Heller’s Decision (34 page)

“Tilly,” I said, equally sharp.

“
Sorry. Must have baby brain.” She laid her
hand on my forearm and squeezed. I pulled my arm away. Someone who
couldn’t even remember my name didn’t get to touch me with such
familiarity.

“See you later,” I said without further
chitchat, indicating to Niq to leave.

“
Bye, Tilly. Hope to catch up soon,” Will
said, sounding a little wistful.
Over my dead body
, I thought, hurrying Niq away.

“
Geez, why did he have to notice us? I
thought we’d get past him safely,” I complained.

“
Are you okay?” Niq asked, showing some
fairly adult
compassion.

“I’m okay.”

“Do you miss him?”

I thought about it for a moment. “No. I
don’t, Niq. I have no regrets about my relationship with Will
breaking up.”

“Can you forgive him for being such an
arsehole to you?”

“
Hey you!
Watch your language. Heller wouldn’t like to hear
you talking like that.”

His grin was irresistible. “I know. That’s
why I said it when he wasn’t here.”

“
Niq
! Just remember not to ever say it around him.” I wanted to
ruffle his hair, but my hands were full with bags. Though he
realised my incapability, he still stepped sideways away from my
reach, recognising my intent. “But to answer your question, I’m not
sure. I’m definitely over him, but it was still an appalling way to
treat someone, especially your own girlfriend, so I can’t really
forgive that. I only hope he treats his wife better.”

Niq shrugged as if the whole topic now
bored him. On the drive home, he chatted animatedly
and continuously about the
online game that consumed his free time at the moment. At one
point, he accidentally let slip the name of a girl. I immediately
jumped on that.

“You’re not still in contact with that
‘girl’, I hope? Heller told you to keep your distance until he
finishes his investigations.”

Niq sulked
. “He’s taking forever. Anyway, she’s real. I know
she is.”

“It takes a while to properly investigate
people, sweetie. What Heller’s people are doing probably isn’t even
legal, so they have to cover their tracks. I’m sure he’s working on
it as fast as he can. You just have to be patient.”

“
I can’t just ignore her. What am I
supposed to say to her – I can’t talk to you until my father works
out if you’re a girl or not? That’s stupid and makes me sound like
a kid.”

“
You are a kid.” We drove in silence for a
while. “Do you really think of Heller as your father?”

He shrugged. “What else am I supposed to
call him? It’s too complicated to explain to anyone.”

“
Niq.” I reached over to grab his hand and
he let me take it. “Do you remember how Danny’s always told us how
awful and rebelli
ous he
was with Heller when he was your age?” Niq nodded, his eyes lowered
to our grasped hands. “I think you’re feeling a little rebellious
too. Heller imposes a lot of rules and restrictions on all of us
and sometimes it’s difficult to see his thinking behind them. Even
I’ve had a few disagreements with him over that.” Niq shot me a
sceptical glance. I laughed. “Okay, I’ve probably had more fights
with him about his rules than all of you put together. But, do you
know what? I know it’s coming from a good place, no matter how hard
it is to see that sometimes.”

“I know,” he said softly, casting a glance
over his shoulder at the back seat full of bags. “I know he loves
me and I love him more than just about anyone except you. I
wouldn’t be here without Heller.”

We squeezed each other’s hand. “Promise me
you’ll respect his wishes.”

“I promise.”

I pulled him towards me and kissed his
forehead, our car cutting a swathe to the right into an oncoming
lane of traffic as I did.

“
Shit!
” I brought my attention back to the road. I
jerked the steering wheel to straighten the car’s path back into
our lane, just in time for a car to zoom past us in the opposite
direction, its horn blaring. My heart beat a rapid rhythm and Niq
paled, bracing his arms against the dashboard. “Oh God. I’m sorry,
sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

“I had a flashback, Tilly. To right before .
. .” His voice trembled a little, his breathing heavier.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I really am.”

We were a very subdued pair climbing the
stairs back at the Warehouse. And of course we had to run into
Heller bounding down the stairs at his usual energetic pace. He
reared to a halt on seeing us.

“What happened?”

I didn’t want to say anything, not only
because I dreaded the inevitable reaming that would follow, but
also because I knew he’d refuse to let me drive Niq anywhere again.
In fact, he’d probably refuse to let me drive again at all.

The silence stretched uncomfortably.

“Tell me,” he insisted. Niq and I glanced at
each other.

“Tilly ran into her ex-boyfriend and his wife
and baby at the shopping centre. His wife was kind of rude to
her.”

“I hope you didn’t let that upset you, my
sweet. Those people no longer mean anything to you.”

My eyes flicked sideways to Niq again
before I spoke. I shouldn’t encourage him to lie to Heller, but
nothing had actually happened from what I’d done, but everything
would happen if Heller found out about it. And none of it
good.

I made my choice. “I know. I shouldn’t let
it bother me. They took me by surprise.
I honestly tried to avoid them.”

“Put it out of your mind. You have better
things to think about. Speaking of which, I will be late home
tonight. I have to meet an international client who’s just flown
into town.” He placed his index finger under my chin and raised my
head. He smiled. “Do wait up for me.”

I forced a smile onto my lips and nodded,
breathing out in relief when he disappeared down the stairs. Not
mentioning what had just occurred, I put my arm around Niq’s thin
shoulders.

“Come on, kiddo. Let’s go to my place and
unpack everything you’ve bought. At least we took Heller’s mind off
how much of his money you spent today.”

We spent the next half-hour admiring his
new things. Judging the time to now be a respectable one for a
tipple, I poured myself a glass of wine and sipped it with
pleasure, enjoying its relaxing properties. All the tension from
the day slipped away as I sat back, entertained by the fashion
parade Niq gave me featuring all his new clothes.

Daniel joined us later, having worked back
at the office for a while, and I made them dinner. The simple
process of preparing and cooking a meal for people I loved and who
I knew would appreciate it, helped me forget the awfulness of the
day even further. And though they forced me to watch another
gruesome, corpse-splattered movie – which I calculated I only
actually watched about ten minutes of, after deducting the time I
spent with my head buried in a pillow – I felt the memories of
Malefic thankfully fading away.

Despite my best efforts, I’d fallen asleep
by the time Heller tracked me down later that evening. He was in a
tender mood, coaxing my clothes off gently and taking his sweet,
slow time with me. It was the perfect ending to a fairly horrific
day.

“
Is there something different about you
tonight, my sweet?” he asked afterwards as I drowsed against
him.

“Different? In what way?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t put my finger on it.
You seem . . .” It wasn’t often Heller struggled for a word,
despite English not being his first language. “Different.”

“
No. There’s nothing different about me.”
Not that I was aware of anyway, but I fell asleep before I could
ponder the matter further.

I dreaded going into the office the next
day, unsure if everyone had forgiven me for the whole
Reverend Joshua debacle. In
some ways, I felt slightly responsible for what he’d done to
Malefic because it seemed to be spurred on by Malefic’s treatment
of him on Trent’s show. But I reasoned to myself that the Reverend
was a fervent powder keg waiting to explode and any number of
things could have sparked the ignition flame.

My phone rang just as I opened the door to
leave.

“Is that Tilly I’m speaking to?” asked a
vaguely familiar voice.

“Yes,” I replied with caution.

“
This is Liya, the Cybelian.”

“
Hello.” Now I was even more cautious. I
hoped she wasn’t ringing to try to recruit me. I wanted to put all
that magic rigmarole behind me.

“Firstly, thanks again for what you did for
me. For my coven. We really appreciate it.”

“You thanked me enough yesterday, Liya,” I
said, a little impatient. I checked my watch. I really had to
leave. “I’m in a bit of a hurry. I have to get to work.” I didn’t
want to be late when my job was on the line. I didn’t want to give
Brady any more reasons to sack me.

“
I’ve taken Meredith, the novice
Cybelian, under my
wing.”

“
That’s nice of you.”
What did that have to do with
me?

“I’ve been checking her potions and I noticed
a discrepancy. As you were her only customer, thankfully the damage
isn’t widespread.”

“A discrepancy?”

“
Yes. In her dosage instructions. On your
potion she’d instructed ten drops to be taken with a beverage. It
should only be
one
drop, not
ten. You haven’t used it yet, I hope?” She sounded rather
panicky.

“No.” Nor would I after hearing that.

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank the
Great Magna Mater for that. Ten drops would be rather
disastrous.”

“What would happen with ten drops?”

“Nobody really knows. It’s never been done
before.”

“
Thanks for telling me. I’ll bear it in
mind if I use it.”

Hanging up, I went to the kitchen and
found the vial where I’d left it, its stopper still in place. I
tipped the rest of the potion down the sink, washed out the bottle
and put it in my recycling bin. I could never be tempted to
experiment with it now.

I sang along to the radio all the way to
work, trying to
artificially bolster my spirits for what was probably going
be an unpleasant experience. At the station, I could see my two
‘friends’, the security officers, through the glass wall of the
foyer and groaned to myself. They were the last two people I needed
to see this morning.

Head down,
preparing to run their gauntlet, I peeped up at
them to see if I could gauge their mood. If they were their usual
contemptuous selves towards me, that was a good sign because it
meant my job was safe. If they gloated at all, their level of
gloatage would tip me off to just how much trouble I was in this
time.

But they surprised me by pulling out a
third expression. I’d never suspected them of being so complex, but
I had to admit this one confused me. Their features distorted as
though they were putty someone was playing with, and their mouths
twisted into a terrifying grimace. They lumbered towards
me.

I stepped backwards in alarm. Were they
going to forcibly evict me from the building? They couldn’t just
throw me out! I had personal items on my desk upstairs. I’d be
damned if I was going to go quietly so someone else could eat my
chocolate biscuits and play with my desk basketball
game.

It was only then that I realised that what
I took for grimaces were actually smiles. The meatheads were trying
to smile at me.
Oh God!
My fate
must be direr than I’d even imagined.

“
Morning, darling,”
said Meathead One. “Looking good
today.”

“Huh?”

“I said you’re looking good, darling. Real
good.”

“
Oh
. . . okay,” I said, backing away. “You’re looking very . .
. um, adequate yourself.”

He swaggered to Meathead Two. “Hear
that
, Tugger? She said
I’m looking adequate.”
Tugger?
I guess the name suited the man.

“
So what? She smiled at me first this
morning.”
Huh?
I didn’t
smile at either of them.

“Well, this has been fun,” I lied, edging
away. “I better get off to work.”

“
If you ever want to have lunch, darling,
you know where I am,” Meathead One winked at me. “The station
cafeteria serves a great bacon sandwich.”

“
Bacon sandwich,” Meathead Two scorned.
“You’d probably make her pay for it herself too, you lunkhead. Come
to lunch with me instead, honeyc
ake, and I’ll treat you to the finest meatloaf you’ll ever
taste.” He winked at me twice, or maybe he just had something in
his eye. “With extra gravy.”

“
Wow, that’s . . . thanks.” I fled to the
lift jabbing the button with unwarranted force, wondering what the
hell had just happened.

At
my floor, I stepped out of the lift with trepidation,
peering one way down the corridor then the other. All clear. I
scurried up the corridor to the main office, rehearsing in my head
the grovelling words I’d try out on Trent, hoping he wasn’t going
to send me packing. I needed this job, not just to support myself,
but also to give myself at least a modicum of independence from
Heller. I knew I wouldn’t be welcome back at
Heller’s
until my year’s suspension was up, but I
wasn’t willing to become his full-time sex pet just so I could eat
and have a roof over my head.