Page 39 of Lovesick Titan (Lovesick #2)

Danny couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t—

He hit the ground and gasped in air as he fought to right himself. Blackness beneath him. Mirrors everywhere, everywhere as he turned in a desperate circle. No .

“You can’t have him!” Danny screamed as he spun in place, looking for his reflection but only seeing flickers of light from the mirrors nearest him.

Not even the ones close to him showed a version of himself, reflecting only each other like he was alone in a dark room with no sense of space and making him feel strangely isolated rather than surrounded.

“Where are you…?” he said, breathless as he backed up, trying to keep from having any mirrors behind him, but it was impossible with how they littered the landscape. “What do you want?!”

“You,” his own voice whispered from behind him, and when Danny whirled around, he faced himself in the closest mirror—his clothes, his face, but with a sneer in the expression.

“Then I’m going to ruin him. Just like we planned.

Remember , Danny? Our plan? To make him want us…

” he grew larger in the reflection as he walked forward, right up to the glass like he might—

Danny backpedaled.

“Make him love us. Make it so he can never, ever live without us.” The glass rippled as he stepped through it , stepped out of it into the mirror world to join Danny, only he didn’t shift into Ludgate as he appeared whole and solid for the first time.

It was just Danny standing there with a twisted grin.

“And then rip his heart out while it’s still beating. ”

“No…” Danny said, because it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real. It was Ludgate. It was supposed to be Ludgate . But all Danny saw, only inches in front of him, was his own face—with black eyes.

He couldn’t move, not even as his mirror-self stepped closer, right up to him, and reached out with his own hand.

I’m not like him, I’m not like him, I’m not—

“I told you, Danny, that one day I’d be all that’s left. Now you’re the one who gets to watch from the mirror world.” With the same impossible strength he’d used to bring Danny here, he pushed Danny’s chest, knocking him backward to strike the mirror behind him.

But he didn’t collide or fall through it back to the real world. He fell into it, and the image before him rippled with a solidifying seal. Danny was trapped, trapped beneath glass like a butterfly on display.

He screamed but no sound left him. He pounded the glass, but it didn’t shake or quiver. He couldn’t get out. He could barely move. All he could do was watch, while on the other side, his reflection laughed .

The other Danny straightened his collar, his jacket, his belt, with a cruel confidence before he grinned and turned back to the array of mirrors before him, all of which flickered to life, leading to the places and people Danny loved most.

R

Mal closed the hospital room door behind him and turned down the hallway to find Danny. He was surprised the kid wasn’t sitting on the bench twiddling his thumbs. He’d probably gone to get coffee or a bite to eat.

Moving slowly down the hallway, Mal peered toward the elevators first, then walked to the reception desk, expecting that at any moment Danny would appear from around a corner with vending machine spoils. Eventually, Mal returned to the bench to wait and discovered Danny’s messenger bag beneath it.

When Lucy came out of the room several minutes later, saying that the nurse was kicking them out for a while, Mal started to worry but relaxed when he checked his phone .

One new message from ‘Sparky’: Zeus business. Rain check?

Mal wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that once again their conversation had been put on hold, but the anxiousness in his gut told him that right now what he wanted more than anything else was to see Danny again. Besides, now he had something to return to him.

Peeking inside the messenger bag, he discovered his goggles, the set of comms he’d lost, and the shirt and sleep pants Danny had borrowed.

Name the place and time, Sparky. I’ll be there.

R

Mal fell asleep at the hospital. Carla and baby were fine, but they still needed to spend the night.

Michael’s grandmother had indeed taken him home, and Mal had elected to stay, even when Oz and Lucy headed out planning to return in the morning.

There was always the chance that Dunkirk or one of his goons might find Carla. Too risky to leave her alone.

So Mal sat in the chair in her room and allowed himself to doze, certain that he’d awaken immediately if anything was amiss. What did finally wake him was his phone buzzing in his pocket.

It was early, only six, but the text was from Danny, finally an answer to Mal’s message last night.

Meet me at Pronto at 8AM.

Nerves fluttered in Mal’s stomach, but he could no longer pretend he didn’t want Danny. He didn’t care about the stakes or the unknown disasters that might lie ahead. Danny was worth it. If the kid wanted to keep being a fool and think Mal was worth it too, then Mal wanted to let him.

“Is Momma awake?” the nurse’s voice called softly as she brought in a fussing baby Mai. “Baby’s hungry.”

Carla stirred like she’d only been dozing, and with a weary smile, she reached out as the nurse approached. Mal stood, rubbing his eyes to rouse himself fully .

“Your sister and Mr. Percy are back too. They just went for coffee,” the nurse said, smiling at Mal before she left.

Mal was impressed; Lucy was not usually a morning person. Oz must have gotten her out of bed, eager to return to Carla’s side. Mal had often wondered if maybe baby Mai wasn’t Dunkirk’s, but it wasn’t his place to ask.

He held back from the bed as Carla undid her gown to breastfeed. “I should—”

“You’re fine. Most natural thing in the world.” Carla flicked her eyes to him with a teasing smirk.

A smile came to Mal as he shook his head. Carla had this way about her, more than just reminding him of his mother, that instantly set him at ease. Stepping closer to look at Mai clinging to her momma, he wondered what color eyes she’d have when the fog of baby blue faded.

“Go home, Malcolm,” Carla said with a gentle fondness. “You’ve done enough. I’ll be fine with Oz and Lucy here. Your sister’s more intimidating than you anyway.”

“Oh, that I know.” He shared a look with his friend, brief but full of gratitude that Mal would never, ever believe he deserved. Then he turned for the door.

“And Malcolm?” Carla called. “Go get your boy. It’s what you both want, anyone could see that. You look at him like he’s as much of a miracle as…” She grinned as she glanced at her daughter and didn’t need to say anything more.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mal said with an obedient nod and left the room thinking that he might get to keep a miracle for himself for once.

R

After napping for an hour at home, Mal got ready, showered, and chose just the right outfit to blend in at Pronto.

With his hair tied into a loose bun, his cap and glasses were a must. He hadn’t bothered the morning he and Danny first started this adventure, but he was running out of risks he could take.

The risks he had left he’d save for Danny, so he left the messenger bag at his apartment.

If Danny wanted it back, he’d have to come and get it.

Mal headed to the coffee shop so he arrived exactly on time.

As soon as he stepped through the door, Danny waved him over to a table in front of the windows.

The sight of the kid smiling wide should have soothed Mal, but there was something different about him from the beaming affection he’d displayed last night.

It seemed fitting to be in Pronto, where everything had started, but unease stirred in Mal’s gut that he never felt without good reason. Danny’s smile wasn’t friendly.

“Hey,” he said when Mal took the seat across from him. Two coffees sat in front of Danny, and he passed one to Mal.

Mal didn’t take it. “Danny. Deal with any new catastrophes last night?”

Danny giggled with a menacing edge. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. I’m glad you came. We have a few things to sort out.”

“Do we now?” Scanning Danny’s face, his posture, Mal tried to read him. Something had happened, something had obviously changed, but what?

Leaning forward on his stool, resting his elbows on the table and toying with the lid of his coffee cup with antsy fingers, Danny appeared just as Mal was used to. Yet there was something amiss, something in the way he held himself, in the tilt to his head, that set Mal on edge.

“See, I have to get my priorities in order,” Danny said. “And while this has been fun and all, I’m back at work on Monday, so…well…” He stretched his grin. “Time to put these games behind us, don’t you think?”

“Games?” Tension ratcheted through Mal’s limbs.

Danny giggled again and bit his lip in a way that once would have made Mal hot beneath the collar.

Now he felt queasy. “For a while there I had this whole grand scheme for how I was gonna finally lift the veil and tell you, but honestly it’s getting a bit boring now, so this is better.

Wouldn’t have been any fun if I admitted you were right as soon as you caught me, would it? ”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on,” Danny leaned closer across the table, his voice falling hushed and condescending with a wicked smirk, “you didn’t really think I could ever love you, did you? ”

Bile choked in Mal’s throat.

“Oh…you did?” Danny laughed— laughed . “Wow. You really are delusional, but then I did make it pretty convincing. Had to draw things out, you know, really sell the performance to keep the upper hand. And my, oh my, how easily you fell for it.”

Mal was hallucinating. He had to be imagining this, after everything they’d been through to convince him this would never happen. It just wasn’t Danny . Was it? Mal had thought it was, believed the worst, but he’d been wrong, hadn’t he? He’d been wrong .

“The sex was good, Cho—”

Cho. Cho .

“—you know it was, but really now. I’m done wasting my time on trash.”

If you start out as trash, well…you’re just trash forever.

Mal’s throat went dry for something to say, when only days ago he might have snapped back, acted out, reached for his amplifier that he hadn’t bothered to bring along. But today the fight dripped out of him like blood from a wound he should have seen coming.

Danny grinned at him, pleased with himself and cold enough that for once Mal was the one left to shiver.

Then he saw them, from the reflection in the window at his left—two OCPD officers headed for the entrance into Pronto. The door was behind him, but he knew how to watch his surroundings, how to catch the glimmer of that particular shade of blue through a storefront window. Danny had set him up.

“It was fun though,” Danny said as he sat back and picked up his coffee to take a sip. “Maybe I’ll call you sometime. If my bed gets cold. But then what would I need you for?”

Mal didn’t answer. He couldn’t look at Danny. With precious moments to act, he did the only thing he could if he wanted to get out of there unscathed. He took his coffee cup and stood, walking at a practiced, unhurried pace for the bathrooms to better blend in with the crowd.

Women’s bathroom. Men’s bathroom. Emergency exit. The police would already be inside behind him, probably tipped off that he’d be there, looking for him, but not looking for a man in a ball cap and glasses. He could make it .

He tensed anyway, expecting at any moment to hear, “Police!” but Danny didn’t say a word. Instead, he heard the faint haunting trail of the kid’s laughter following him as he hurried faster and faster toward escape.

No alarm blared as he pushed through the door; it wasn’t that type of exit.

The cool air felt like a blow to his chest with how hot he felt, how dizzy, but he couldn’t pause for breath.

He kept moving. Kept walking. Stared forward as he tossed the full coffee cup at the ground and it splattered onto his shoes and jeans.

He didn’t need to wipe his face—he wasn’t crying . He wasn’t sad, he couldn’t be sad or as devastated as the distant din of Danny’s laughter threatened to make him feel.

He was numb.

And he needed to do something, anything, immediately , to make that feeling go away.

Pulling out his cell phone, the streets around him became a blur as he hurried away from any threat of the police or Danny Grant.

“Dom? Where are you?”