Page 211 of Things We Hide from the Light

“Do you think we’re all doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers?” I asked finally.

“Yes.”

I blinked. “You don’t wanna think about that for a minute?”

He crossed his arms irritably. “I’ve thought of little else for the past few decades. It’s impossible to outrun your genes. We were made by flawed men. Those flaws don’t just dissolve out of the bloodline.”

Rain pelted the windows, ensuring I couldn’t forget the misery outside.

“Then what the fuck is the point of anything?” I asked.

“How the hell should I know?” He absentmindedly patted the jacket pocket where he stowed his single daily cigarette. “Myonly hope is if I keep getting out of bed every morning, someday it will all make sense.”

“You know, I was already feeling pretty shitty before you brought your cloud of doom in here,” I told him.

Lucian grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“You don’t have to move your entire life up here for this, you know.” His parents’ house held ghosts for him.

“I’ll stay where I want to stay and work where I want to work.”

“Someone must have been pissing in wheat bran all over town,” I quipped.

It was right about then that my office door flew open.

“Why the hell am I finding you here instead of at your damn door? I swear to God, Morgan. You’re worse to babysit than that little old church lady in Ala-fucking-bama,” a disheveled Nolan announced, storming into the room and kicking my trash can for emphasis. “It’s two steps forward, thirty-seven thousand backward with you, and they don’t pay me enough to put up with this shit.”

“Why don’t you quit then?” I snapped, feeling too sorry for myself to spread it around to anyone else.

“I quit and you end up full of holes. Then I’m supposed to live with the guilt of it? Great fucking plan.”

“I might have a position for you,” Lucian announced. He had that crafty bastard look about him that should make anyone on the receiving end very, very nervous.

“Oh, really?” Nolan said, still pissed off.

“Really.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Catch is such an ugly word. Let’s call it an addendum.”

Nolan didn’t look impressed.

“Stop seeing Sloane and the job is yours.”

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Nolan said.

“Okay, seriously? You hate her guts but you don’t want her dating anyone else? Even you have to realize how unhealthy that is,” I said.

“I never claimed to be healthy,” Lucian said in his scary voice.

“Then why the hell am I taking advice from you?” I demanded.

“How the hell should I know?”

“Bunch of feral assholes,” Nolan muttered, storming out of my office.

Lina:Hey. Everything OK? I woke up and you were gone. Not that you need to clear all your movements with me. Or whatever.