Now, he was using the bathroom as a place he could vomit where no one would hear him.

He washed his face when he’d finally stopped heaving, then rinsed out his mouth four times. Afterward, he went into the bed, stripping off his clothes as he moved, and collapsed on top of the covers totally naked.

He was so hot.

He just wanted to sleep.

He just wanted to sleep.

“You did this to yourself, Liu Xiaokai,” he whispered to himself, the words muffled against the pillow. “All of this was because of you.”

He was almost comforted, saying it out loud like that.

He wanted to sleep, but at least he was feeling something. The headaches and the nausea and the fatigue that seemed to drag at all his limbs at every waking moment made everything terrible and miserable, but at least he was feeling something. At least he could react to something other than the appointments, other than Xingyu, other than Bai Xue. At least this was under his control.

Xiaokai squeezed his eyes shut.

Chen Jun could call him whenever he wanted, fuck out his worries, let himself get lost in the distractions. But Xiaokai—even if Xiaokai wanted to order someone in the same manner from the List, take advantage of his resources for once, he knew that it wouldn’t be the same. No-strings-attached sex wasn’t as liberating as it was for someone like Chen Jun. Sex wasn’t something he could get lost in. Sex was something that would pull him right back into the things that he didn’t want to remember. Back into the lessons. Back to when he was sixteen.

If he found someone who could make him actually forget, maybe that would work. Maybe that would make him tired enough that he actually slept. Maybe…

Xiaokai rolled out of the bed, stumbled to the bathroom, and vomited again.

13

THE JOB

“YOU DON’T THINK it’s weird that he hasn’t contacted you at all?” Weiran, cross-legged on the bed, was making a valiant effort to sort through the clothes he’d shoved haphazardly into his suitcase. He wasn’t going to hang them up, but he was at the very least going to fold and organize them in his suitcase. Xingyu was in that terrible five-two-zero hotel room with him and had made himself comfortable in the extra chair, but he’d hardly looked at Weiran and was instead keeping all of his attention on the cellphone he had balanced on one leg. He made a face at the question.

“Well, it bothers me, but not in the way that you’re implying. I don’t think he’s betrayed us. We would have heard something by now—hell, we’d be dead by now.”

“That would make him happy,” Weiran mumbled, and that actually made Xingyu look up.

“Don’t say that.” His facial expression didn’t seem very upset, but his words were sharp.