Chapter 6
Ares
My friends think I have a moral compass. But I don’t have morality; I have rules. I follow them because they’re logical, not because they’re right. Consent is a rule. Safety protocols are rules. I don’t break those, which makes people think I’m ethical. But I’d follow any set of rules.
My morality is a performance, and I’m a talented actor.
I watched her arrive hours ago on the security monitors behind the bar, the way I watch everyone who crosses the bridge. Most people hesitate at the gate. They see the clown, read the sign, and take a step backward. Something deep inside them tells them to turn around and never come back.
Kayla didn’t hesitate, instinctively deciding she wanted to be here. She scanned the alley as she walked inside, noting the exits. I filed her heightened awareness away for safekeeping.
Vero now holds his arms wide, explaining the alley as if she didn’t walk through there hours ago.
He points out the food vendors and gift stalls, while Kayla listens attentively.
That tells me something too. She could shut him down, but instead, she encourages him.
She’s gathering information and is smart enough to know that Vero, when offered the right mix of space and attention, will give it to her.
I walk slightly behind them; it provides me with a better vantage point to read her body language.
“Okay, so during the day this is all just, you know, themed. Spooky fun, and families love it. But at night . . .” Vero spins on his heel mid-stride, walking backward to face her. “It completely transforms into a different island with totally different rules.”
“What kind of rules?” Kayla asks.
Vero’s face lights up the way it does when someone hands him exactly what he wanted.
“Okay, listen up.” He holds up a finger.
“Everyone invited after dark gets a wristband. The color of your wristband tells the staff who you belong to.” He pauses for dramatic effect.
“Some of the guys have their own color, like Clay is black, which is fitting for his soul—”
“Vero,” I caution.
He blinks at me. “What?”
“Stay on point.”
“Right, yes, the point is the wristband tells everyone on the island who your hunter is, what level you signed up for, and your level of consent. It’s a system.
Ares built most of it, actually.” He throws that last part at me without breaking stride, like he’s proud of it on my behalf.
“And the chases.” Vero stops walking entirely this time, turning to face her fully.
“Those are my favorite things to talk about. You run and we hunt you. Different people specialize in different things. I’m more psychological—I mess with your head before I even get close—but some are purely about the chase. Cornfield, cemetery, wherever.”
Kayla looks back at me. “Do you do chases?”
“Among other things,” I say. If I were truthful, I would tell her I haven’t done a chase in a long time—they stopped serving a purpose.
She holds my gaze for another beat, then turns back to Vero.
“So cryptic. He’s been like that for years, by the way.
” Vero’s voice drifts into background noise as I pay closer attention to Kayla, who is scanning everything as we pass.
To some, it would look like she is taking it all in, and she probably is, but she is also mapping exits.
Just like she did in the alley. Yet she is still not afraid, and that makes me want to know everything about her.
Clay always gives himself away; he doesn’t sneak up. His heavy boots thump and the static from his radio buzzes.
“What the fuck is she doing here?”
He speaks in his usual abrupt manner, as if the answer is already wrong, regardless of your response. He stops a few feet away, arms crossed, eyes locked on Kayla, glaring like she’s something that’s crawled onto his island without permission just to piss him off.
Vero stills and Kayla turns around slowly.
Clay’s energy doesn’t seem to register as a threat to her—it doesn’t even seem to be a mild inconvenience.
“I was invited,” Kayla answers flatly before Vero or I can answer.
“By who?” Clay demands, and Vero raises his hand with a smirk.
“By me.”
Clay’s jaw tightens and his eyes don’t move from Kayla. “You need to leave.”
“That would be rude. I haven’t finished my tour.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then you’re also aware that I have done nothing wrong,” she says, not raising her voice, something I know will piss Clay off. “So unless you’re planning to throw me off the bridge yourself, I’d save your energy.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” She looks him over once, from top to bottom, then her eyes settle back on his face. And they stay there, clearly unimpressed. “Because you’re going to have to do a lot better than a hard stare and a poor attitude.”
“You’ve got a big mouth for someone standing on my island.”
I see the exact moment she finds her opening, and her chin lifts just enough to tell me she’s going to use it.
“Your island?” She says, taking her time to look around and then back at him. “That’s funny because I was told someone else owns this place.” She tilts her head, taunting him a little more. “So what you meant to say is, it’s not your island. You work here . . . you’re just staff.”
Clay’s entire body goes rigid, and I hide a smile because I know she has cracked his armor.
“You want to be very careful,” he says quietly, which is worse than loud with Clay. I know that, and so does Vero.
Kayla apparently doesn’t care. “Or what?” she asks sweetly. “You’ll write me up? Put a note in my file?” She gestures vaguely in the direction he came. “Go patrol something. Isn’t that what security does?”
He moves before the sentence is finished, closing the distance between them until there is almost nothing left. Clay looks down at her, his jaw tight, eyes locked on hers.
It would make normal women take a step back in fear, but Kayla doesn’t even move an inch.
Beside me, Vero shifts forward, his instinct to protect her kicking in. I close my hand around his arm, and he stops to glare at me. But I want to see this; I need to see this.
Clinically speaking, it’s fascinating.
Clay uses proximity the way he uses silence—as pressure. A way of forcing the other person to flinch, back down, or blink first. It almost always works. I have watched grown men pale standing where Kayla is right now. Yet she tilts her chin up to hold his gaze.
“You’re in my personal space,” she snaps.
“Yeah,” Clay says. “I am.”
“And you think that’s going to do what, exactly?”
“I think it’s going to remind you of where you are.”
“I know exactly where I am.” Her eyes don’t waver, and she stares at him as hard as he stares at her, neither backing down.
“I’m on an island. Standing in front of a man who is angry that I even exist, for reasons that have nothing to do with anything I’ve done.
” She waits a second before she continues, “I’m still not scared of you.
You can stay in my space as long as you want—I’ve got nowhere else to be. ”
Something moves across Clay’s face that I don’t often see. It isn’t rage; it’s frustration. He stares at her for a long moment, then slowly steps back. The look he fires my way tells me silently that we will talk about this later.
The three of us watch him leave, and I release Vero’s arm.
“He was going to—” Vero starts.
“I know.”
“Then why did you grab me?”
“Because she didn’t need you to interfere.”
Vero looks at Kayla, back at me, then at Kayla again.
Kayla watches Clay carefully as he walks away, something unreadable moving behind her eyes. Then she turns back to Vero as if it never happened, that she didn’t stand nose to nose with the coldest person on this island and emerge without a single scratch, physically or mentally.
“You haven’t shown me the cemetery yet,” she says cheerily.
Vero stares at her for a moment, and a grin so wide takes over his face. “I love her.”
I don’t say anything, but I mentally take notes: she didn’t flinch or bite back harder than she needed to, and she moved on the second it was over, not needing the last word.
The cemetery sits at the back of the island, full of stone graves, overgrown paths, and crosses leaning at angles that make it look older than it is. Noa keeps it that way as part of the illusion.
“At night this whole area becomes chase territory,” Vero says, spinning slowly with his arms out, taking it all in. “It’s one of my favorite places on the island. And I work in the asylum, so that’s saying something.”
Kayla looks around the cemetery. “And you chase people through here?” she reiterates.
“Sometimes. It depends on who you belong to.” Vero waves a hand. “But listen, before we go any further, there is something you need to know.”
“Okay.”
“Brawley and I are a package deal.” He says it the same way you would state a fact, like the sky is blue. “You don’t get one without the other. It’s not a rule anyone made up—it just is what it is. I need you to know that up front because some people find out later and they get weird about it—”
“Vero,” she interrupts.
He stops and faces her. “Yeah?”
“I don’t care,” Kayla says. “I’m not here to get between whatever you two have.”
Vero stares at her for a second and then visibly relaxes.
“Okay, good.” He nods. “Because Brawley, he’s a lot. But he’s my ‘a lot,’ you know?”
A shadow falls across the cemetery entrance before Kayla can respond.
Brawley doesn’t announce himself. He’s just suddenly there, filling the gap between two headstones like he materialized out of the depths of hell.
Skull face paint surrounds dark eyes that move across the three of us, then finally land back on Vero.
He strides across the cemetery without a word or another look at Kayla.
He simply walks in a straight line to Vero, slides a hand around the back of his neck, then pulls him in and presses his lips to Vero’s.
It always fascinates me watching them, like Brawley might eat him one day.
Kayla elbows me, and I blink. She mouths, “Stop staring,” and I smile at her.
When Brawley pulls back, Vero looks slightly dazed, and Brawley’s eyes finally move to me—which tells me that display was for my benefit—and then to Kayla. He gives her a quick once-over and instantly dismisses her as a threat to Vero.
“You’re new,” he says.
“Kayla,” she says.
“I know.” He looks down at Vero, his hand still firmly on the back of Vero’s neck. “You’re done soon.” It isn’t a question.
“We’re still on the tour,” Vero says.
Brawley’s thumb moves back and forth at the base of Vero’s hairline. “I’ll find you afterward. I need to check on Vesper anyway—and make sure there are no men running out of here with spider bites.”
He looks at Kayla one more time, then at me, before turning and walking back the way he came, disappearing back between the headstones.
“I can say with absolute certainty that a two-for-one deal is a real selling point right now,” Kayla murmurs. “I wish someone would grab the back of my neck like that.”
Vero moves fast and slides a hand around the back of her neck, forcing her to look up at him. “So,” he says with a manic smile, the freaky kind he uses during one of his acts. “Are you in or out?”
Kayla holds his gaze and smiles. “In.”
“That is what I like to hear,” he says, releasing her.
“What about you, Ares? Are you in or out?” she says, turning her gaze on me. “Or are you going to follow us around when I come back and mentally take notes on me?”
She is observant, and I am curious how this will all unfold. Brawley doesn’t play well with others, and Clay won’t be pleased to know she’ll be back.
“In.”