Page 25 of Fool Me Twice

Helping some abused kids get out of their awful life situation wasn’t exactly on Hart’s bingo list when it came to the man. But here was the evidence.

He watched Cane enter the code to the front door like he knew it by heart, and Hart trailed him up the stairs, Cane bypassing the elevator altogether. There was probably some reason for that, but Hart wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Plausible deniability and all that.

They reached the fifth floor eventually, Hart struggling to keep up with his bag while Cane took the stairs mostly two at a time.

“I can go if you’re so desperate to run off,” Hart complained, the fast pace pinching his toes. These shoes were not made for running, and neither was Hart.

Cane gave him a dry look over the railing of the next set of stairs. “If you wanted me to throw you over my shoulder, you should have asked nicely earlier.”

Hart flared his nostrils. “Don’t touch me.”

He stomped his way up the remaining steps and quickly passed Cane, ignoring the luring scent of cigarette smoke that surrounded him like cologne.

Cane came up behind him, whispering in his ear, “That’s what you say now.”

Hart nearly missed a step, an involuntary shiver arcing down his spine.

Cane smirked, walking up the rest of the steps and grabbing the door. “This one.”

Surprisingly, he waited for Hart to go first, but Hart figured it was because he wanted to make sure Hart didn’t run off as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Hart was more professional than that…even if the thought had crossed his mind.

They walked down the hall, Cane carelessly knocking his knuckles on the walls between doorways until he stopped at 15B and knocked properly.

It didn’t take long.

Someone who had to be ‘Soph’ opened the door on the chain, a sliver of her young, pretty face appearing in the gap. Her blue eyes widened at the sight of Cane, then shuttered at the sight of Hart behind him. A stranger. She gasped, trying to slam the door. Cane stopped it with a firm hand.

“Open it, Soph. Now,” he said, his voice low but without heat. Just unbending steel.

Soph trembled visibly but slowly followed the command, the metal clink and slide of the door unlatching filling the space.

“He didn’t mean to, Cane. We…I mean… He didn’t. He doesn’t know why. He would never—” She stuttered as she opened the door wider, trying to both make herself small and block the way for her brother’s sake.

She was slight in build, willowy and breakable looking under the purple dress she wore and the baggy white sweater over the top of it. Her brown hair was tied in a messy knot on top of her head, and she had a visible scar running across her jaw toward her mouth that made that side turn down in a permanent frown.

It looked painful.

It looked old.

Her eyes went to Hart, like he was the one there that was scary to her. “Please… Don’t hurt him…please…”

It broke Hart’s heart a little. The resignation on her face was too old for her years. Like she expected something bad. Someone to hurt them.

“We’re just here to talk,” Hart said softly, raising his hands to show he meant no harm.

“Hart’s a cursebreaker,” Cane said, patting Soph once on the head and stepping inside. “Where’s Raph?”

Soph grasped Cane’s arm, pointedly keeping her distance from Hart. It was entirely strange given their appearances, yet Hart understood that people could look entirely normal and turn out to be the worst monsters. From the sounds of it, she had experience with monsters, and she’d deemed Cane not one of them.

“He’s in his room. He hasn’t come out since you sent him home,” Soph said, looking over at a single door near the small, worn kitchenette. She was wringing her fingers in front of her body, body trembling with barely suppressed nerves. “He was acting so strange when he got back. He was acting like a different person. Like he was…using. But you think it’s a curse?”

The way she looked hopeful that it was that rather than the alternative was also a little heartbreaking.

Hart shut the door behind them politely but stayed where he was, not wanting to encroach on her safe space too much. “That’s what I’m here to check for. If you both agree, of course.”

Soph’s eyes moved to him again, nervous and guarded, but her obvious distress won out. “Please help him, he’s all I have,” Soph said.