Page 13 of Captive

Eggs are one of the simplest things to cook, but you’d be surprised at how often people screw them up, especially scrambled. Too runny? Gross, not done enough. And if you overcook them, they get all hard and nasty. It’s a delicate balance.

Ezra gets up, and I follow him into the kitchen to watch. The kitchen is a large, spacious room with ample cabinet space and a nice, big island where the glass top stove is. The island is so large that the other side of it has four bar stools tucked under its counter, and it’s one of these stools I sit on while I watch him work.

Watching a man cook you breakfast just hours after you witnessed him dismembering someone is something else.

Soon enough he slides a plate of eggs and toast in front of me, complete with a fork, and I dig in. He has his own plate, but he watches me take my first bite before he goes for his. The moment those light, fluffy, warm eggs hit my mouth, I am in heaven.

I don’t really like eggs, but when they’re done right, they’re perfection. Add in just the right amount of salt and pepper and you literally couldn’t get a better breakfast. Not undercooked, not overcooked. Everything is just right. I devour everything on the plate so fast I inhale it, which Ezra notices.

“So I take it my eggs have your stamp of approval?” Ezra asks as he gathers some onto his fork.

“They do,” I say. “I know you said you aren’t a chef, but your eggs are delicious.” I’m seconds from asking if he can make anything else when someone else joins us in the kitchen—Hawthorne—and he goes right to the coffee maker and pours himself a cup.

Judging by how the coffee is already brewed and half-gone by the time he fills his cup, I have to assume he’s been nursing the coffee all night. You’d never know just by glancing at him, though. If he stayed up all night he wears the exhaustion well.

Hawthorne wears a different shirt than he wore when we first met. This one is a dark maroon, the color of dried, scabbed-over blood. The sleeves are down to his wrists, and the ends of it are neatly tucked into his slacks. Every single button is together on the shirt, all the way up to his neck. He looks like he’s going to a job interview or something. The only somewhat messy thing is his black hair, but that could just be due to the unevenness of its gentle waves. It’s barely long enough to rest on the top rim of his glasses.

“When you’re finished, I’d like to see you in my office,” Hawthorne says, pausing only to take a sip from his mug before he wanders off.

I watch him go, and then I look at Ezra. “Was he talking to you or me?”

“You,” Ezra says, and he says it without a second thought.

“What do you think he wants?”

“Probably to talk to you about the same stuff I was asking you about last night. He doesn’t like unknowns, and right now, you’re the biggest unknown we’ve ever had.” He leans on the island a few feet away. “Hawthorne is smart. Don’t lie to him. It’ll be better if you tell him whatever he wants to know.”

“If I tell him everything, will he tell me everything? That’s fair, isn’t it?”

With a sigh, Ezra says, “It might be fair, but… you have to understand that we’ve been at this for a long, long time. We didn’t get where we are today by not being careful.”

“Not sweeping the house before you guys went after Brock doesn’t seem like you guys were all that careful.” Maybe not the best idea to bring that up again, but whatever.

Thankfully Ezra doesn’t take offense. He just grins at me and says, “To be fair, we don’t normally run into people hiding in closets with their own kill kits. Last night was a first, I’m assuming for all of us.”

All I can do is sigh. “Guess I better get it over with, then.”

He pushes off the counter. “I’ll walk with you up. Don’t worry about the dishes, I’ll clean up while you’re with Hawthorne.”

I get to my feet and follow Ezra out of the kitchen. We head upstairs, and all the while I wonder what exactly Hawthorne wants to discuss. I doubt he has everything already to lock the house down, as he mentioned before; I didn’t see any deliveries while I was on the couch with Royal and Ezra.

Which means he wants to know about me.

We stop in front of the room that must be his office, AKA the only room that wasn’t included in the tour I received earlier. Ezra glances between the door and me before he says, “Like I said, it’ll be easier if you just tell Hawthorne whatever he wants to know. Good luck.” With that, he leaves me to presumably clean the kitchen.

And that, in turn, leaves me to speak with Hawthorne alone.

I’m not exactly what I’d call nervous, but at the same time, I am a little uneasy, mostly because I know Hawthorne even less than I know Royal and Ezra. See: not at all. He’s an unknown, just like I’m an unknown to him. He gave off awkward vibes earlier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s like that all the time. It could be a ruse, an act.

Only one way to find out.

I bring my hand to the doorknob and head in.

Chapter Six – Hawthorne

It only took me an hour or two to get everything ordered. When you’re in our line of work, you have certain kinds of people on retainer, and people who know how to lock up a house are one of them. After that, I sat there and looked at the bag that must’ve come to Brock’s house with Abby.

Ezra called it a kill kit, and I’m inclined to agree.