Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 46: Chapter 46

— Rob —
Rob could understand Toni missing him—he missed him too. They were close once. They shared a bed. A relationship. A life.
It was dizzying to even talk to him. To hear his voice again. To recognize the half-hidden, almost imperceptible signs of the lateral lisp he used to have, decades ago.
Shouldn't Toni be dead? Didn't Rob see him in pieces, right in front of his eyes? Didn't something terrible happen because of it? Something involving him, Léon, The Mayor, Rafa, and a weird machine?
Rob shut his eyes and massaged his temples. Damned be that headache.
"Don't you miss it too, Robbie?" Toni whispered.
He looked at him but didn't answer. Rob could deal with the stolen glances, with the half-whispered comments, and with the way Toni looked for excuses to touch him. Bloody hell, Rob could even pretend he didn't see the feelings behind all those gestures! It's just... it's been so long since they last saw each other, and it was so comforting to know that Toni was alive and well, that Rob was willing to be a little lenient. A little permissive. A little too kind.
He was willing to accept Toni's affection, as wrong and cruel as that was.
This would be the third time Toni inched forward and whispered one rubbish or another about the good old times and how much he wished he could go back to them. He leaned a little closer every time. Touched him a little longer. Penetrated his gaze a little deeper.
Rob's stomach churned; his heart raced, but not in pleasure. His body urged him to notice how uncomfortable he felt. How scared he was. Pay attention to me, it said. Get away from him.
He moved his gaze aside. Widened his eyes. If there was one thing Roberto Tiajaru Tapir could never ignore, it was the hurt in Léon's face.
Enough is enough.
"Let's stop this, Toni," Rob murmured. "We're making Léon uncomfortable." He almost grimaced as those words left his mouth. Léon wasn't the whole reason; he didn't want to blame his husband or to use him as an excuse—Léon was troubled by Rob's actions—but he didn't want to push Toni away either. He wanted what Léon and Phillip had. He wanted Toni in his life, but in the present, not in the past. "That's not how two old friends should act, is it?"
Rob thought that putting emphasis on that word would be enough to get his message across... but it wasn't.
Toni's demeanor changed. His cerulean-blue eyes grew cold, and the edges of his mouth slid down, shaping his smile into something more akin to a vintage Halloween mask. Toni lowered his eyes and those lanky fingers of his met the back of Rob's hand.
"Sure, Robbie, whatever you want. I just thought"—he moved his hand upwards, his fingertips brushing Rob's arm and leaving behind a cold trail of goosebumps—"that you would want to be by my side again, even if only a little. You'll see that there are some things in this world that only I can do for you."
Power seeped into him, killing his words; wherever Toni touched, Rob's tattoos awakened. Red at first, with a violent, hungry color that beat in the same rhythm as the muscle in Rob's chest. As the power pooled inside him, filling the wounds that lay open in his skin, the color and the sensation and everything changed.
Rob's shoulders relaxed as the marks on his arms turned green.
He opened and closed his hand. This sight was so familiar and so comforting. There was a power he could understand. There was a power he could trust, the power in his arms and legs, in his physical body, the one he'd been training with for his entire life.
The words hurt, abuse, and negligence invaded his mind. They didn't make much sense and Rob thought there was a story behind them, but bloody fuck it. Rob balled his hand and focused on the power. So much power. He could easily crush an entire building with that.
"Enjoying yourself?" Toni asked in a whisper. "This was my father's gift to you, Robbie. It's unfair you were stripped of it." He chuckled and caressed Rob's hand with a thumb. Then, he moved away.
It all ended. The power, the comfort, the familiarity. Rob wanted more of it.... No. Wake up. What is wrong with you?
And then the words came, too strong for him to stop them, and too loud to be disguised as anything other than what they really were.
"Hey!" Rob shouted, pulling away, "You need to stop."
Resentment. Fear.
Not only Rio, Léon, and Rafa, but the waiters, the cashier, and the other patrons obeyed. Their gazes were heavy and hot against Rob's back and face.
He ducked his gaze and got up.
"I'll... restroom. You know," was all Rob managed to say before walking away.
The coldness felt great against his sweat-covered skin. Rivulets of crystal-clear water ran down his neck and the inner side of his arms as he tried to rub away the shame and the guilt. Shame and guilt, shame and guilt! He was sick and tired of that shite!
With a growl, he hammered a fist on the cheap faux marble of the sink top. Why did Toni have to show up now? Why did he have to be here?
Rob closed his eyes. His phone buzzed.
Are you okay?
Léon. Rob typed a short answer.
Yeah, don't worry.
He pressed send and slipped the phone back into his pocket. Rob took in a deep, calming breath. The restroom had a faint smell of disinfectant and citronella soap that took his mind back to the Public Emergency Unit and its exaggerated brightness. Today, Léon and Phillip were friends after all that happened during their relationship. Was it too much innocence to want the same with Toni? Would they even be capable of being in each other's lives without all the sex and arguments that filled their time together?
With a sneer, he massaged his forehead and let out a long breath. Maybe not. It wasn't a good relationship. They were too young and hadn't learned how to respect each other's boundaries. Instead of learning with one another, they fed each other's anger. And hunger, as weird as that sounded.
Rob stared at his reflex in the mirror. He saw dark circles under his eyes, cracked lips, small scars, and two weeks' worth of not shaving.
His eyes widened.
He had never really ended things with Toni, right? He had a distant memory of the last thing Toni had said to him; Toni was furious about something, and he called Rob a coward. He said they were through. And when Rob tried to beg him to take that back—to take him back—something wicked happened.
Furrowing his brows, Rob opened and closed his hand. He stared at the lifeless tattoos on his hands and arms, then looked back in the mirror to see the way they lost themselves under his sleeves and around his neck. The sensations from before rushed in; the strength and the pleasure he felt when Toni infused him with his Life Force.
Toni always played with him like this. He lured him in with his knowledge and power and used him in whatever way he wanted. Rob scoffed and chuckled, rubbing his eyes. Rob was bloody glad things were over between them. And the feeling was twice as strong for how happy he was with Léon.
It was time to let Toni go, once and for all. With a deep breath and a resolute nod, he left the restroom.
Rob knew there was something wrong way before reaching their table.
A crushing feeling of anger and dread came in waves, washing over him like the waves Rob loved to ride. He took a left on a narrow corridor, crossed the family section, and reached the dining hall to find Léon occupying Rob's chair, beside Toni.
Across from them, Jackal was back, and she pointed and gestured towards an open document on the center of the table. There was a sizeable gem in front of her that glimmered purple every time it caught the wavering natural light coming from the window.
"... So this paragraph here is pure bureaucracy. Moving on." Jackal flipped the contract to show the next page. "What I really need you for is this." She jerked a finger on a specific paragraph on the page. "I need to understand how exactly one can control the flow of Life Force in live beings. The sickness purges the power trace from people, and their Life Force goes with it. We tried to solve this on our own, but instead of stopping the process, the serum we developed was speeding it up, while something sped up the spreading of the sickness." She furrowed her brows. "But I think a Cosmic Trace wielder might stabilize the cure we created, that's why I need you." Jackal intertwined her fingers under her chin and looked from Léon to Rafa.
"And the amethyst?" Léon asked.
"It's an ingredient. Our first serum was developed using these"—Jackal raised the amethyst—"as a source of mineral Life Force. You should feel the power in them." A crease formed between her eyebrows. "I don't understand why, but the amethysts near Cidade Santa and all the way back to Aíbetama and Senibetama are all brimming with Life Force. Oh. Welcome back, Roberto."
Rob nodded and tried to ignore the curious glances he received from his friends and family.
Jackal sipped her coffee. "Since Mr. Tapir is once more with us, let me tell you what is his part in all this." She gestured towards the empty chair at Léon's left; once Rob sat down, she continued, "After controlling the power trace purge and reestablishing the flow of Life Force, we'll need to seal it. And for that, Toni and Roberto will work together to understand how the ink in his tattoos can house and contain the cosmic trace. The end. Pretty simple, right?"
Something cold swirled inside Rob's stomach. In the periphery of his sight, he saw Toni leaning over the table to reach for the contract and hand it to Rafa.
"You can trust her. Jackal is doing the right thing here," Toni said in a soft voice.
"Besides..." Jackal smiled and offered them a golden pen. "If you need one more reason to accept, check how generous I was in your compensation. I'm sure you'll be more than satisfied."
"Seems straightforward enough," Rafa mumbled. "And it seems we'll be helping a lot of people too." She looked from Rob to Léon and finally Toni. Then, she reached for the pen. "And the contract ends in one month, right? Whether we find the cure or not?"
Léon placed his coffee cup on its saucer and let them on the table. He looked calm when he got up, but there was something wrong with his anger when he curled his fingers on the air as if holding something.
Jackal nodded. "One month is all the time we have left—much less if you want to help your friend. After that, the spread will be so quick, we won't contain it anymore."
Then, a few things happened in sequence. First, Rafa accepted the golden pen and took the contract from Toni's hands.
Second, Toni widened his eyes and swung his arm to the side to protect Jackal while a layer of pearlescent-colored crystals created an armor around him.
And third, Léon's scythe hit Toni's defense with the long, deafening screech of a blade scraping on glass.
"Well, I heard what you had to say, so the game ends here." Léon raised his scythe again in a silent threat. "I want you to go one step further and tell me why did you need to play with our minds to have this conversation—and what the hell is this place?"