Page 9 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

“You don’t want me to know where any of your safe houses are,” I stated.

That earned me a sharp look before he went back to his systematic search of the lockers. “Safe houses only stay safe if people don’t know about them.”

“You can trust me.” Silence met my statement, leading me to defend myself. “You can. I’m a good guy. I don’t go around sharing other people’s secrets.”

Tobias’ lips twisted into a sneer. “Good for you. I hope that works out. I, however, favor staying alive over being virtuous.”

“There’s nobody you trust?”

“You ask too many questions.”

Which meant I should mind my own business.

Tobias didn’t speak again until he pulled something heavy out of a locker.

“Here.” It was all the warning I got before he tossed it at me.

I caught it one-handed, figuring enough time had passed that I could lower the crossbow and investigate it properly. “What is it?”

“It’s what the firefighters used to wear. Part of their uniform. Made of special fabric to give it protective properties. Fireproof. Chemical-proof. Waterproof.”

“Waterproof.” That got my attention. “Rainproof?”

Tobias nodded. “See if it fits.” He pointed to the tall locker he’d just opened. “If not, there are others in here.”

The one he’d thrown at me was too tight around the shoulders.

The next one fit better. It was a shame the bulky jacket didn’t include a hood.

It smelled distinctly musty, but I’d long since given up on turning down decent clothing because of the way it smelled.

The only clothes I owned were the ones on my back, and several new holes had appeared in them recently. So, a jacket with no holes was a gift.

Once Tobias had completed his search, we moved on.

The next room was a small kitchen, Tobias searching through every cupboard and drawer until he had a pile of stuff next to him he deemed useful, mostly comprising metal cutlery.

I assumed there was a market for it, either for its original purpose or melted down.

Watching him scavenge for stuff made me realize that since being kicked out of the army, I hadn’t been that smart.

In the army, taking stuff had been against the rules in case we fought over it.

I needed to get it into my head that I was no longer bound by their expectations.

Maybe then I’d have a chance at being something other than destitute.

We moved on again. A block of toilets. Nothing useful, so we didn’t dally in there.

A flight of stairs led up, both Tobias and I exhibiting more caution as we traversed them.

Not that biters couldn’t do stairs. They could.

But they no longer had the same control someone not infected did, so avoidant behavior could have some lurking at the top.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the upstairs also proved clear. The furniture in the first room we came to mostly comprised plastic chairs gathered around a focal point of a huge whiteboard.

“Still works,” Tobias said, with the first hint of pleasure I’d seen from him.

I turned to find him with a pen in his hand.

He demonstrated its use by drawing a line on the whiteboard.

Then he drew a large cock and balls with a smile on his face.

“For the next people who come here.” He added some curly pubes as a finishing touch and then signed it with my name.

“Dick!” I said.

He waggled his eyebrows. “It is.” He put the lid of the pen back on and placed it back on the stand at the front of the whiteboard.

“You’re not taking it,” I asked.

Tobias shook his head. “Nope! Someone else can have the same pleasure I did by discovering they made pens good enough not to dry out in seventy-six years.”

The next room housed the best discovery: a bunk containing four single beds.

There were no windows, which left the door as the only access point.

Apart from being inside a community, that was about as safe as it got.

The sheets and blankets weren’t in great condition, moths having had a field day, but once we stripped them, there was nothing wrong with the mattresses.

We lay on adjacent beds to test them out.

“That settles it then,” Tobias said, his fingers linked behind his neck in a relaxed pose. “We’re staying here tonight.”

He wouldn’t get any argument from me. Not when the alternative would involve sleeping in shifts to make sure we weren’t attacked in the night. “And then in the morning, you take me to the suppressants,” I reiterated.

“First light,” Tobias said again. He turned his head in my direction. “Why have you got such a hard-on for them, anyway?”

“I have somewhere I need to go. Far enough that avoiding the rain is going to be difficult. I don’t want to turn before I get there.”

Tobias chewed on that fact for a few seconds. “You make it sound like you don’t care if you turn once you’ve reached that place.”

I shrugged. There was no point in denying it when that’s exactly how I felt. “So that’s why I need the suppressants,” I said. “I stumbled across you at exactly the right time.”

Tobias levered himself off the bed and headed for the door without a word.

He was a strange one. He’d brought the subject up.

Now that it hadn’t gone the way he wanted, he refused to continue.

To be fair, I’d known him less than twenty-four hours, so maybe that was a harsh judgment.

But when he didn’t come back, curiosity got the better of me, and I went to look for him.

He’d found another door and gone through it.

I went back for my crossbow before following, because only idiots entered an unknown room with no weapons.

On my return, I barged the door open with my shoulder.

“Tobias?” No reaction, even though only a few meters separated us.

Perhaps people usually shortened his name? “Toby?” Still nothing.

A few more seconds passed before Tobias jerked his head up. “Sorry. My mind was elsewhere. Come here. I’ve got something to show you.”

Not lost in thought. Tobias wasn’t his name.

I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did, some sixth-sense screaming it loud and clear. Enough to bet everything I owned on it. Granted, that wasn’t much, but I’d still wager it.

So who exactly had I found myself in an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere with? Someone dangerous? But then who wasn’t dangerous these days? You were dangerous, a biter, or dead.

Curiosity had me wanting to call him out on it, to demand he tell me why he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. But something told me to keep my newfound knowledge to myself, and pretend I had noticed nothing amiss.

“Are you coming?”

I nodded. If Tobias—or whoever the fuck he was—had noticed my moment of quiet introspection, it didn’t show on his face.

Did a name matter that much? Maybe. Maybe not.

There had to be a reason for using a false one, though, and until I found out what it was, I’d treat him with a heavy dose of caution.

The room turned out to be the same room we’d started in, but at a higher level.

Tobias stood on a rectangular platform, closer inspection showing a circle cut out of the concrete, with a pole leading down from it to the ground level.

Our preoccupation with the door meant we hadn’t gotten as far as venturing into that corner.

“Fireman’s pole,” Tobias commented in a way that said the words were supposed to mean something to me.

He rolled his eyes at the blank look on my face.

“What do you do when you’re in bed and the alarm goes off to say there’s a fire you need to attend?

” I shook my head, most of my brainpower still focused on not giving away my suspicions about him.

He waved a hand at the vehicle below. “You need to get to your fire engine. Do you take the stairs?”

“Yes?”

“No! Too slow. You go down the pole. It’s an emergency. You’ve got lives to save.”

“Right.” I eyed the pole speculatively. “How?”

“Not sure,” Tobias said. “But I’m sure as hell going to try it.

” He sat, dangling his legs over the side of the hole.

From there, he wrapped his arms and legs around the pole.

There was a moment when he remained suspended in the air, and then he loosened his grip, gaining momentum as he slid down the pole until his feet hit the ground.

He tilted his head back and grinned up at me.

“Your turn.” I hefted the crossbow to provide a silent reason I couldn’t do that.

“Leave it up there. We know the building’s empty. ”

I didn’t leave it up there, unable to shake the suspicion that this could be a ruse to separate me from it.

I hooked it over my back instead and let it dangle.

Tobias had made getting on the pole look easy; I made far more of a meal out of it.

I might have been stronger, but I was also considerably more bulky.

I didn’t control my eventual slide down the pole as well as Tobias had either.

I had to admit, though, that just like the bike, there was a certain exhilaration to it.

When Tobias met my gaze with a slight smile, I knew exactly what he was thinking: the two of us racing to the stairs for another round. He won, of course—closer to the door and more devious—his shoulder barge at the doorway as underhand as it was effective.

It took three more goes before we’d satisfied the itch. Afterward, I paced the floor while Tobias leaned against the pole, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on his thigh. “Ever heard of pole dancing?” he asked.

“No,” I answered honestly. Tobias’ expression said he found that amusing. “What is it?”

“Dancing, but using a pole as a prop.”

I frowned. “That makes no sense.”

“People used to like it. They used to pay a lot of money to see it.”

“I’m sure people used to like a lot of pointless things when they didn’t have to worry about getting eaten.”

“Want to see some?”

“No. We should be…” I scanned the room for inspiration. “Looking for wood to build a fire, or finding something to eat.”

“I have food.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Wood, then.”

“You didn’t notice the old bookcase, did you?”

I shook my head. “Where?”

“In the locker room. Axe plus bookcase equals firewood.”

There was no arguing with that. “Right. Seems like you’ve got everything covered.” Tobias’ fingers dropped to the buttons on his shirt. He eased one through the buttonhole before starting on the next. “What are you doing?”

He glanced up at me through his fringe. “Pole dancing requires a certain look. I want to get it right.”

“This is not…” I stopped, the shirt already off to reveal Tobias’ lean musculature.

I didn’t know where to look, my gaze flitting between him and a patch on the brickwork behind his head.

I’d gotten a pretty good impression of how nicely put together he was the previous night when he’d worn a white shirt in the rain, the sodden and extremely transparent material not leaving a lot to the imagination.

But that was different. Everyone had been looking. Even those who’d deny it to their dying breath. And there’d been lots of people. And distance. And probably a hundred other things I could come up with if I could just force some blood from a certain extremity back into my brain.

I fastened my gaze on something that wasn’t bare skin as Tobias’ shirt hit the ground. “Nice chain.”

He lifted his hand, his fingers wrapping around the pendant. “It’s a horseshoe. They’re supposed to bring luck. My… Someone gave it to me.”

The correction didn’t go unnoticed. “And has it? Brought you luck?”

Tobias laughed. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“You are.” Alive. Hot. Too close. About to do God knows what. There was something I could do about at least one of those. I backed off until I leaned against the fire engine, the metal reassuringly solid. “Go on then. Get on with whatever it is you’re determined to show me.”

Tobias leaned back, reaching above his head to grasp the pole. “Ideally, this would involve my being oiled up.” Jesus! Just the thought of it had me almost swallowing my tongue.

The next few minutes were like nothing I’d ever experienced before as Tobias moved in sinuous ways, which basically equated to him having sex with the pole.

I’d think he was done, and then he’d find some new way to torment me.

Because that’s what it was. Pure torment.

Like someone showing you all the best bits of something you couldn’t have.

At times, his feet left the ground, Tobias managing a couple of moves that spun him right around the pole. One even had him dangling upside down, the muscles in his arms bulging. And all the while, my cock throbbed insistently, the hard line no doubt clearly visible.

He finished with a bow. “So… something like that,” he said. “Only with music and fewer clothes.”

“It was…”

He tilted his head, clearly with no intention of letting me off the hook. When I stayed silent, his gaze dropped to where my cock pushed against my jeans. He wanted me to know he’d noticed, a smile hovering on his lips. “It was what?”

“Different. It was different. Not at all useful, but different.” I pushed myself away from the fire engine. “Can I borrow your axe? I’ll go see to that bookshelf.”

“Knock yourself out.”

I could feel Tobias’ gaze on me as I headed to the door, but refused to give him the satisfaction of turning around.