Rogue Demonstration Read online

  Rogue Demonstration

  Godslayer Academy, Book 4

  Isadora Brown

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Newsletter Information

  Did You Like Rogue Demonstration?

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Despite Robort’s interruption regarding the report on Dean Firth Rogers’s murder, I couldn’t just set aside the fact that Robert and I had just kissed. Even as I followed Robert into the attached office, my heart hammered against my chest. My fingers shook and I forced them in the back pocket of my jeans, trying to control them as best as I could. My mouth was dry, and I swallowed, hoping to fix it but failing miserably.

  I should be more concerned about this report. Now that we had information, we could start narrowing down who told the gods about the academy in the first place, how they were able to figure it out.

  But I could still feel Robert’s mouth on mine, how every muscle filled with anticipatory tension. How my pelvis throbbed with desire. How I yearned to do it again.

  I followed Robert carefully, wanting some kind of sign that he felt what I did. But he closed back up, focused on the more important thing. I knew this was right. I knew I should be able to sweep the kiss away.

  But I couldn’t.

  At that moment, I didn’t care about Dean Rogers or the gods or his death. I didn’t care about any of it. It was selfish and uncouth, but all I wanted, all I cared about, was kissing Robert again.

  Instead, I tried to shake the feeling off. I followed him into a plain office and he dropped to the computer chair. This must be Abby’s office, where she worked when Robert was in the lab. I couldn’t help but glance around as Robert booted up the computer and began to log in. I lifted my brows out of curiosity, scanning the awards she had won, the recognition she received. There were a couple of photos of her and a younger version of her – I was going to assume this must be her sister. Her sister had the same colored hair, the splash of freckles on her cheeks, but her eyes were brown compared to Abby’s blue.

  “Fuck,” Robert muttered, bringing me back to the present. “I forgot my password.”

  “Are you kidding?” I blinked once, twice. Everyone forgot their password, but Robert hadn’t even tried. And he was trying to get into his email. His email. This couldn’t be real.

  “What? I have a lot of other things on my plate, and email passwords aren’t one of them.” He typed something in and hit enter, only to see the computer vibrate, emitting a flat noise. “This is why I keep Abby around. She knows all my passwords.”

  “You trust her that much?” I maybe should have at least tried to keep the surprise out of my tone. Why wouldn’t he trust her? She was his PA and the two of them had been working together for a while now. Plus, it seemed like she was really good at her job.

  “Of course I do,” he said. He tried a different word with the same result. “Come on.”

  “Is it a birthday? A phrase? A saying? A pet’s name? A street name? Your porn name?”

  “My what?” He glanced over his shoulder at me.

  It was only then that I realized what I said.

  “Sorry,” I said, brushing hair out of my face.

  Robert tried again. This time, a ping filled the office, letting us know he guessed correctly. “Thank God,” he muttered as he pulled up the email.

  He downloaded the attachment and then printed it out. Instead of reading it on the screen, Robert must have assumed it would be better if we had our own copies. He handed one set of papers to me while keeping the second set in his hand. He leaned back in the chair, stretching his legs out from under him, eyes going to the report.

  It was so easy to forget there was even a report. I dropped my gaze, deciding I should probably read it too, especially since Robert was giving me the chance to do it in the first place. He wasn’t hiding anything from me, wasn’t saying this was classified or need to know.

  He trusted me too.

  I read through the medical jargon, picking up most thanks to my obsession with House. I flipped the page and kept reading. But after going through the report, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Not really.

  “So,” Robert said sharply, reaching forward and setting the loose-leaf papers on the surface of his desk. “He was stabbed at three-thirty the morning before you found him. That’s it. Nothing much to go on. It still could be anyone.”

  “Well,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “Stabbing is an intimate form of killing someone. It would have had to be done by someone who knew him well enough for him to let them get close to him.”

  “What is this, soft science?” He arched a brow, glancing over at me.

  “Criminology,” I said, flipping my hair over my shoulder. “I was actually considering going into that before coming here. I took a few classes at my junior college and found it fascinating.” I cleared my throat and stood up straight before walking around the desk and taking a seat in a vacant chair positioned in front of him. “You said that Abby had a meeting with him earlier? Did she find out who he was supposed to meet with so late?”

  “I totally forgot.” He pulled out his phone and, I assumed, prepared a text for his assistant. “Not sure if this’ll make a difference, but we can try. I don’t know why Rogers would be out of his home that early anyway. He’s not the type to stay at work late –“

  “Is he the type to use your own technology in order to track you down and come to some diner to talk to you?” I asked, arching a brow. I let my wrists dangle off the arms of the chair, molding my body to the faux leather. “I don’t know, Robert. I just think this traitor really changed the game. It’s one thing to be a Sympathizer who doesn’t understand the intricacies of the gods and only sees beautiful beings they want to worship and probably do other things with, but to hear someone from this school would tell the gods?” I shook my head.

  “This doesn’t actually surprise me,” he said. “The gods blend easily. They can pass as humans. I’m proud to say Riella didn’t fool me at first. I just, I didn’t think it was possible.”

  “You’re saying the arrogance wouldn’t let you believe it was possible,” I corrected.

  “Maybe.” I was surprised he wasn’t actually arguing. He leaned back in the chair, resting his hands over his flat stomach, and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. “Part of it, yeah, and that’s on me. I guess it’s easy to forget that these things are gods because their emotions are so human. When I broke up with Riella, she went into a rage. She threatened me, insulted me, everything she could. She was out of control. She reminded me more about a psycho ex in a country song than a divine being I’m supposed to worship.”

  “You listen to country music?” I couldn’t help but ask. I smiled despite myself, glancing at the picture on Abby’s desk again. “Did Riella know about this place?”

  “No.” Robert’s response was firm but not defensive. “I didn’t…I thought I could love her, but I wasn’t there yet. And I never got to that point. I wasn’t going to risk everything I had on her. I still don’t know if she’s the reason South Haven happened, if she was so mad at me she retaliated in such a way…” He let his voice trail off. “But I hadn’t even considered the school until after that, and we had already broken up at that point.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “Women can be manipulative. Maybe she came by afterwards to pick up things she forgot at your place and happened to stumble on some preliminary semantics.”

 
Robert frowned, but he didn’t deny it.

  I sighed, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. I didn’t know why I was so calm when I had just read an autopsy report about someone I knew, someone who was murdered. The thing was, besides the actual time of death, it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know. Discovering the body was bloody so a stabbing wasn’t too far-fetched, though it did beg the question of whether or not a god would kill Rogers with a knife or a dagger or whatever it was.

  “Do you think he was killed by a god based on the evidence we have?” I asked, opening my eyes and tilting my chin down so I could look at him again.

  “Don’t know,” he said. He flipped through the sheets of paper. “What’s bothering me is this line here: uncategorized particles in the fatal injury. What does that even mean?”

  I sat up straighter. “I guess it could mean anything,” I said. “Does it mention it in the explanation?”

  Robert flipped to the last sheet. “Besides a couple guesses, it basically says they can’t conclude it’s anything definitive and the substance itself is so small, they can’t test it,” he said. “Before you ask, they guessed it might have been residue on the murder weapon – could have been a soap or a cleaning solution or something similar. I guess the texture is smooth, almost liquid but not quite.” He wrinkled his brows, setting down the report again. “I find myself with more questions than answers.” He lifted his feet and rested his ankles on the desk.

  “Is Abby okay with your bare feet on her desk?” I asked with a quirk of my brow.

  “She won’t know,” he said dismissively, eyes going to the ceiling as if he could answer all of his questions up there.

  “I still don’t know, to answer your question about who killed Rogers,” he said. “A god could have done it, could have used their curse to get close to him, and God knows they’re strong enough. But the weapon seems so human…If I were a god, I’d use my hand, something to send a message. Maybe this has nothing to do with being a god or even this school. What if it was more…personal?”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  Robert shrugged, still not looking at me. “I mean, think about it,” he said. “Meeting with someone late at night, I’m assuming alone.”

  “Do we have footage?” I asked, sitting on the edge of my chair. I vibrated with energy.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “There are cameras everywhere,” I said. “If he was killed outside, I’m sure cameras picked it up.”

  “The school has cameras everywhere,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t mean the footage will be picked up. The camera facing that building died three weeks ago and I forgot to have someone fix it.”

  “Really? I’m surprised that’s not an Abby job.”

  “It is, I’ve just forgotten to delegate it,” he admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was only then that I was reminded just how tired he must be. “The big demonstration is this Friday and I’ve let my life fall to the wayside in order to prepare.”

  “Robert…” I let my voice trail off. I tried to find the right words, the ones that would make him feel better. But I couldn’t find them. I offered him a smile instead. “It’s going to go great.”

  The corner of his lip flicked up but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I appreciate you saying so, but I can’t…I can’t make any assumptions. I can’t ease up, not even a little. Not until it’s done and I know for sure.”

  I stand up, stretching. Robert’s eyes dropped, taking in the hint of my stomach that revealed itself when I lifted my arms. My cheeks blushed but I didn’t immediately hide myself away from him.

  In fact, it reminded me I wanted to kiss him again.

  “You should get some rest,” he said, breaking my thoughts up.

  I blinked. That was…unexpected. That wasn’t what I thought he would say.

  I smoothed my face over carefully, trying not to let him see the disappointment I was sure was there.

  “We have a busy week this week,” he said. “I want you at your sharpest because I sure as hell won’t be.”

  I wanted to reach for him, to pull him in my arms and comfort him, but I remained where I was. I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.

  Instead, I smiled, nodded, and turned to leave. He didn’t call me back to him.

  Chapter Two

  The week went by as I thought it would. Robert was constantly drinking coffee, under the Crawler, and always snippy. I tried not to take it personally, but it was hard. Wednesday, he went off on me about my ineptitude because I didn’t know the difference between a wrench and a monkey wrench - even though I did, I just handed him the wrong one because this week also happened to be my finals.

  Did Robert care?

  No.

  He still demanded my presence around the clock. I tried to get studying in while he was tinkering and didn’t need me to hand him tools.

  During December, the weather got colder. A couple of times, snow began to fall - Broadway snow, snow that left in the morning like a lover, but snow nonetheless. Winters were always difficult for me because I didn’t have a car of my own, so I was constantly huddled within its icy grasp, waiting for class to start or for public transportation. And until the weather dipped to the twenties, we weren’t going to turn on the heater in order to conserve energy and keep the bill low. January and February in Michigan would only get colder, with heavier snows, and since we lived in Coloma, we had to deal with the lake effect - heavier snows that lingered - as well as minimal plowing unless it was on the main road in town.

  I wasn’t looking forward to any of it.

  Instead, I tried to focus on the task at hand, the fact that Robert was nearly done with the Crawler, the fact that I actually understood a lot of what was going on in my courses enough to give me confidence for my exams.

  I flipped a page of notebook paper, fiddling with my hair, as I went over my study guide for the history of the gods. It could get confusing, trying to remember who hated who, who was sleeping with who, and who was ready to start a war. I wasn’t even sure if this was real or just educated guess work, but it didn’t matter. Not if students were going to be tested on it.

  “How’re you feeling?” Robert asked after a moment, coming to stand next to me.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin and pressed the notebook to my chest. “Jesus, I didn’t even hear you move from under the car,” I said, pushing my shoulders down from where they jumped to my ears.

  Robert chuckled and slowly pulled the notebook away. I frowned at his oily hands but kept my mouth shut. He placed it behind me on the counter. From where I was perched, I had full view of the dagger. I liked to keep it within my line of sight, just so I always knew where it was. It was beautiful and had a calming presence, which helped while I studied.

  “I’m being serious,” he said. “I think this is one of the few times I’ve talked more than you, and you’re concentrating way harder than I am.”

  “I have finals,” I said, as though that was enough.

  “Yes, I know.” He nodded once, his eyes twinkling. “You have mine tomorrow, don’t you?”

  “And yet, I have to study for it in a garage,” I replied, perking a brow, challenging him to say something about his expectations of me and the situation I was in.

  “I wouldn’t worry about the final,” he said, waving his hand. “We have more important things to worry about. The demonstration is tomorrow at five, and then…”

  “Then it’s Christmas,” I said. “Sunday, I mean.” I cocked my head to the side. “Why are you worried about Christmas? You have that wrinkle between your brows.”

  “What?”

  I reached out and placed my index finger on exactly the wrinkle I was talking about. He stiffened under my touch, but only for the smallest of moments. Then, he rolled his shoulders down and hummed out a sigh.

  “I just…” He cleared his throat. “Regardless of why people in this world celebrate Christmas, it can be traced back to the birth of
Christ, right?”

  I furrowed my brows, dropping my hand back to the side. “Yes,” I answered tentatively.

  “Right, and you have a bunch of gods who are already angry with us because we created a school to learn how to kill them,” he continued, gesturing with his hands.

  “That’s the assumption.”

  “Well, if they don’t believe in Jesus as being a true god, wouldn’t they hate the idea of a day that essentially celebrates his birth?” he asked, lifting his brow. “Wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, the perfect day to attack? To punish?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to counter his claim, but stopped. The truth was, Robert wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know the gods the way he did, but the logic was sound. The gods could attack on the one holiday the majority of the world celebrated together, honoring a holy figure, as a form of punishment for worshiping anyone above them. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it made perfect sense.

  “What are you doing for Christmas?” he asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “You,” he repeated. “Christmas. What are your plans?”

  I wrinkled my nose, leaning back against the kitchen counter. Suddenly, this conversation had turned too intimate, too revealing. I didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want him to feel sorry for me or anything of the sort. Instead, I shrugged.

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “Mom and I go to church, one of the churches still around, Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning, I make cinnamon rolls and we exchange presents. It’s really not that –”

  “That sounds great,” he said. “What time is church?”

  “Aren’t you Jewish?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  “What difference does that make?” he asked. “Jesus was Jewish too.”