CHAPTER SIX
I practically collapsed onto my bed that night. My hair was still wet and tangled, and my skin chilled from the shower. I had barely made it into my nightgown.
After riding the bicycle across town, then back again, plus over five hours of leafing through book after book after book, I was spent. Every part of me ached.
Literally every part of me, thanks to the bicycle seat.
For the first time in weeks, my mind was pleasantly quiet, too tired to even form a thought. I savored the feeling, snuggling deeper into my pillow and pulling the blankets up to my nose. The warm fuzziness of sleep began to drift over me, like a leaf floating slowly downward from a branch.
A knock sounded at the door.
Not my front door. The balcony door.
I catapulted out of bed and jerked the door open.
There they were.
I couldn’t stop myself from flinging myself at them, wrapping them both in a giant hug. Nya grunted in surprise. Kieran just laughed, and a comforting warmth enveloped my back as he snaked his arm around me.
“As much as I’m enjoying this,” Nya said dryly. “I think we’d better get inside before someone spots us.”
She was right—if Brielle could sometimes hear me out there by myself, surely she or someone else would hear us now. I let go of the two of them and stepped aside so they could enter.
Nya strode in, making for the chair at my desk.
Kieran lingered on the balcony. His eyes were alight with that amusement that seemed an almost permanent fixture on his face. But there was something else, too. His eyes flicked down my body, then back up to meet my gaze.
Was he that bold? He wasn’t even going to hide the fact that he was checking me out?
Then it hit me.
I spun on my heel and brushed past Nya to my closet.
I found a cotton jacket and yanked it down so hard that the hanger flipped around and fell off the rod.
Then I tossed aside my wet hair, pulled my arms into the sleeves, and zipped it as high as it would go, concealing where the thin fabric of my nightgown, soaked from my hair, clung to my skin.
More specifically, clung to my breasts. As Kieran had already observed.
He was shutting the door behind him when I reemerged. His mouth was tilted upward in that same smirk, but it transformed into a self-satisfied grin at the sight of my jacket.
“Don’t cover up for my sake.” He kicked off his shoes and laid back on my unmade bed.
“Cover up for mine,” Nya muttered. “Or let me step outside for five minutes so you two can bang one out and get it out of your system.”
Kieran sputtered out a laugh. “Five minutes?”
Nya batted her eyelashes. “Sorry, you’re right. Two minutes.”
“Wow,” Kieran laughed, propping my pillows behind his head. “Nya, you’re a terrible wingman.”
Nya jabbed a finger in his direction. “See, that was your first mistake. Thinking I’m your wingman.”
My head swiveled back and forth as I listened to their banter. The words were on the tip of my tongue, and pride be damned, I was going to voice them.
“I’m so glad you’re both alive.”
They had to have known that I felt that way, considering the bear hug I had sprung on the both of them. But the emotion in my voice had them gaping slightly.
Nya broke the silence first. “You never had to worry about me. This one, on the other hand…” She gestured to Kieran, then shook her head.
“I said it once, and I’ll say it again: if someone hadn’t distracted the cave devils when Cecil tripped over that rock, we would all be dead.
” Kieran stretched and yawned. He closed his eyes.
“You all can joke all you want about my little game of tag, but they never caught me, and you all survived. Really, I’m kind of a hero. ”
Nya rolled her eyes. “You’re delusional, is what you are.”
I thought about settling into the same spot as last time, on the floor. Instead, with a decisive flick of my still-damp hair, I sat down on the edge of the bed.
Kieran opened one eye, assessing, then closed it again.
I tucked a foot underneath me. “How long have you all been friends?”
“What makes you think we’re friends?” Kieran sounded like he was already half asleep.
“We’ve known each other since our group found Kieran, which was…when? When you were seven, right? Which would have made me six.” Nya leaned against the back of the chair, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “When we first met, Kieran yanked on my braids. And I punched him in the face.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. Then I added, “Not that I know you two that well. But I could see that.”
“And before you ask,” Kieran muttered. “No, we’ve never been anything more than friends.”
“Ugh. Kieran, for fuck’s sake.” Nya wrinkled her nose and feigned a shudder. “I hope she wasn’t going to ask that. It should go without saying that I’m not one of your harem.”
Kieran’s eyes flew open. Two wide, silver discs that looked vaguely…alarmed? Embarrassed? I thought he was about to fire back with something sarcastic, but instead he said simply, “I don’t have a harem.”
He and Nya exchanged one of their long looks. This time it wasn’t over something I said, at least.
“Right,” Nya said at length. She turned to address me, but her eyes were still on Kieran. “That was a joke.”
Something had shifted in the mood, but I couldn’t quite place what it was.
“You know, I don’t have leftovers from a big meal like I did last time,” I offered, eager for something to say. “But I do have some basic stuff. I can throw something together for you two.”
Nya blinked, and the strange look she had been giving Kieran was replaced with a smile. “Don’t put yourself out. We’re fine.”
“I’m not putting myself out.” I scrambled off the bed and over to my row of cabinets.
I came to the immediate realization that the few edible things I had were not actually all that edible.
Nya and Kieran may have been used to roughing it Outside, but the thought of serving them something stale was horrifying.
Like a comment on their status as Strangers, declaring that they didn’t deserve anything better.
The thought made my face burn.
I continued as I searched, “You’re also welcome to anything else here. You can take a cool shower if you want. Or take a nap on the bed.” Clearly, Kieran hadn’t been waiting on an invitation for that one. “Anything you want.”
Nya leaned forward, and I could hear the rustling sound that I’d come to recognize as her digging through her backpack.
I wondered what scribbly mess of a “map” she had for me this time and almost laughed out loud.
As predicted, she pulled a long, folded piece of paper out of the main pocket.
“Before we do anything else, we need to do what we came here for. Which is to get your input on another mission.”
I paused with a loaf of bread—more accurately, a brick of bread—in my hand. Suddenly, I couldn’t move. Swallow. Breathe. And for once, it had nothing to do with panic.
It was a moment of clarity, the likes of which I hadn’t had in a long time.
Maybe ever. And it felt shockingly sudden, as if my own brain had been hiding something crucial from me.
But also perfectly expected. As if I was always destined to make this decision, right now, right here, with two Strangers in my room and moldy bread in my hand.
“I’m not going to be giving you input on anything like that tonight,” I said as an eerie sense of calm settled over me.
There was a stirring from the bed. I knew Kieran was sitting up now at full attention.
Nya was still holding the map in midair. “What are you saying?”
I set down the bread. Then I walked out into the bedroom, facing them fully.
Nya’s expression was wary.
Kieran’s eyes were twinkling, as if he found this turn of events entertaining.
“I’m saying,” I started, gathering some courage before I continued. “That I’m not giving you advice or input or whatever you want to call it. At least not here, not tonight. Because whatever you’re facing this time, I’m going with you. Outside.”
I sat on the concrete floor of my balcony, knees tucked under my chin, arms wrapped around my legs.
Obviously, this was my go-to spot to clear my head after nightmares.
But the nightmares always seemed to come in the morning, right before waking, when the first rays of sun were lightening the sky.
There was something novel about being out here at night, when the city below was just a mass of shadowy shapes.
Beside me was my usual book bag. But instead of my notebook and other items that I needed for work, it contained a toothbrush and several changes of clothes.
Three nights ago, I had announced that I was sneaking out of the city with Nya and Kieran.
And three nights ago, Nya had been adamant that there was absolutely, positively, no way that I was going anywhere with them.
Much less to face this latest challenge, which she insisted would be the riskiest of all—taking down a beast that they referred to as “Leviathan,” after the biblical creature that was both sea serpent and demon.
The name didn’t sound familiar, but their description of it did.
I found it in Cato’s index under “sea monster.”
“You’ll be a liability,” Nya had spat as she paced circles around my room. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”
Kieran had made a noise of disagreement in his throat. “Wasn’t it, though? Eventually?”
They had exchanged a look yet again. And I couldn’t resist saying, “Stop communicating telepathically or whatever the hell it is you two do when you look at each other like that. I want to be a part of this, so let me. Please.”
“I wish we could communicate telepathically,” Nya had grumbled. “There’s a fucking lot I’d have to say.”
In the tense silence that followed, I explained that I would need time to research the Leviathan further. This, I pointed out, gave them plenty of time to prepare for me to join them.