them. “So have you read all of these?”

“Uh … yeah.” She held up the copy of The Meaning of Murder. “He made me read most of them, too.”

“No one makes you do anything,” Mulder said.

“True.” Phoebe smiled just enough to make him remember what it felt like to feel her lips against his. She was like the sun—the bright spot in his universe, resisting the pull of the black hole that threatened to suck him in.

Why was she still hanging around with him? Guys tripped all over themselves to talk to her, even though most of them didn’t understand half the things she said. Maybe that was the reason Phoebe hadn’t found a boyfriend after he left. She didn’t have a lot of options at a tiny island high school full of jocks.

But she will next year.

Mulder rubbed his eyes and tried to bury the thought. It was the beginning of April. Phoebe would be leaving for MIT in the middle of August. Less than five months—that was all the time he had left with her. Then she would meet a good-looking college genius and forget all about him.

“Stormbringer?” Phoebe noticed the green paperback on his nightstand. She skimmed a few pages.

“It’s a fantasy novel the Major is obsessed with.” Gimble didn’t mention his mom.

“It sounds kind of weird.” She flipped it over and looked at the cover.

“Everything about the Major is weird,” Gimble admitted. “But it’s actually a really popular book, and the author, Michael Moorcock, is a genius. The series inspired the alignment system in D and D.”

“Is the guy on the front an elf?” she asked, referring to the male character with long white hair and alabaster skin, wielding a black sword.

Gimble gave her a strange look. “He’s not an elf. He’s an albino warrior from an alternate dimension.”

“Of course.” Phoebe tossed the paperback on the bed and took Mulder’s hand, dragging him into the hallway. “Let’s get you something to eat that doesn’t come from the cereal aisle at the grocery store, while you fill me in.”

Mulder nodded. He didn’t have the energy to argue. His mind was reeling, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the articles he’d found at the library this morning.

In the kitchen, Phoebe riffled through the cupboards while Mulder and Gimble sat at the table. She pulled out a loaf of white bread and jars of peanut butter and jelly. Then she placed slices of bread on the counter, assembly-line style.

“Start at the beginning, when you were jogging by the cemetery and you saw the body.” She pointed a knife with a glob of peanut butter on the end at Mulder. “And don’t leave out anything. You barely made any sense when you called last night.”

Mulder took a deep breath, and for the next twenty minutes he described every last detail of the scene—the way Billy Christian’s body was arranged on a bed of dead rose petals, with the black-and-white bird lying on his chest. The arrows sticking out of the bird’s body that made it look like a cross between a compass and a medieval torture device. The white pajamas with the elephants, and the stain that reminded him of a hippo.

“Then I called you,” he said finally.

Phoebe crossed her arms and her T-shirt rode up, exposing a wider sliver of skin. “That’s it? You didn’t do a single thing between last night and thirty minutes ago, when I showed up?”

Gimble coughed and looked away, as if he were the one being grilled, and Phoebe pounced on Mulder. “What are you leaving out?”

He shrugged. “I might have gone to the police station for a few minutes last night.”

She balled up a napkin and threw it at him. “I told you to wait until I got here.”

“I couldn’t.” Mulder pushed his chair away from the table and walked to the counter. He leaned over the sink and counted the water droplets in the aluminum basin. “I had to try.”

“And let me guess. They didn’t take you seriously?” she asked gently.

Gimble peeled the crust off what was left of his sandwich. “It was worse than that. They threw us out. Well, technically, they just kicked Mulder out.”

“Anything else?” she asked, sensing there was more to the story.

Mulder scrubbed his hands over his face. Gimble already knew he’d gone to Blue Hill. Mulder had filled him in when Gimble showed up at the apartment. Now he had to tell Phoebe. He couldn’t hide anything from her—except the way he really felt about her. And he probably wasn’t doing the best job at hiding that, either.

“I went by Billy Christian’s house today,” he admitted. “I wanted to tell his parents how sorry I was, but I couldn’t do it.”

Phoebe nodded. “That was a good call. His parents must be a wreck. To have someone find their child in a crypt, with a dead bird…” She hesitated. “It’s so awful.”

“I didn’t even see them, but an old lady across the street told me about the night Billy was kidnapped.” Mulder stalked around the kitchen. He couldn’t stand still. His body buzzed with nervous energy. “He was playing in the living room when it happened.…” He stopped moving and looked Phoebe in the eye. “The person who kidnapped him just walked in through the front door.”