"No problem." Rhage made the delivery, then leaned against the wall. "So you find anything in there?"
"Not yet."
When silence expanded until it crowded out the air in the Pit, V knew there was more to the visit than a check-in on the Dell.
Sure enough, Rhage said, "Listen, my brother-"
"I'm not much for company right now."
"I know. That's why they asked me to come."
V glanced over the top of the computer. "And who's 'they'?" Even though he knew.
"The Brotherhood's worried about you. You're getting damn tight, V. Twitchy as shit and don't deny it.
Everyone's noticed."
"Oh, so Wrath asked you to come play Rorschach on me?"
"Direct order. But I was on my way over here anyway."
V rubbed his eyes. "I'm fine."
"It's okay if you aren't."
No, it really was not. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go through this PC."
"We going to see you at Last Meal?"
"Yeah. Sure." Right.
V fiddled with the mouse and kept scanning through the computer's file systems. As he stared at the screen, he noticed absently that his right eye, the one with the tats on its side, had started to flicker like the lid was shorting out.
Two massive fists knuckled down on the desk and Rhage leaned in tight. "You come or I come for you."
As Vishous glared up at his brother, Rhage's teal gaze just stared back from his towering height and his mind-bending beauty.
Oh, so they were going to play chicken with the eyeballs, huh? Well, fuck you, V thought.
Except Vishous was the one who lost. Moments later, he looked down at the laptop, trying to make like he Page 109
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was just checking on something. "You need to back off, okay. Butch is my roommate, so of course I'm going to be bleeding for him. But it's no big thing-"
"Phury told us. About your visions drying up."
"Christ." V burst out of his chair, pushed Rhage out of the way, and walked around. "That gum-flapping motherfu-"
"If it's any consolation, Wrath didn't really give him a choice."
"So the king brass-knuckled it out of him?"
"Come on, V. When I've whacked out, you've been there for me. This is no different."
"Yeah, it is."
"Because it's you."
"Bingo." Man, V simply couldn't talk about this shit. He, who spoke sixteen languages, just had no words for the mind-bending fear he had over the future: Butch's. His own. The whole race's. His visions of what was coming had always pissed him off, but they were a strange comfort, too. Even if he didn't like what was around the bend, at least he'd never been surprised.
Rhage's hand landed on his shoulder and he jumped. "Last Meal, Vishous. You show or I'm picking you up like mail, dig?"
"Yeah. Fine. Now get the fuck out of here."
As soon as Rhage left, V went back to the laptop and sat down. Except instead of returning to IT land, he called Butch's new phone.
The cop's voice was all gravel. "Hey, V."
"Hey." V held his phone between his ear and his shoulder and poured himself some vodka. As the juice hit the glass, there was the sound of shuffling over the line, like Butch was rolling over in bed or maybe taking his jacket off.
They were silent for a long time, nothing but an open cellular connection.
And then V had to ask, "Did you want to be with them? You feel like you should be with the lessers?"
"I don't know." Deep inhale. Long, slow exhale. "I won't front. I recognized those bastards. Felt them. But when I was looking into the eyes of that slayer, I did want to destroy him."
V lifted his glass. As he swallowed, the vodka burned down his throat in the nicest possible way. "How you feeling?"
"Not so hot. Queased out. Like I lost some ground." More silence. "Is this what you dreamed of? Back in the beginning, when you said I was supposed to come with the Brotherhood... did you dream of me and the Omega?"
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"No, I saw something else."
Although with everything that was going down, he couldn't see a path to what had been shown to him, couldn't see it on a lot of levels: The vision had been of him naked and Butch wrapped around him, the two of them high up in the sky, entwined in the midst of a cold wind.
Jesus Christ, he was deranged. Deranged and perverted. "Look, I'll come at sundown and hit you with a little hand action."