Deathtrap (Crossbreed #3)(86)

“Shhh. Don’t cry, baby.” She bounced him a little in her arms and handled him with inexperience. He cried even harder. “I’m not doing anything.”

Blue reached over. “I’ll take him.”

Gem looked flustered as she passed the baby off and then quickly stood up. She was the only one who could stand all the way up without having to stoop because of the ceiling.

Niko looked up, his tone compassionate. “Gem, you did nothing wrong. Babies cry. He no doubt misses his mother.”

She pressed her palm against the side of her head and made a plaintive sound. “He doesn’t like me. Why doesn’t he like me?”

The baby calmed as Blue gently rocked him in her arms and hummed a lullaby. That sight seemed to have a negative effect on Gem, whose bottom lip quivered.

I patted the bench to my right. “Come sit down. I’m not good with kids either. I think it’s my resting bitch face.”

A smile touched her lips, and she reluctantly took a seat beside me. “Where are your shoes?”

I straightened my legs and stared at my bare feet. “Long story. They were old anyhow.”

Blue stood up and carefully made her way to the passenger seat. “I’m going to sit up here for the ride home. It’s not safe bouncing around in the back with a baby in my arms. Not the way you drive.”

Wyatt leaned over for a look. “He’s a pudgy little burrito.”

Gem couldn’t seem to keep herself away from the baby. She got up and squatted between them while Wyatt fiddled with the radio.

“You smell like the river,” Niko said absently. “That must have been a long fall.”

Neither Christian nor I had mentioned our bridge dive.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Sighted people tend to ignore their other senses.” Niko’s wispy long hair slipped in front of his face when he lowered his head. “My apologies for the way I spoke to you in your bedroom. I care for you, and I care for Keystone. But you must make your own choices, or you’ll never learn from your mistakes.”

“Not every choice is a mistake.”

“True. But every mistake is a choice.”

“Do you think Viktor made a mistake by leaving Shepherd alone with Cristo? We could have done it by the book and taken him in.”

“I don’t know. The fates placed that Mage in our path for a reason. Perhaps Shepherd will no longer have a dark shadow looming over his light.”

I lowered my voice. “We haven’t known each other very long, but I wouldn’t do anything to hurt or betray this organization. This is all I’ve got in this shitty world. But I’m still figuring stuff out, you know? I don’t have a millennium of experience. I’m just out here winging it as best I can and trying to make decisions that won’t haunt me for the rest of my life. Maybe we owed Shepherd the benefit of the doubt. We’re all here because we’re each a little fucked up in some way. But we have to trust each other until we give people a reason not to trust us.”

“I agree. We shouldn’t have left Shepherd behind.”

“I know it wasn’t your decision,” I said. “We can’t punish someone for what they might do. It’s like that movie where they can see into the future and catch criminals before the crime. And no, what I’m thinking about doing isn’t a crime. It’s personal.”

He placed his hand over mine. “Should you need me for anything, just say the word.”

“Now that you mention it, my feet are kind of cold. Mind if I borrow your shoes?”

Niko’s eyes curved like crescent moons when he gave a tight-lipped smile. “As you wish.” After unlacing his boots, he set them in front of me.

The residual heat felt toasty warm. “I never noticed you had such big feet.”

“You know what they say about big feet.”

My brows arched, and I sat back.

Niko nudged me. “Big shoes.”

I laughed. “I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

“Tell me something.”

“Sure.”

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I understand what it means when something sucks. But why is it when something blows, it means the same thing? The words are opposite.”

I smiled. Niko was well-spoken and had a good grasp of the English language. Maybe he didn’t watch enough television to understand slang. “I don’t know, Niko.”

“Sometimes wordplay like that confuses me.”

“What brought that up?”

He moved to the bench across from me. “I heard conversations in the tunnels.”

I tucked my stringy hair behind my ears. “I never knew places like that existed.”

He laced his fingers together. “How are you feeling?”

My stomach churned. “Cristo was an evil man. Let’s just leave it at that.” When I noticed a conflicted look in his expression, I decided to let him off the hook. “Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to take out his light. It’ll go away once I sleep it off. It was different the last time; I was injured and couldn’t handle the additional stress.”

What I didn’t tell him was how dark light slithered like insects, devouring me from the inside out. I could taste it, smell it, and feel the evil deeds as if their ghosts were all around me. The adrenaline from running and jumping off the bridge had numbed me for a little while, but the sickness was quickly taking hold. Pulling Cristo’s core light had been my decision, so I needed to suck it up.