Chapter 13
Ares
The briefing runs seven minutes over because Nixie has strong opinions on the new paintball course and people have been fighting over it.
I stand at the back of the tent and wait.
Kayla is outside and has been given a staff wristband—it was my idea, and Nixie agreed since she is here so often.
It keeps her from getting confused as a guest and being made to leave if none of us are with her.
Once Nixie wraps up, I spin and am almost out of the tent when Luca steps in front of me.
“You don’t like me.”
It’s not a question when he already knows the answer. I know how he operates, yet even now he asks a simple question as if it were casual conversation. Luca moves to the side, and I turn to keep Kayla in my periphery.
“I don’t know you,” I reply.
“No, but you have already made up your mind,” he says in a warm tone. He isn’t accusing me of anything, or at least his voice does not suggest it.
“I haven’t decided anything yet.”
He smiles and I know the tactic well, as I do the same. It makes the other person feel like they have said something worthwhile, and I know exactly how much work goes into making it look effortless.
“Fair enough,” he answers.
He follows my gaze to where Kayla is standing outside under a string of lights. She has her arms crossed and is looking toward something I can’t see from here.
“Is she a guest?” Luca asks.
“No,” I reply.
“So she is staff. I haven’t met her yet.”
“She is none of your concern.”
His facade drops for a split second and I see it. Fucking hell, I played right into that one and he knows it. He nods and looks back at Kayla.
“Is she here with someone?”
“She is.”
“With him?”
I follow his line of sight and see that Vero has appeared at her side, and she is laughing at something he is saying. Luca is watching the two of them, and his jaw clenches subtly. I make a note of that. Why would he have a reaction to a woman he has never met?
“Among others,” I remark, needing to see his reaction—now he is playing right into my hands.
“Others? As in there’s more than one?”
“More than enough,” I say lightheartedly.
He smiles at that, his mask back in place. “She must be something.”
I look at him and laugh, not because he is funny, but it plays into what he is feeding me. To make him think I have fallen into his web.
“It’s not a wise idea to go near her,” I tell him.
“No?”
“You see Vero, the one next to her?” I gesture toward him, where he has now started braiding her hair.
“He smashed up an entire bar because he thought someone was looking at her. He put men on their asses, yet he is not even the one you should be most concerned about. She has surrounded herself with monsters, so I suggest you keep your eyes to yourself.”
Luca stares at Vero for a moment, then looks back at me, and something close to anger flickers across his face. Ah, now I have caught it a second time.
“Good to know,” he says.
“It’s time to get ready for the gates to open. Nixie hates it when we are late.”
He looks once more in Kayla’s direction. “I better get going, good talk.”
He walks away, and I watch him until he rounds the corner, heading in the opposite direction from where Kayla and Vero are standing.
I need to find Clay when I get a chance and warn him that we need to keep an eye on Luca.
Something moves in my gut, and I catalog it the way I do everything else.
It’s not jealousy—I know that much.
But Luca is a variable I haven’t accounted for, and I don’t like unaccounted variables.
Luca and I being alike raised my hackles, but there are key differences between us. Charm as a personality trait versus charm as a tactic. His actions are determined by his underlying goal, and since I do not know his goal yet, I don’t like that.
I’m now aware he has Kayla in his sights, but I just need to figure out why. Though he wasn’t surprised when I warned him away from her. It could be as simple as someone else has already done it.
I walk toward them, and Kayla looks over at me. “I was starting to think Nixie would never let you leave.”
“It felt that way.”
“I escaped easily,” Vero announces. “Shit, I have to go, but I will come and find you soon. Have fun.”
He leans in and presses a kiss on her lips. This is something that has been happening since the other day when Clay showed PDA, which was so unlike him, and now Vero has followed suit.
Kayla falls into step with me as we walk along the path.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“I want to show you something. But it’s going to be dark.”
Kayla glances at me. “Is this where I find out you’re really the most dangerous one and are luring me somewhere to kill me?”
“That depends on your definition of dangerous.”
She smiles at that and holds out her arm. “Lead the way then.”
Strolling off the main path, I lead her along the side of the circus tent and down past the cemetery to where a low stone wall had been built when the cemetery was first laid out. Here you can see almost the entire island at once.
I lean against it and watch as she climbs on top.
“I didn’t know this was here,” she calls down.
“Most of the workers don’t either. No one really comes back here.”
“How did you find it?”
“I built the tracking systems, so I needed to do a full scope of the island. I found this along the way.”
She jumps down beside me and leans her back against the wall. “Do you come here a lot?”
“Only when I need to think.”
She turns to face me. “And what do you think about?”
I pause. She is waiting for something real, and I know exactly how much I need to give her. Enough that it feels like honesty, but not enough to matter. “Nothing in particular.”
Noa walks past the cemetery border and gives me a nod. They are the only other person I have ever seen come around this side.
“Vero mentioned that you never do chases anymore. Well, besides the times with me.”
“I don’t.”
She glances up at me, and I hesitate. Genuine is not a mode I operate in, and I’m aware that is what she is waiting for.
“Why?”
I shrug. “They stopped being appealing. Running the systems interests me more than participating. Watching how people behave when they think they can let loose and escape from their normal lives tells me more than I can get from any chase.”
“You know what they say about people who watch others when they don’t know.”
I laugh. Kayla is calling me a stalker.
“It’s not stalking—it’s observing.”
She scoffs. “And what is the difference, smarty-pants?”
“Watching is only surface level. Observing is selective, deeper.”
“And what are you looking for when you observe exactly?”
I hold her gaze. “Whatever they are trying to hide.”
She doesn’t look away, and the corners of her mouth tilt up. “And what am I trying to hide?”
“I don’t know yet,” I say, which isn’t entirely true. “You’re harder to read than most people.”
“Is that a compliment from the almighty Ares?”
“Just an observation.”
She smiles as she looks back out across the cemetery. “The night you pulled me out of the grave . . . you didn’t step in straight away.” My jaw tightens, but I don’t confirm or deny it. “You waited until the last possible second.”
“You were fine and didn’t need me.”
“I know I was fine—that isn’t what I’m saying. You waited on purpose, and I want to know why.”
This is the thing about Kayla that unsettles me—she notices a lot more than she lets on. “I wanted you to need me—it’s what I do. I create moments where I am needed. It’s an instinct. I am aware it’s not a good thing for other people, but I would have to actually care for that to affect me.”
She stays quiet, possibly shocked that I am giving her my truth. Yet she needs to learn this from me and not anyone else, since they all seem to fucking know it though only recently let it slip.
“So what you are saying is, you don’t care about me at all. You care about what I need from you.”
I shrug. “It’s not that simple, and I do it for everyone, not just you.”
“So you feel nothing for me at all?”
“I don’t know. And that’s the first time I have not known something about myself in a very long time.”
She looks at me, studying my face. “I don’t understand why feelings and needing people to need you can’t be separate.”
I don’t know how to explain this to her, so I stay silent.
“Let me ask you this,” she finally says. “If someone hurt Vero, Clay, or Brawley, how would you react?”
“I would fucking kill them,” I snap.
“See? You care.”
“No, Kayla, they fucking need me and no one gets to touch them. I have worked hard for years for us to get where we are. To be in control of when they need me and how. And someone else doesn’t get to ruin that for me.
You don’t realize that killing them isn’t about revenge for me—it’s about the outcome.
I would get to be the hero, and I would manipulate that in a way to benefit me. ”
“Okay.”
I open my mouth and snap it shut.
What the hell does okay mean? I came to the conclusion that telling her would work in my favor—it would gain her trust, since she has not been as easy as I anticipated. “When people find out the truth, they normally have a lot to say.”
“I’m not most people,” Kayla replies with a shrug.
“No, you’re not,” I agree.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“You would have figured it out eventually.”
“Maybe, but you telling me yourself means a lot to me.”
I don’t answer because now she knows, and what she does with that information is up to her. I can’t keep trying to change who I am, or how I operate. Besides, I need to know how she ticks, and how I can use that, but she has just thrown me another curveball.
“Come on, let’s look at the view.”