“Are you talking to me or yourself?” asked Anthony.
Elliot’s eyes flared. He could feel the heat that had been pooling in his gut go straight up to his ears. “You... are such an asshole.”
Anthony nodded, already at the door. “So I’ve been told. Let’s go.”
Elliot fumed as he followed Anthony into the hall. The corridors were empty and quiet, with no sign that anyone was even aware of their escape.
Then again, maybe the remaining security guards had put in their resignations on account of the Kraken eating one of their own.
Anthony was halfway down the hall; he hadn’t even checked on Elliot’s progress. Elliot resisted the urge to go in the other direction out of sheer spite. He hurried after Anthony, catching up just as Anthony reached the fork in the hallways.
So I guess we should start prepping for a clone invasion in a few months. Or years. Hopefully years.
Dammit. We should have set fire to the serums when we had the chance.
Elliot turned to the left, toward the hangars.
Anthony, however, turned to the right, and walked in the completely opposite direction.
“Hey,” said Elliot, confused. “The hangars are the other way. You’re going back to the labs.”
“I know,” called Anthony over his shoulder. “We’ve got some lab work to complete.”
Chapter Eleven
Going to the labs was a spectacularly terrible idea. They did not have time to destroy inconsequential viruses; they needed to get to the hangar and get on the plane and go to Bulgaria before anyone remembered that a flight was going to Bulgaria at all.
Besides—getting Elliot on the plane sooner meant a greater chance Elliot would survive the mission. Anthony found himself very much invested in Elliot surviving the mission.
Unfortunately, it was also a catch-22—because if Elliot survived the mission at the expense of leaving those damned vials intact, then Elliot would also refuse to kiss Anthony again, which sort of defied Anthony’s primary goal in ensuring that Elliot survived the mission.
So Anthony turned to the labs. At least it would make for a good report to Bea afterwards.
The lab was unlocked, which should have been concerning, but the security personnel who’d captured them earlier hadn’t exactly been the cream of the crop. The room was exactly the same as when they’d left it—lights low, coolers glowing, brightly colored vials all in neat little rows.
And their tablet, still sitting on the counter, still switched on.
“Excellent,” said Anthony, reaching to pick it up.
“Don’t touch that!” said Elliot, alarmed, just as Anthony did exactly that. “They might have... booby-trapped it?”
Anthony flipped the tablet over once or twice. “Looks fine.” He swiped a few things. “Works fine.”
Elliot’s mouth dropped open. “How are they seriously this incompetent?”
Anthony shrugged as he slid the tablet into his backpack. “Better not to question it. Well, come on, we’ll start dumping these down the sink.”
“No!” yelled Elliot, grabbing him by the elbow. “Do you want to turn the entire world into clones? We have to neutralize the serums.”
“Okay. How do we do that?”
Elliot checked the control panel on the cooling system and grinned. “Most of the time, heating bacteria to an extremely high temperature will kill it. That’s why your body’s natural defense against infection is to give you a fever.”
“So we give the serums a fever?”
“Basically.” Elliot started punching in codes on the temperature panel. The cooler’s hum changed—not distinctly, but Anthony heard a difference. “We have to do it gradually, though, otherwise the glass might explode.”
“I’m okay with that.”
Elliot rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “We can’t all walk out of an exploding building completely unscathed, you know.”
“That only happened—”
“Once, I know!” Elliot grinned at him, though. Anthony returned the smile, but Elliot had already turned back to the panel and didn’t see it. “These serums were being kept at negative 70 Celsius. To properly neutralize them, they need to be at least 50 Celsius for an hour or more.”
Anthony frowned. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“I know,” said Elliot triumphantly, as he turned around and grinned at Anthony. “But as it turns out, the cooler also has a heat function. Before we were arrested, you stalled those guards long enough to let me activate it. The serums have been at 50 Celsius for the last 45 minutes.”
Anthony’s mouth dropped open. “You... genius.”
Elliot’s grin wavered a little bit, as if he was confused by the compliment. “Uh... no? I’m technically twenty points shy of genius level...”
“No, really.” Anthony took a step closer. “I knew you were stalling for a reason; I just didn’t know what.”
“Yeah, well.” Elliot squirmed. “It’ll only work if no one realizes what we’ve done. I can set the coolers to go back down to negative 70 after another fifteen or twenty minutes. The serums will be neutralized, but Cicero won’t know it. Otherwise he’ll just throw them all out and start again.”
“Genius,” said Anthony firmly, finally reaching Elliot.
He wrapped his hand around the back of Elliot’s neck, drawing him. Elliot licked his lips, staring up at him.
“What are you doing?” Elliot whispered, his voice catching a little.
“And here I thought analysts were clever,” whispered Anthony, just before he kissed him.
It was a very possessive kiss; Anthony didn’t want there to be any doubt in Elliot’s mind that Anthony meant it. After all, a kiss in the flush of having survived a Kraken attack was one thing.
But now, there was no imminent danger. Just Anthony’s growing admiration and respect for the man who... was not really responding to the kiss the way most of Anthony’s partners responded. Usually, they’d be wrapping their arms around Anthony’s neck, pulling him in, sighing or moaning or making some kind of effort to show Anthony how much they appreciated his attentions.
Elliot, however, didn’t do any of that.
Elliot didn’t do anything at all.
Anthony pulled away, puzzled. Elliot’s eyes were closed, his lips were parted, pink and wet.
Elliot’s eyes sprang open. Befuddled.
“Um,” began Elliot, his voice shaking. “So. About the kisses.”
Anthony’s stomach sank. Ah. He’d been rejected before, of course. He knew the shape of it. “Yes?”
Elliot swallowed. “I thought they only ever happened once?”
Anthony paused. “Most of the time,” he said finally. “Usually the person I’m kissing dies before I can kiss them again.”
“Right.” Elliot pulled away, turning back to the coolers. He started typing again on the keypad. “I see. Okay. That’s fine. Got it. Duly noted.”
It didn’t feel like a rejection. More like... a dismissal. Anthony knew there was a distinction; he just wasn’t sure what that distinction was. But Elliot made it sound so matter-of-fact, as if he was trying to distance himself from the kiss.