Page 98 of A Thousand Cuts

“It could all still be a myth.” Fix was grasping at straws, but his gut told him this was real and he had years of trusting his gut under his belt to just ignore it now.

“I mean…sure, I guess.” Black squirmed in his seat.

“You don’t think so,” Fix stated.

Black shook his head.

Fix took a shaky breath and clenched his fist on the table before standing up abruptly. The chair upended with a clatter. “I need to stop the curses. If he doesn’t get another curse then he won’t be at risk and we can figure something out.”

Black followed him out of his seat, eyes wide. “But how?”

“By any means necessary. I’m going to catch this fucker,” Fix growled, prowling out of the room.

“I approve of plan A,” Black said, hot on his heels, hopping so his voice could reach Fix’s ears. “But maybe we need to brainstorm said catching? I can call Cyrus? I can call everyone? Wren can bring vicious predators for backup? We can rig a contraption? Morgan can play porn as a distraction and then we can nab him?”

Fix stopped dead in the hallway and Black let out anoofas he ran into the small of his back.

“I need to call Morgan,” Fix mumbled, whipping his phone out.

“Porn plan for the win!”

Fix held it up to his ear as he listened to it ring.

“This better be important,” Morgan answered. “I have a guy about to bust on my screen and soft mood lighting to apply.”

“You still okay with looking into Liam’s channel?” Fix asked without reacting to Morgan’s usual crassness.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Morgan didn’t miss a beat.

“I’ll text you his username as soon as I have it.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Fix hung up and braced himself on the wall.

He’d have to ask Liam for his username. Given their previous conversation, he’d have to explain to him why he needed it too. Fuck, he didn’t want to scare him even more but…

“I’ll have to tell him, won’t I?” he said, mostly to himself, but Black was standing next to him, huge round eyes boring into him without blinking.

“Do you not want to?” Black asked.

Fix shook his head. “Not really, no. He’s scared and exhausted from years of this bullshit hanging over his head. I just want him happy.”

“Well, put it this way,” Black said. “He’ll be happy once Stalker McStalkerson is dealt with.”

“And until then he’ll be terrified?”

“Probably.” Black tilted his head. “But he thinks you’re the shit and keeping things from him will ruin that. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I wasn’t planning on keeping it from him.” Fix ran a hand over his face. “I have his permission to protect him from things he doesn’t need to worry about. Sadly, this isn’t one of those things. He has the right to know. But fuck, I wish I could just take all the bad away from him.”

“Yeah, well…sometimes you just gotta face the ugly, y’know?”

“When did you get so wise?” Fix asked, trying to delay the inevitable.

Black scoffed. “I’m literally the smartest. Now shoo. You’re sucking out the creative juices.”

Fix nodded and walked back up the stairs slowly, legs heavy, trailing a hand over the banister and letting the cool wood soothe him. He was stalling, he knew. Trying to buy himself time. Trying not to let the fear and panic overflow.