Page 49

As far as he was concerned, Natalie Quentin was his. He’d been the one who fought to keep her alive in that hospital, and now that he had her in hand, there was no way in hell he was going to let some stranger on the street enjoy her.

Which… sounded dangerously possessive and was in no way how Oz considered himself. But still seemed to be how he felt.

That was possibly his own innate evil once more rearing its head.

Or perhaps it was the fact that the woman was fucking amazing!

He frowned, unused to using profanity, even in his own mind.

As he pondered the bizarre situation, his eyes lazily settled on her rear again. And he instantly felt much calmer. There was something about Natalie that simply made him feel better, and always had. As it turned out, her wearing next to nothing simply made him feel better, faster.

It was like science. But with legs that went on for miles .

Which, again, was something he should feel bad about dwelling on, but didn’t. Being evil had its advantages.

“A lead on Mercygiver or a lead on the Agletarians?” She asked.

“I’m not sure yet.” He admitted. “Some of the other Consortium members are there now.”

“Ah.”She nodded.

Then they fell into awkward silence.

And when even Oz recognized that it was awkward, you knew it was awkward.

“I’m trying, Natalie.” He said softly. “I’m not a well man, and I do things sometimes that I wish I didn’t. But…”

“Hey, did you see the pics of the new Vasnetsov D-38?” She cut him off, blatantly changing the subject. She made a low whistle. “That rifle is dreamy. Like, ‘I want to find that behind my door in Mystery Date’ kind of dreamy.”

“No, I didn’t see it.” He cleared his throat. “What is it?”

She made a face. “I need more chick friends.” She snapped her fingers. “Holly.” She decided. “If Holly were here, she’d understand lusting after a sexy piece of deadly artillery like that. Because she’s normal. Or Poacher.”

“You want Poacher to be one of your ‘chick friends?’”

“He kinda already is, actually. Dude likes more girly shit than I do. And I carry a friggin’ Hello Kitty umbrella.”

They fell into silence again.

Oz’s attention was drawn to a young couple sitting inside a coffee shop.

They were draped all over each other, casually holding hands and giggling, obviously in love.

The woman brought their clasped hands to her lips and kissed the back of the man’s hand, smiling like he was her every dream brought to life.

And Oz instantly hated them.

They were intimate and casual in a way that Oz recognized he would never be with anyone. They weren’t concerned about their own mental health or whether or not they were evil or whether they’d be able to save the woman from a team of assassins.

All they cared about was each other and their love.

They were everything that Oz had never had and never would.

And he hated them for that.

“Did you know that there is a layer of our atmosphere which is entirely made up of viruses?” He asked Natalie, trying to sound casual.

“The virosphere. They are pulled up there by weather patterns, or formed in the atmosphere itself, and some might even be extraterrestrial in origin. An estimated 800 million of them fall to each square meter of the planet, each day, sometimes after traveling thousands of miles. It’s like a rainstorm of pestilence, which never ends.

” He held out his arms. “And it’s falling onto ground that is covered with tens of millions of bacteria, and countless other micro-organisms. A lot of which don’t even have names.

Scientists did a study and found that 48% of the genetic material collected in the subway system was unidentifiable.

” He met her eyes. “It’s so bizarre and crazy and plentiful, that they’ve never even seen it before.

” He tapped his chest. “But I have. I can feel it. I can tell you where each and every one of those tiny organisms came from and what they want.”

“Does this have a point, or is it just a science lecture?”

“What I’m telling you is that if I’m occasionally distracted or I do things that seem completely crazy, it’s not always my fault.

” He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, my behavior the day before yesterday was unquestionably out of line and insulting, and I’ve already apologized and asked for your forgiveness.

But I’m trying to help you understand that I’m dealing with a world that you’ve never even seen.

A world that sometimes impacts how I deal with the actual world.

And I tell you one final time that it isn’t you I’m disgusted by touching, but the idea of spreading those kind of repulsive organisms to your perfect skin.

It distracts me. But it has absolutely nothing to do with you or how I feel about you.

” He met her eyes. “To put it another way: if you knew your hands were covered in manure, you wouldn’t want to start touching my face before you washed them?

Because I think that would be the natural impulse. I’d hope , anyway.”

She paused in the street to process that for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” She started forward again. “Apology accepted, Oz. Don’t worry about it.”

Oz followed after her, undecided if the matter was truly dropped or if he’d merely been forgiven for a single incident. But either way, he was glad.

As they approached the next corner, the crossing signal started to blink red, indicating that if he was in the midst of crossing that he needed to hurry, but that he shouldn’t begin to cross.

Oz paused to wait out the light, while several people behind him simply hurried across the street despite the warning.

Natalie processed the situation and Oz’s refusal to break the law, then nodded sarcastically at him. “Thug life.” She teased.

Oz snorted in laughter. “There were 10,437 pedestrian accidents in the city last year.” He reported. “It makes no sense to risk death for a matter of seconds. We can just wait here and play it safe.”

“Good morning, OCD!” The man next to them on the corner greeted him cheerily. “Always happy to have a superhero around!”

Natalie arched an amused eyebrow at Oz, obviously unused to dealing with the public in a positive way.

The man looked confused as to why Oz was simply standing on the sidewalk rather than following the crowd across the street though.

Oz pointed at the crossing signal.

The man looked at it, questioningly.

“I’m not wagering my life on the vagaries of New York City traffic.” He informed the man. “And there is urine from seventeen different people on the asphalt, which would undoubtedly cause an infection in an open wound from even the slightest injury.”

The man stopped in the street, dumbfounded, then glanced at Natalie to see if Oz was serious.

Natalie nodded at the man, sharing his confusion and amazement at Oz’s aversion to risk. “He’s really fun at parties too.” She deadpanned.

Oz waved goodbye to the man, then leaned closer to Natalie, just in case the other man suddenly reversed directions and sprang at her.

You couldn’t be too careful. He took special care to avoid using his vantage point to look at the woman’s cleavage…

which was perhaps a feat too great to ask from any mortal man.

He failed completely at it, his eyes settling hungrily on the globes of flesh hidden behind the tattered fur top, suddenly wanting to bury his face in them.

“Mack and I started a project last month, where we began doing more small-scale heroics in specific neighborhoods, to get to know the people and build stronger relationships.” He said to distract himself, gesturing to the surroundings. “I took the blocks around my apartment.”

“Which would also include the area around the store.” She looked up at him. “Is that a coincidence?”

Oz shrugged innocently, pretending like he’d decided to start a regular patrol around her place of work for reasons other than keeping her safe and possibly seeing her more often.

“I know community heroics would go against your antihero methodology, but…” He began.

“I’m not an anti-hero.” She corrected, cutting him off. “I’m more like a posi-villain.” She paused, frowning slightly. “Wait, what would the antonym of ‘anti’ be? ”

“The original word itself.” He informed her. “The opposite of ‘anti-hero’ would be ‘hero.’”

“No, I don’t think so. I think the opposite would be ‘posi-villain.’” She started off down the street again. “One is a hero who does bad things and the other is a villain who does good things.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“I do.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, you just think you’re soooo smart, don’t you?”

“I got my GED in prison.” He made an uncertain face. “Generally speaking, prison is not somewhere one goes for a quality education.”

Natalie opened her mouth to reply to that, but was cut off by the sudden arrival of Traitor. Arn was obviously excited about something, which was rarely good. In fact, it was never good. Arn was a horrible, horrible person.

“Hey guys.” He waved at them, casually pushing people out of the way so that he could get closer to them on the crowded street, paying no attention to the fact that the pedestrians he pushed from the sidewalk were now in the flow of traffic and were desperately trying to scramble back to safety before they were hit. “Quick question…”

“I’m pretty sure the answer is going to be ‘no,’ Arnold.” Oz warned.

“It’ll be a ‘hard no’ from me, almost certainly.” Natalie agreed.

Arn looked taken aback by their suspicions. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask!” He protested.

“I find that it rarely matters.” Natalie rolled her eyes. “In the jungle, you’re the kind of monster we’d feed to the crocs.”