Static: The Team, #3

By Romilly King

This is Static - communications expert, extrovert, former witness, surrounded by secrets

In a team of monsters I'm the normal guy. The one making peace. The one soothing the raging beasts in the likes of Blue and Snipe. I don't mind, I trained as a witness, I've always been good with the borderline personalities [remembered sadness and guilt].
I guess that's why I'm drawn to Janus. I sense the complications in him. He's like a puzzle I want to solve.
When he calls me, utterly terrified, panicking, totally at odds with his usual personality, I know he needs me. I'll move heaven and earth for those who need me.
I've got a huge saviour complex. Show me a cause and I'll nail myself to the nearest tree for it.
Janus is a cause I'd willingly martyr myself for, and I've never even seen his face.
He has hidden himself all the time I have known him, but so have I. If I'm going to save him I'm going to have to show myself, the real me, to him and to the team.

Static is the third book in The Teams, from Romilly King, author of the Handled and Outreach series of mm romances and gay thrillers. Set in the same universe as Handled, the world of The Teams is dark, morally ambiguous, and full of secrets and lies. Please be aware this book ends on a cliffhanger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balloon Ride Books
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215247679

Romilly King

Romilly write's character driven gay romances that focus on the dynamics of intense relationships.  Romilly's plots tend to dive deep into the more fascinating aspects of human behaviour - basically there will be a lot of kinky stuff!

Book preview

Chapter One

Janus

I have a unique personality, I accept that, because it’s fine, until it isn’t.

It isn’t fine now.  In fact it’s probably the end for me.  I can’t go outside and I can’t stay here and soon, really soon, my brain is going to shut down so it can’t be responsible for anything.

All the fears come howling up behind me. I can hear them coming.  I wish I had died before I left my apartment, then I wouldn’t have to face this. Choosing my own end has always been my preferred option.

Yet there must be a little bit of me that still hopes.

In front of me is the doorway to the street.  It’s raining.  I haven’t felt rain in years.  I don’t want to now.  It will melt my skin off.

I keep my shoulder pressed to the wall. The last time I was here the paint was brighter, newer.  I think the building had just been finished then because I could still smell the sharp punch of it in my nostrils.  Now it smells like stale air and dust.

How many years has it been?

Don’t care.

That’s the street out there.

My breathing is getting ragged and my chest is getting tight.  My left arm aches - it’s not my heart, it’s because I am clutching my bag so tightly, honestly, it’s not my heart.

There is a moment of almost weightlessness, a surge of vertigo.  It feels as though my brain, just for a second, floats inside my skull, cut loose from connections.

No, that’s not real either. I know it isn’t.

A tall man in a black wool overcoat steps in through the door, he runs a hand through his hair, brushing the rain drops off.  I see the patch over his eye.

I might be scared to the point of dying but I’m not stupid.

He glances around the foyer, so very natural in his movements, and I keep myself pressed to the wall, while hope surges and despair tries to quash it.

He turns towards the elevators and I want to cry out, to alert him. 

I can’t speak out here, my voice won’t work, it’s one of the first things to go. Always when I am near the outside.  Nothing comes out. 

It takes every ounce of willpower I have to drop my bag.

I push it away from me as it falls, it hits the grubby marble floor and slides. I can’t do any more than that.  I sink slowly down the wall.  There are tears streaming down my face, frustration and fear and yet more frustration.

Footsteps, slow and steady.

I smell cologne, something full of oriental and rich - I wouldn’t have thought he wore that.

I wonder what Stat smells like.  How long has it been since I smelled cologne? I have my visitors wash, in case it triggers me.

There are black shoes in front of me.  I don’t like black shoes. The shaking is starting, the blackness spreading until the shoes are in vignette. 

Everything is shutting down.

Janus? The question is softly spoken, like to a frightened animal and I want to scream at him. I’m a man, an adult, a survivor, a controller.  But not always.

I can’t speak.  I can’t look at him. I nod my head.

Can you walk? Are you injured?

Too many questions, too many choices.

My brain is short circuiting, the pain in my head is ridiculous, like my skull is being crushed.  White lightning flashes across my vision.  I can feel the screams coming accompanied by the snapping of bones.

I lift my arm and bite down on my forearm, on the thin cotton of my shirt, gnawing at it, trying to stop the flood, trying to get back into the moment.

Can’t do it.

I open my mouth to scream and everything goes to grey.

––––––––

––––––––

Static

In the organised chaos and depression of La Guardia Edwards stands like a rock, the currents of people flowing around him.  I’d be impressed by his charisma but I don’t have it in me.  I’m tired, I’m itching all over from three flights across half the world and several arguments with booking clerks.  I need a bath. I need a meal. But more than anything I need a good encrypted connection.

I got your text in London, I say, You got to him.

I did, Edward’s face is creased in a frown, It was not what I was expecting. I’ll fill you in on the way.

Outside it’s raining, the usual dreary winter deluge that I prefer to avoid by going somewhere sunny.

How was Egypt? he asks as he unlocks the SUV that is arrogantly squatting in diplomatic parking.

Cut short, I reply.  I’m already ripping my phone apart, taking out my innocuous travel sim so I can put in my usual one. Where did you stash him?

Edwards jerks his head at the vehicle, Get in, he says, It’s a bit complicated.

When is it ever anything other than complicated.

Tell me, I say.

When I got to his apartment building I found him just off the lobby, he’d made it out of his apartment and down three flights of stairs.

You say that like it’s a big deal.

It was a big deal. I don’t know how he did it.

I brace myself, preparing for something that could knock my hopes if not my affection.

As I got to him he went into shock. I couldn’t get a name out of him, I couldn’t get anything out of him, he was totally non-responsive. Edwards rubs a hand on his chin and it rasps against stubble. I had to pick him up and carry him, and he wasn’t that light.

I stare at him. Was he injured? What did you do with him?

I stashed him in a safe house with a doctor, he’s not injured but he’s not right. I have no idea who is after him but someone is.  His apartment building burned down fifteen minutes later.

I don’t know anything, I say, All I know is he is in trouble, it’s something from his past, and that’s it.  I was amazed I got an address out of him, and he was lucky it was local. If it had been anywhere other than Washington... I don’t want to think about that, to lose him before I ever met him.

So you don’t know about his issues?

I guessed there were issues, but I had no idea they were that debilitating, I say roughly. I long ago guessed there was a reason why he kept his face hidden and made no effort to take our friendship to the real world. It was one of those things I agonised over. There were so many questions I didn’t know how to ask.  How is he now?

Still out, Edwards says, reaching for his seatbelt, We had to sedate him. When he came out of the state he was in, he freaked. We have him asleep and it is costing a fortune. The doctor thinks it’s a long established response to trauma. I’ll take you to him now, maybe you can calm him down.

I don’t want that.  I don’t want the first time I see Janus in the flesh for it to be him at his most vulnerable.  If I have sickbed fantasies they don’t involve waking up a man who screams in my face.

I power up my phone, and the first notification I receive is a hijack.  It’s not from an app I use.  I hold my hand up and Edwards stills, his finger about to press the ignition button on the SUV.

He doesn’t ask stupid questions.

My finger’s fly over the phone screen, running diagnostics although honestly I should just smash this phone right now and wait until I get back to the farm to access it.  Fuck it, only one person is smart enough to do this, and the people tracing him obviously, but my money is on him.

When you receive this, know that I am gone.

There is something I would have you