SAFE (Men of the ESRB Book 1) Read online

  Story copyright 2015 by Hollis Shiloh. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce without written permission from the author. All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental. Cover design by Cormar Covers - Cover image content is being used for illustrative purposes only. Proofreading by Carol Davis (http://caroldavisauthor.com/a-better-look-editing-services/

  ).

  About the story:

  Afraid of being outed, Neil Hunter, "Hunt," dreads meeting the new "human lie detector" at the precinct — a registered empath who can sense truth and falsehood.

  But Skyler Zane is more of a mess than any closeted cop could ever be, with an abusive ex and a history of mental issues. And instead of avoiding him, Hunt ends up taking him under his wing, looking out for him.

  And maybe falling for him, too. Everything is going well — including their unexpected feelings for each other — until Sky's skills come to the wrong attention. Now it's up to Hunt to find him — and figure out how to keep them both alive.

  SAFE

  by Hollis Shiloh

  "They don't necessarily hold up in court, anymore than lie detector tests do, but it's … indicative, shall we say." Officer Aguilar stood by the desk sergeant, Klein, chatting.

  Why were they talking about empaths? I wondered idly about it as I schlepped to my spot. I wasn't in any hurry. It was one of those mornings when everything felt foggy and gray. But I wasn't running late or anything, and the fog would lift after I drank my Starbucks. Probably.

  "Hunter, did you hear?" An officer walked over to my desk, excitement on his face. It was Chavez, and he wouldn't normally make chitchat this early in the morning, so my head snapped up.

  "What?"

  "We got one, hombre. We got us an empath!" He pumped his fist in the air and gave a hoot of triumph. It was picked up by a couple other guys. "Better than a fuckin' lie detector, man."

  I put down my coffee, barely aware I'd spilled some of it. "What, they found one who'll work with us?" My gaze narrowed. "Registered?"

  "Yeah, man, you think the captain would skimp on something like that? Backlog must've gone through."

  Empaths were now officially licensed through the Extra Sensory Regulatory Bureau, and particularly useful in law enforcement. Just a few years ago, it hadn't seemed likely we'd ever have one. Then, there were only a few and they had all been snapped up by the big guns and important agencies. As more registered and were trained, the smaller police forces were allowed to put in requests.

  The boss, Captain Quill, had put in our request a little over two years ago, and been told it would probably be quite a wait for an empath for the precinct. Nothing to worry about for some time.

  "Yeah. Great." My stomach soured. As exciting as it was, the idea of having our own professional empath at the precinct — and I knew it would be a huge help in virtually any case — I felt a twist of dread.

  Being gay, and not out, made it scary for me. Everybody called me Hunt — Neil Jeffrey Hunter on my birth certificate — but nobody called me the things a gay man would get called around these parts, even jokingly. Nobody.

  I'd heard empaths could sense quite a lot, depending on their ratings. Even things like sexual orientation. I didn't want to come out at work because of a fucking empath.

  "Uh, is he high? I mean, like, really strong or whatever?" I tried to sound casual, like I hadn't actually studied and wouldn't know what the numbers meant.

  "Nah, man, I think he's like a Four."

  I let out a breath. Four was good. Four I could deal with.

  The ratings went from one to five, with one being the highest. Five couldn't be used reliably by the police force; Four was the lowest limit, and a Four wouldn't be able to sense anything more than truthfulness and lies. Probably.

  Still, that might be enough to call my bluff if I had to bullshit my way through anything about sexual orientation in his presence.

  I was not willing to give up my career by coming out. Laws or not, that's what it would effectively be in this town. I didn't need the hassle. It wasn't like I was in a relationship, anyway. Hell, it had been ages since I'd even been on a date. Or a not-date, even.

  Maybe I could have a word with the empath. Maybe the empath would be willing to respect my privacy and not call foul if he figured me out. At the very least, I could get a feeling for the guy before saying anything in his — or her — presence.

  "He here yet? She?" I asked casually, and opened my coffee and took a big, hot gulp. I was gonna need it.

  Chavez raised his eyebrows, almost waggling them. "In with the captain. I think he's a fag," he added conspiratorially. "Tell me what you think when you see him."

  "Shit, not while I'm drinking." I put down my coffee quickly and tried to choke back a cough. "Why would you ask me that?" I told my heartbeat to calm down.

  "Whatever, man. I thought you'd want to know everything, like the rest of us."

  "Yeah, you're all fucking busybodies." I made a shooing motion. "I'll take a peek when I get the chance. Not gonna follow him around or something."

  "Whatever, man." Chavez raised his hands and moved away, off to gossip with someone else.

  Shit. I was usually pretty cool, but he'd freaked me out, and I couldn't banter with him or shoot the shit right now. I was clearly in a mess if I couldn't even talk with Chavez.

  I blotted coffee off my shirt and scowled down at it. Talk about starting off the day on the wrong foot.

  There was, as always, plenty of paperwork to tackle, so I got busy with that right away. Every once in a while, like all the other people in the room, I glanced towards the captain's door, as if our eyes were all magnetized towards that space.

  Oh, everybody who wasn't out on a case kept busy. But I'd have been willing to bet not much was actually getting done.

  Eventually, the door opened, and everybody looked. While still making workplace-appropriate noises, of course.

  And there he was now, walking next to Captain Quill, tall and slim and lithe-looking, like a college student in his slim-fit jeans and crisp, diamond-patterned blue-and-white sweater. His curly brown hair begged to be rustled and tugged, or even just cuffed affectionately. He moved with the easy grace of an athlete. But not a butch athlete; maybe a dancer.

  He seemed out of place in a room of tough men and women with their uniforms and badges, their restrained hair — neatly combed, buzzed short, or tied tightly back. They watched him hungrily.

  He matched gaits with the captain, walking quickly and close to his side. He stared straight ahead, not meeting anyone's eyes. His breath seemed a bit too rapid. He looked fucking terrified, I realized with surprise. First glance, I would've pegged him as a witness, somebody upset and scared out of his wits who would rather be anywhere else right now.

  The captain led him through without a word, and then into the back. There were interrogation rooms back there. After a few minutes, the captain returned. Looking at one another and shrugging hadn't produced any results, so everybody waited to see if the captain would say something.

  He did. He moved to the front of the room and rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "Okay, so, some ground rules," he said. "That's our new empath. Skyler Zane. He works eight hours a day, five days a week. Regular shifts unless we arrange otherwise far in advance. He doesn't come in on weekends, doesn't pull extra duty without triple pay and clearance from above, and there will be no comments about his sexual orientation." He grimaced as he added that one, as if he found it particularly distasteful.

  "There will also be no using him as a party game — and don't tell me you weren't thinking about it. His skills are for work and work only. Sitting in on interrogatio
ns, letting us know when the suspect is being truthful or disseminating. That's it. No field work."

  He glared a little more. "I've been informed that if we burn him out by making him work longer hours, or call him in at any random time of day or night, or fuck around with him in some other way, we'll lose him. They'll take him right back and give him to another precinct that'll appreciate him. There are still plenty out there who haven't had a shot at any empath at all.

  "So this isn't me being a hard ass, and it isn't him being a prima donna. They have rules in place for a reason. These guys are sensitive as fuck. The first few times precincts used them as free-for-all magic tricks, walking, talking divination truth machines, they fucked them up pretty bad. We're talking burnouts and worse. So you go through me. Every request.

  "And if it's a long interrogation, he'll have to take regular breaks. Hostility fucks with his abilities, or some such shit. Anyway, we don't want to lose him, so wear kid gloves, and maybe we can all clear up a bunch of cases together."

  He clapped his hands. "Okay! Now, don't you kids have any work to do? Because I sure as fuck do!" And back he lumbered, with a pit stop at the coffee machine first.

  Once in a while, the captain liked to actually fetch his own damned coffee. It reminded him of how the masses lived.

  He paused just before his door. "Oh, and Hunter? My office."

  #

  My anxiety level spiked dramatically. I forced myself to move slowly, casually. I was freaking out on the inside, though.

  What the fuck? The kid's supposed to be a Four. A Four! What does he know? Or is this something else? Why did Quill sound so casual?

  Such thoughts occupied me till I was standing in front of the captain's desk, door closed, and facing down what might just be my doom. Or something like it.

  Nope: doom. The captain's face was far too serious for something casual.

  Quill drummed his fat fingers on his battered and scarred desk and looked up at me, regarding me thoughtfully, as if weighing me. "We have to house him," he said without preamble.

  Not what I had been expecting. Okay. Time for less panic?

  "You're on the short list. Hell, you are the short list. Till we can get him somewhere reliable to stay, and a drive to and from work every morning, I've got to put him somewhere. It can't be crowded or noisy, can't be surrounded by neighbors. Your old shit hole comes to mind, clearly."

  He gestured to me. "You any closer to getting that place fixed up? You ought to at least have a single room he could stay in." His gaze said any answer other than "yes" would not be appreciated. The captain had a way of getting his wishes. He could be a real steamroller.

  I swallowed, tried to find words. None were coming to mind. Why me? I wanted to ask, but the captain had already told me why.

  It wasn't like there were a lot of other options handy. Most of the cops at the precinct either lived in the city — close to work, in crowded apartment buildings — or had big family homes nearer the suburbs. Nobody had such a big, isolated place as I did.

  I'd bought it to fix up a few months ago. It was a good hobby and should make me decent money someday. It also meant a longer drive to work every day. But now a houseguest? I wished I'd taken up macramé.

  "Sir…"

  "Did I stutter?" The captain glared, a sure sign he was feeling insecure — but not that I was close to getting out of this.

  Anybody else. Why couldn't you have picked anybody else but me?

  "I was just going to say, he can't drive?" I raised an eyebrow in what I hoped was a casual fashion.

  "No." Quill massaged his forehead and sighed. "I ain't gonna lie. This kid is a fucking mess. He's scared out of his wits and probably not going to last out the month. But we need him. And they aren't going to give us anybody else real quick, let me tell you. I think they want us to fail."

  Being the recipient of confidences made me deeply uneasy. Sometimes things were expected of me in return. But I still found myself asking, "What's wrong?"

  "What's wrong? Everything. The kid was in and out of mental hospitals for years before they figured out he was a real empath. Never graduated high school, never held down a real job, never learned to drive. Even during the testing, his scores were all over the map. He scored high on some tests, and then low the next day on the same tests! He could only reliably be rated as a Four, although I have it on good authority he's a lot higher on his better days."

  The captain looked up and met my eyes squarely, looking a little sick. "The kid tried to kill himself. More than once. He's a mess, and clearly doesn't trust his own skills. We can count on him for the truth tests, but anything else? He'll crap out on us. If we push him too hard with stress, he'll break down. If we lose him, we won't get another shot for years. And I'm not putting him in some apartment where he'll decide it's time to end things because the neighbors are too angry and it's getting to him. Take him home and be fucking nice to him. Wipe his nose for him if you have to — just get him here to work and drive him home, and don't yell at him, for pity's sake. Kid looked like he wanted to jump out of his own skin when I tried to talk to him. And I just asked questions. I didn't bully him." He scowled harder.

  I suppressed a smile. The captain seemed hurt; didn't he realize how intimidating he could be?

  Captain Quill rubbed his head again, grimacing. "And here's the worst thing. As soon as he got out of the mental institutions for the last time and off his anti-psychotics, he apparently hooked up right away with an abusive boyfriend." He made a grimace of distaste. "The last time he was hospitalized because of the guy, he asked for help. The cops got him away from his abuser, and once they figured out he was not just a real empath but a good one, got him into the certification program. The ESRB coddled the hell out of him to get him through it. The kid is a mess." He shook his head. "Just … help get him through these first couple of weeks, and see if we've got a shot at making this work."

  "Yes, sir." I cleared my throat. "Ah, captain, if he's that much of a mess about angry neighbors, how will he handle sitting through hostile interrogations?"

  The captain shrugged helplessly. "That's up to us — find a way to make it work."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Now I'll take you to meet him. Laura Johnston is showing him around. Soon as she's done, you're off for home. Help him settle in and treat him really nice. If you're the reason he ends up icing out, I won't be happy — even if he's already a fucked-up mess. Believe me, if you're the straw that breaks the camel's back, you can kiss any hope of promotion goodbye, and plan on spending a looong time on the shit list. Maybe decades."

  He poked a finger at me. I no longer felt the need to suppress a smile. No smiles from me. "I get it, boss. You had me at suicide attempts and abusive boyfriend. He can't take much. I'll look after him."

  "You'd better," said the captain. "This kid is such a mess, I'm surprised he manages to wipe his own ass in the mornings."

  #

  Despite my own fears of being outed, I was feeling strangely optimistic about things as I went to meet the empath. Laura Johnston was showing him the break room when I found them.

  "Hi," I said. "I'm Neil Hunter. You can call me Hunt. The captain said you'll be staying with me for now." I plastered a smile on my face, the one most likely to put somebody at ease — not my shit-eating fierce grin, or my shark grin, or my interrogation smile. The nice one. Not quite the one I'd use on a prospective date but nicer than I'd use on just anybody.

  Johnston looked startled and offended. "You're staying with Hunt?"

  The empath nodded a little, looking slightly unnerved.

  I held out a hand, pointedly ignoring her. The empath went ahead and shook my hand tentatively. So gay. Even had a limp wrist. He was clearly too overwhelmed to even try to butch it up for the police station. I found myself relaxing a little. This guy was not looking to out anybody, or cause any trouble for anyone, or do anything but just disappear as soon as possible.

  I lounged against the wall, looking
casual and chill. "So the captain said I can take you back, show you around, then get you settled in at my place, soon as you're done here."

  Skyler Zane cast Laura Johnston a quick, uncertain look.

  She made a face and then shooed us off. "Go ahead. You've seen enough for now. Hey, if he treats you like shit, you call me. I'll kick his ass for you."

  Skyler cracked a tiny smile. "Thanks," he said in a soft little voice.

  You are a cutie, aren't you? I thought in spite of myself.

  The kid was slim and pretty and fit and graceful. If he was less of a mess, he'd be a real catch for somebody. Hell, maybe he still was. I tried to hold back on the judgment as I led him out to my car, keeping a pace that didn't rush him.

  "I'm curious. How old are you?" I asked, and then wished I hadn't.

  Skyler jumped, looking twitchy. "Um … twenty-seven." He kept scanning the hallway as we walked, as if terrified of being surprised by the sudden appearance of people … or even zombies. He was clearly scoring high on the anxiety scale right now, possibly close to panic attack levels.

  We grabbed his luggage from the locker room. There wasn't much, just a couple of bags.

  I felt fairly calm, which surprised me. I'd expected to be freaking out, but I wasn't. This guy was just not somebody you could be frightened by. Mice probably waggled their little asses to taunt Skyler instead of running to hide from him in the shadows.

  "Have you eaten? I'll stop and get us something. Or coffee. You want coffee?" I offered as we got into my car. It might be a delicate situation, but I still had a day off unexpectedly and was suddenly feeling good about it.

  "Um…" Skyler looked lost and panicky at the question. He seemed to be scanning possible responses. "Yes?"

  I smiled at him, purposefully easing my body language to look calm and relaxed, to not pressure the kid. After all, Skyler didn't know me yet, and I could look a little intimidating, like all cops.