Chapter 28
West came to slowly, and the first thing he noticed was that his hands were tied behind his back.
The second thing he noticed was Beck seated a safe distance away.
“What the actual fuck?” he growled, fighting against his bonds. There was no give at all.
They were in one of the classrooms, the tables having been moved off to the side, leaving the center of the room open and spacious. The door was shut, and Beck was perched on a stool right in front of it, as though just in case.
West’s mask had been removed, but he didn’t bother looking for it, keeping his eyes locked on the man whom he’d once called a friend. A range of emotions rushed through him, and he struggled to get a handle on any of them, glaring daggers while the silence stretched on.
Beck was dressed in a dark suit with navy glitter woven through the threads. There was a mask on a nearby table, but West couldn’t get a good look at it, all he knew was it wasn’t the one June had made for him, so must belong to the professor.
“Untie me,” West demanded when the quiet got too much for him.
“I will,” Beck surprised him by saying. “Once you calm down.”
“I’m fucking calm!”
“I’m sorry, it couldn’t be helped. Your father was just here. I needed to show him I can handle you.”
“Screw you, Beck! I trusted you!”
“That’s not…” He pressed against his temple and blew out a breath. “Hear me out. Please?”
“Whatever you have to say, you can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. I want nothing to do with you.” West pulled pointedly on his bindings, shaking the chair he was tied to. “If you think doing something like this is going to convince me to give you a chance, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Beck’s expression twisted into one of disgust. “Obviously. I could never hope to subdue you indefinitely.”
“So what then? Going to give me more threats?”
“I’m not the enemy here, West.”
“No, you just let the enemy do whatever they please and keep it to yourself. You knew what Juri and Branwen were doing with Yejun, yet you said nothing!”
Beck got to his feet, but the look of genuine remorse on his face only infuriated West even more.
“I’m warning you,” West growled. “Don’t pretend like you give a shit now.”
“But I do,” Beck told him. “I regret being selfish and not telling you both the moment I found out. If I’d known about the poison…I would never allow anyone to hurt you.”
“Just June.”
“I thought it was a sedative! Harmless. A bad prank. Think of it from my perspective. Given the information I had, the ones who were in actual danger were Juri and Branwen, for thinking they could pull one on you guys long enough to get away with it.”
He had a point. Considering they’d grown up witnessing Demons and their dirty work, and West’s group had been labeled time and time again the worst of the worst, it was a fair assessment to make. If they’d caught Branwen or Juri sooner, no one would have had the chance to poison him.
West or Yejun would have snapped his neck long before then.
“That doesn’t give you a pass,” he said, despite his thoughts. Because, sure, maybe they would have done something, but maybe they wouldn’t have. Yejun had let her go in the end, hadn’t he? Basically unscathed.
“As soon as I heard you’d been poisoned, I rushed to my father’s house to search for clues. I was planning on turning him in.”
“He shot me in broad daylight. There was already more than enough to have him arrested.”
“Yes, but once everyone learned it wasn’t his first attempt on your life?” Beck said. “That would have been it for him. No one would be able to talk on his behalf after that.”
“Did you murder Juri?” It’d been on his mind since learning about Beck’s involvement. “Is that what happened? Did you find some of the poison at Hendrix’s house and use it to shut Juri up?” His father had been on the run at the time, so there was no way Hendrix had done it himself.
“I’ve never poisoned anyone in my life,” Beck swore. “You have to believe me.”
“No, I really don’t think I do.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever drugged anyone, and I didn’t have a choice.”
“You didn’t have a choice but to knock me out and tie me up?”
“Exactly.”
West stared at him, waiting for a punchline that never came. Then he sighed. “Beck, let’s not do this, okay? Untie me.”
“You’re not listening.”
“I’m listening, it’s just you’re not making much sense.”
“I told you I went looking for proof against my father.”
“Yeah. And?”
“And it’s not my father who’s the culprit.”
West went rigid, a sense of foreboding pooling in his gut. “What?”
“I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find a thing. And you know I’m skilled. I was able to wipe records from Enigma without you even noticing.”
“I kind of noticed.”
“You couldn’t trace it back to me though.”
The signature West had been looking for, the one he’d lied about in the beginning and told Nix was that of the hacker…
He hadn’t been entirely dishonest. Whoever had removed the logs had left something behind, and he’d been searching for signs of them ever since with no luck.
Even Nix’s attempts had proven fruitless.
Probably because Beck wasn’t a known hacker. Hell, up until now, West hadn’t even known he was that capable with computers at all.
“Everything happened so fast, but I know I did a thorough search. There was nothing, not even a sign of that partial email we found on Dew’s computer. The one made to look like a bakery order?”
“Dew, the student you were secretly fucking?”
“How did you…Nix.”
“Don’t talk about him.”
“When?” Beck frowned, but then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter right now. Can we please stay focused for a moment?”
“Rich, coming from you.”
“West, this is serious.”
“No shit.”
“I was trying to come up with a way to tell you, but doing so meant exposing the fact that I knew, and I was afraid you would never forgive me if you found out.”
“Good guess. I won’t.”
“That’s why I had to have something , a peace offering of sorts, something to prove my sincerity,” Beck continued as though West hadn’t spoken.
“My father is many things, but no one would ever mistake him for a genius. I was baffled when I couldn’t find anything, believed I simply wasn’t looking in the right places.
He was on the run, so I couldn’t confront him either. But then Juri died.”
West frowned. “From the same poison given to me.”
“A much stronger dose, meant to be lethal right away.”
“How do you know that?” His eyes narrowed. “Did you pay off the coroner?”
“Not at first. Yejun was bereft because of whatever was going on between him and Nix. I stepped in for him at the hospital. The point is, his death helped narrow down the search. It couldn’t have been my father, and it certainly wasn’t me—”
“Why not?” West interrupted. “How can you expect me to believe that?”
“I’ve never shown any personal interest in Juri Ferd. When would I even have had the opportunity to dose him?”
“The Night of the Nightshade? You stepped in.”
Beck scowled. “I did that because you were about to volunteer yourself. Don’t deny it. I saw the look on your face. You were about to bed Juri Ferd for Nix.”
That night, Hendrix had stepped forward, mostly to get on all of their nerves.
Nix hadn’t liked it, had been worried for his friend, and West had wanted to help ease his mind.
He never would have slept with Juri, but making Juri give himself a hand job on camera, just enough to satisfy the terms of the Order? Yeah, he’d been willing.
Nix had thrown up on the way there and was practically jumping out of his skin every other minute. He’d been in a delicate state. West would have done anything for him to relieve some of that anxiety.
Would do anything for him in the future.
“You’re saying you got jealous?” West hated to admit it but…he was starting to buy into the story.
“I’m telling you I did it so you wouldn’t have to. No other reason but.”
“And the missing page?” That came to mind suddenly, and since he was insisting they talk things out, West figured he may as well put it all on the table. “Yejun said he got the paperwork for Nix’s membership from you.”
Beck dropped his gaze, appearing sheepish for the first time.
“I…knew it was foolish. I thought maybe if I stalled a little and left your page out, I could gather the courage to confess to you before it was too late. I was going to bring it to your match the next day, use giving it to you as an excuse, and then tell you how I feel.”
“It was already too late by then.”
“I know.”
West didn’t owe him anything, and yet he found himself feeling a bit sorry for him.
“Maybe if you’d come to me about this years ago—and that’s a big maybe—things might have been different, but the second Nix appeared in my life, it was game over for me.
No one stood a chance against him. Not me, and certainly not you. ”
Beck gave him a sad smile. “I know.”
“Why’d you make me think you had a thing for June?”
“When you asked me about that, I panicked. Then it was too late to take it back without making it obvious why, so…I just let you keep believing it. After Yejun learned the truth, it was even more important that I have a backup plan. I just didn’t want to lose you.
I knew I’d never confess, and I didn’t want to lose our friendship, so I leaned into it, just in case. ”
In case Yejun ever got nosy and told West that he thought Beck liked him.
“You do recall you’re the oldest one here, right? You’re supposed to set a good example,” West said.
“What can I say? Love makes fools of us all.” He cleared his throat. “But I digress. This isn’t why I brought you here tonight.”
“It isn’t?”
“Juri’s death made me realize there was only one other person close enough to you who could pull this off.” Beck held his gaze. “Your father.”
West didn’t know what to say, but fortunately for them both, Beck must have anticipated that, because he barreled on.