Page 81 of Take You Home

“I just can’t win with you, can I?” Obie tries to imbue the words with his usual blend of snark and scoffing, but when his eyes catch on Maggie still attempting to referee between Trevor and the throng of retirees, his casual tone falters.

Obie would take Maggie by his side in a fight any day of the week‍—hell, he’d even choose her over Cass sometimes‍—but can she really deceive the Chain’s Central Office and come out unscathed?

Chester notices Obie’s hesitation. His eyebrows pull together. “You okay, baby?”

The endearment rolls off his tongue so easily. Obie forces a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. But we should, uh, probably get back to‍?—‍”

“Hey.” Chester wraps his hand loosely around Obie’s wrist, letting his voice wind through Obie’s head.You know that I’m messing with you, right? I actually think it’s really cool that you and George got married in Vegas.

The usual pang in Obie’s chest feels deeper than usual. Of course it doesn’t bother Chester that Obie and George got married at a pancakehouse in Las Vegas. Of course he just thinks it’s cool, and of course he’s going to take every opportunity to tease Obie about it.

It’s not like they’re actually dating, after all.I know,Obie pushes back through the bond.It’s something else. I’ll tell you later. I promise.

Chester searches Obie’s face before nodding once, releasing Obie’s wrist, and holding up his carton of food. “Mozzarella stick?”

Gratefully, Obie takes one. “Thanks, puppy,” he says, and impulsively, he wraps an arm around Chester’s waist. “Come on. We need to go rescue Trevor from the octogenarians. Maggie doesn’t have the mediation skills to save him, and Sasha‍—well, I think Sasha might just welcome the opportunity to be an only child.”

“Sounds like her,” Chester agrees, and he tucks himself against Obie’s side as they walk back towards their lane.

Giving Obie everything he wants and nothing at all at the exact same time.

27

Huh,” Obie says, his eyebrows steadily climbing higher as he flips through the stack of files on his desk. Chester’s desk, technically, but nowadays, Chester can’t think of it as anything but Obie’s. “Sawyer and Naomi really did get around.”

Chester squints at him. “What?”

“They mentored a lot of hunters back in the day,” Obie says, leafing through one of the folders. “Turns out they reallydidknow most of the Redwater Sanctum. I thought they were just posturing last month.”

Chester snorts out a laugh, lounging more comfortably across his bed. “Well, they weredefinitelyposturing, but they also weren’t lying. Sawyer knew basically all the purebreds‍—I’m convinced that ninety percent of being a purebred is just schmoozing with other purebreds‍—and Naomi had most of the mixed breeds covered. Together, they really did know pretty much everyone.”

“Huh.” Idly, Obie moves on to his next file. “Doesn’t make them any less pretentious, though.”

Chester grins. “Oh, not in the slightest.”

Obie smiles back. Right now, the two of them are holed up in Chester’s room, working their way through the documents that Chester has been steadily sneaking out of the library over the past few weeks.

Specifically, working through documents from twelve and six years ago‍—the year of the Jackson–Locke murders, and the year of Strike Team Kappa’s final exam.

Obie wanted to just dump all these records on the Conspiracy Fam and move on to their next haul, but Chester dug in his heels this time. The two ex-hunters and their resident demons are suspicious enough of Obie’s mysterious source without Obie dropping obvious Sanctum library folders into their laps. Now, he’ll be able to give them a smaller handful of relevant files, not an enormous stack.

Plus, it’ll be easier for Chester to slip their reject pile back into the library, deflecting attention away from himself for as long as possible. Much as he wants to leave this place behind him forever, he wants to find the evidence to burn it to the ground even more.

Burn it to the ground, and convince Bryant to leave its smoldering ashes behind them.

“Found Sawyer’s and Naomi’s accounts of Kappa’s final exam,” Obie says, tossing the folder onto their “accept” pile. “I doubt there’ll be anything new in there, but it never hurts to check.”

“Maybe,” Chester agrees, skimming through yet another strike team report from twelve years ago. There isn’t nearly as much activity as he expected from around the time of the Jackson–Locke murders, and he’s starting to get the sinking feeling that he might be approaching a dead end.

Those dead ends have become frustratingly common lately. Chester supposes that they had to exhaust their list of leads at some point, but he didn’t think it would happen this quickly.

Even Obie has been striking out. He finally managed to sneak into the prison’s purebred-only wing during the overnight shift two days ago, and while Chester barely slept that night from anticipation, a baffled Obie rifted back into his room the next morning with the revelation that he’d found absolutely nothing.

As in, every single cell in the wing was empty, and most of the purebred interrogators were just doing paperwork.

The news was disheartening and confusing in equal measures. If there are so many cells available in the purebred-only wing, then why are they allowing overcrowding in the main prison? What happened to all the demons and dissidents that Chester has personally seen wheeled through those doors? What do the purebred interrogators know that everyone else doesn’t? Why‍?—‍?

“Huh,” Obie says again, and this time, he sounds honestly surprised.