Chapter Twenty-Five Taissa #2
“Whoever it is,” Taissa says, blinking her eyes to clear her head, “knows their way around the Nexitory. Are we sure Knox isn’t playing a prank or something?”
“I’m pretty fucking sure.” His accent is thick, a sure sign of his agitation.
He presses Send on the email with a vehement finger.
“If it were Knox, he wouldn’t steal your stuff.
He’d, I don’t know, plaster unflattering photos of your face on all of Lantern Street’s lampposts, or replace your shampoo with hair-removing cream—he’s done both to óríon.
But you’re right. Whoever it is knows their way around.
And maybe, yeah, it’s connected to the curse.
” When he looks at her, his black eyes are somehow even darker than usual.
“Too much weird shit has been happening around here. I don’t like it. ”
On the telly, one of the winged bears—a rarin—roars in fury, its muzzle pulling back to expose sharp yellowed teeth. Taissa has never envied rarin riders: The bears are just as likely to attack their own as their opponents.
Taissa regards Kion quietly. He’s worried about her. Her throat suddenly feels tight.
Things are changing between them. She can tell. It’s like watching streaks of brilliant orange and red smear across a pale blue sky. She and he, they’re finding their own sunset. A truce.
Or something more.
Is it too much to hope for friendship?
When she tentatively reaches out a hand to touch his shoulder, he doesn’t shrug her off like she had feared. Instead, he turns his head toward her, relaxing infinitesimally. A black lock of hair falls into his eyes. “I’m okay,” she tells him. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, yeah?”
His mouth twitches. “I’ll do what I please with my knickers, Cho.”
“So would I”—she scowls, unable to tamp a sudden surge of resentment—“but I don’t have any.”
Locke goes all tight again. “I’ll change that,” he mutters, or something like it.
She can’t be sure. Before she can ask what he’s said, he’s turning back to the game and scoffing as he points to the one of the Rarins’ Robbers.
“He shouldn’t have broken from the Echelon Position. He’s too big of a target on his own.”
Raising her brows, Taissa watches the players streak by on the screen. “They shouldn’t have been in Echelon to begin with. Look at the defense. They were clearly anticipating it. Should have gone for the Bait and Switch. Or Gemini, with the Bailer flying solo underneath.”
He grunts in agreement as Taissa opens her phone, intent on looking up the location of Púca Púca LLC.
Surely, they have a Pinion location. Their advertisements immediately flood her screen, and scrolling down, she looks dubiously at the little office building on Lantern Street, tucked behind Glossy Glamour.
With its pristine white paint and cheery Come In sign, it looks…
Well, it looks like the very definition of a front.
As in, quite useless. She mutters as much to Kion, showing him the photograph before scowling back down at her phone.
Where, she thinks, is their true home base?
The aethernet seems just as puzzled as she.
“Ah, come on,” snaps Kion in frustration, waving his hand at the screen. “Look at that. Fucking horrible aileron roll.” He points to one of the Rocs’ riders. The giant, tawny bird is faltering with every rotation.
“They didn’t have enough momentum. A wingover would have been easier.” Taissa frowns, exiting the image of the innocuous-looking office and dialing Vance’s number again. It goes to voicemail.
“Who’s that?” Kion asks, cocking a brow.
“Vance is still ignoring my calls,” she tells him, only to turn back to the telly in disgust. An NCL Roc has just broken another player’s arm, slamming into her at a terrible angle, sending her rarin to the ground.
Even though the player’s clearly wounded beyond playing capacity, the other stabs her in the side with a dagger anyway, and flies away without a care as the medics hurry across the field.
“What the hells?” Taissa demands, half rising from the sofa. “She was already down for the count!”
“I think those players were exes. Carriwitchet can get personal,” Kion grumbles, and then there’s an awkward pause.
Taissa keeps her eyes glued on the screen as her wrist bone throbs in memory.
Kion hesitates. “Cho. You know I didn’t mean to break your wrist that time, right?”
She clears her throat. “Yeah.”
He’s peering at her, but she refuses to look at him. Some things don’t need to be reminisced about. “Because last time we talked about it, you said you didn’t believe me.”
Right. Because she hadn’t.
“It’s fine, Locke,” she says as smoothly as she can manage. “We both tried to make each other’s lives living hells back then. Remember when I stole into your locker room and cut holes in your uniform?” Around the buttock area, specifically.
She hears him exhale in frustration. “No—I mean—”
Wide-eyed, Taissa peers over at him. She’s never heard Locke so lost for words. His mouth is moving ever so slightly, like he’s trying to find the right words to say.
“All I was trying to do was knock the draconian jewel from your hands, but I shouldn’t have left position, anyway.
Fuck, Cho, I got carried away, and grabbed your wrist instead.
Cato jerked left to avoid one of your incoming Dozers.
My hand jerked with it, and”—Kion swallows hard—“I heard it. The snap. I flew down with you, to the medic. Do you remember that?”
…No. She didn’t. Taissa blinks.
“What I’m trying to say,” Kion says, staring intently at her face, as if memorizing every detail, “is I’m sorry. Really fucking sorry. And I should have said it from the start, but you looked at me like you would skin me alive if I did.”
True. She had been heartbroken, betrayed, and intricately planning his immediate demise. It involved bashing him over the head with one of the life-sized cutouts of him in the audience and then drawing four Pixie Pox glyphs onto him.
“I decided to wait. But then during the press conference, you—”
“—talked shite,” Taissa concludes, grimacing. She remembers that.
“You had a right to it,” Locke admits, eyes dimming. “But I was angry. And then the next week…”
Their rivalry had begun in full. Hurt and humiliated, she’d embarked on a slander-smear campaign of epic proportions (she’s never claimed to be a saint). And Kion had retaliated.
“I couldn’t believe you thought I’d done it on purpose,” Kion mutters now. “But it makes sense. I shouldn’t have fucking left position to chase you down—”
“That wasn’t it.” Her throat is suddenly swollen. She tastes salt at the back of her throat. “Locke,” she says, voice tight, “do you really not remember the first time we met? When I came up to you, at the gala?”
She traces the angles of his face with her eyes as the faint lines around his mouth tighten. “I’ve been trying. Ever since you said I called you a muppet.”
“And?” she whispers.
“And…” His throat bobs. “It…it’s not always as dramatic as in your cottage. Sometimes I just black out. During. Only it’s hard to tell. I look present. But I’m not. Body’s running on fucking autopilot or something.”
“During…” Taissa’s eyes widen as she realizes.
“For a few minutes, nothing more. James has told me that I get…” He shrugs, looking stiff. “That I’m not that pleasant to be around. I say things. Worse things than what I usually say. Even though that sounds impossible.”
Kion’s not looking at her now. He’s staring at the television, fists clenched at his sides.
“I remember that gala,” he rasps. “I remember there was the sound of breaking glass. A server must have dropped something. I wasn’t expecting it, the noise, and—Well.
That’s the last thing I remember before I saw someone walking away.
I remember that I couldn’t see her face.
But that, somehow, I knew she was beautiful.
” Taissa holds her breath as he closes his eyes.
“The girl in a blue and white dress. That was you. Wasn’t it? ”
Breaking glass.
Taissa trembles. Yes. There had been that awful shattering as she’d made her way to him. She’d barely heard it, so focused was she on reaching him. She hadn’t known…
Kion looks at her, and his eyes are as broken as the glass glittering on the ballroom floor. The emotion in them grows more jagged as he sees the confirmation on her face.
“I never understood,” he finally mumbles. “I never fucking understood why you hated me. But I get it now, Cho. And I’m sorry.” Locke seems to curl in on himself, staring down at a spot on the floor. Armor-less. He’s as vulnerable as she’s ever seen him.
She could hurt him now. Drive the dagger into his heart. Leave him bleeding in remorse.
(What a bitch thing to do that would be.)
Maybe once, she might have relished the opportunity. She might have clung to the photograph of her crying behind a skip and pierced his heart as best he could.
Now it makes her sick.
All these years, and they haven’t really known each other.
Not at all.
Here, taking his hand in hers, and squeezing his calloused palm…
It’s like they’re meeting for the very first time.
Her heart beats faster and faster, until it’s pounding in her chest like it had the night of the gala, the night she’d misjudged him so selfishly.
She’d been young and stupid, unable to realize that this cherished idol of hers was really just a man: a man who owed her nothing, a man who she didn’t realize could be anything other than the version of him she held in her head.
“Kion,” she whispers, and his first name is so unfamiliar yet sweet on her tongue, “you don’t need to apologize to me.”
They’ve simply had a misunderstanding. Of massive proportions.
He squeezes her hand. Once, then twice. She curls his fingers around his and savors the warmth of him.
“It’s possible I was a wee bit immature.” (An understatement, perhaps.) “So I’m sorry, too. For…everything.” It’s hard to say it. Shame makes her voice shake. Quaver, just a bit.