Page 1472

~~((The 6 Pages of New Year's + Double Monday = Page 6 of 8))~~
Dunstan grabbed the man’s throat. “Not so tough now, eh, Jonah?” He squeezed. “Remember when you did this exact same thing to one of my friends? Hmm? Made him cry out for his mother, remember? Should I make you do that, too? Your mother’s actually in the building, so maybe she’ll show up.”

Cisco noticed more Rofals coming out of their rooms on the second and third floors in order to see what the commotion was. Lucia had not moved from her curled up position on the couch, and Elwood was on his feet but not moving to help, perhaps because Dunstan was staring right at him while talking to Jonah.

‘Nice going,’ said Dennex privately.

The reaper had a point, Cisco knew, but he didn’t mind this so much. At least it was more interesting than playing another board game.

“Oh, but wait a minute,” said Dunstan. “You didn’t twist my friend’s wrist like this, did you, Jonah? That’s my mistake.” He let go of Jonah’s hand. Then he further tightened his grip on the man’s throat. “No, you just put a gun to his head, instead.”

Cisco could hear Jonah struggling to breathe.

‘You’re killing him,’ said Dennex publicly.

‘Maybe that’d be for the best,’ said Rezamaar. She didn’t sound like she was joking.

Cisco felt he might need to intervene now and stood. “Stop,” he said firmly.

But when Dunstan turned to look over at him, Cisco barely recognized him. The expression on the other young man’s face was unlike anything Cisco had yet seen from him during these past two weeks.

Dunstan was smiling. He was enjoying himself.

“Let him go,” said Cisco. “Didn’t you tell me you weren’t like them?”

Dunstan stared back at Cisco for a moment longer before his smile vanished. Then he released Jonah and walked away.

Rezamaar followed after him.

Cisco sat back down and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Maybe he regretted starting that whole thing, after all. Gathering information and amusement was one thing, but almost getting a man killed was quite another.

Not long after that incident, the front door flew open, and Damian Rofal came waltzing into the main room with a number of large shopping bags--several of which, he was not actually carrying. Instead, they hovered in midair around him, not terribly unlike his reaper, Feromas.

“Don’t worry, everyone!” the old man said loudly for the whole cabin to hear. “Pappy’s back, and he’s brought gifts for all his good little boys and girls!”

The table in front of Cisco flew up suddenly and shook the chessboard off of itself, sending its marble pieces clattering across the hardwood floor in dozens of different directions. Then it slammed back down with a wooden thud that made Cisco’s chair jump a little.

Damian began setting his many bags down on top of it.

‘Was that really necessary?’ said Feromas. ‘There’s a counter right over there, you know.’