16. malakai
malakai
Echo had the guy pinned verbally before I reached them, which meant I should have kept walking.
She stood in the hall outside the lower seminar rooms with her arms folded, expression flat, while a junior I vaguely recognized from one of the Mercer collections tried to convince her that whatever authority she thought she had disappeared the second Ronan stopped standing beside her.
He was doing badly.
“I already told you I don’t answer to you,” he said, keeping his voice low enough that the handful of students farther down the hall would have to work to hear him. “You came along on one collection because Ronan brought you. That doesn’t make you part of anything.”
Echo shifted her weight onto one boot and looked him over with enough boredom to make the color climb his neck. “Then you’ve spent an impressive amount of time explaining that to someone who doesn’t matter. You should probably go before you embarrass yourself any further.”
There was no edge in her voice yet. I knew the difference now.
When Echo was actually angry, the extra movement disappeared and her attention narrowed until whatever had pissed her off became the only thing in the room.
This was irritation, nothing more, and the man in front of her had no idea how lucky that made him.
I stopped several yards away and watched him make the mistake anyway.
He stepped closer, trying to recover whatever dignity he thought she had taken from him, while Echo stayed exactly where she was.
She had already measured him, already decided how much effort he warranted, and probably knew how she would put him on the floor if he pushed one inch farther.
“You don’t get to walk around here acting like you own people because the Kings let you sit in their lounge,” he said.
His hand came up as he spoke, reaching for her upper arm with the irritated entitlement of someone who thought physical contact would force her to stand still long enough to hear the rest.
I crossed the distance before he touched her.
My hand closed around his wrist and turned it away from Echo, putting enough pressure on the joint to wipe the expression off his face.
I stepped between them and walked him backward until his shoulder hit the wall, then held him there while he stared at me with the sudden understanding that whatever argument he had been having was over.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” I said. He nodded too quickly, so I released him and gave him enough space to leave without making the scene any larger than it already was. He did not bother looking at Echo again before heading toward the stairwell.
I waited until he disappeared around the corner before turning back to her. Echo had not moved, but the boredom was gone completely. She looked at the empty space where he had been, then at me, and her expression flattened into something much colder.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked. Her voice stayed quiet, which told me I had managed to become a more interesting problem than the man who had just left.
“He put his hands on you.” I slid mine into my pockets because leaving them loose at my sides suddenly felt like a bad idea.
“I noticed that part.” Echo stepped closer and glanced toward the stairwell once before bringing her attention back to me. “I was also standing right there, which means I was perfectly capable of doing something about it.”
“I know.”
That made her stop. Her eyebrows drew together, and I could see her recalculating the argument she had already prepared because I had taken the easiest version of it away from her.
“Then why the fuck did you get involved?” she asked.
I usually knew why I moved before I moved, whether the reason was practical, useful, violent, or simply because somebody had managed to irritate me enough to earn the effort.
“I didn’t think about it,” I said. “I saw him reach for you and moved.”
She stared at me for a second, then gave a short laugh without any amusement behind it. “That’s supposed to make this better?”
“No. It’s supposed to answer the question.”
Echo came another step closer and planted one hand against the center of my chest. “You knew I could handle him, but you still decided to jump in front of me anyway. That sounds a lot like you’ve decided I need a fucking guard.”
“I didn’t decide anything about what you need.” I kept my voice level even as her fingers curled lightly into my shirt. “If I had stopped long enough to assess the situation, I would have let you handle it. I didn’t stop.”
She shoved me.
I let the force move me back one step instead of planting my feet. The choice was deliberate, and she recognized it immediately. Her eyes narrowed as if I had insulted her all over again by refusing to turn a shove into a contest she knew I could win.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Stand there pretending you’re being reasonable while telling me your body apparently makes decisions about mine before you do.”
The familiarity of the reaction bothered me.
I had felt it before. The realization must have changed my expression enough that I must have let something show, because she studied my face for several seconds before the anger in hers shifted into something more suspicious.
Her hand stayed against my chest, but the pressure eased.
“You just figured something out,” she said. “And I’m guessing I’m not going to like it.”
I looked down at her hand, then back at her. “Probably not.”
“Try me.”
I could have lied and told her it was about Hunter’s arrangement, the fact that she was useful, or the inconvenience of explaining another injured person on campus.
Any of those answers would have been easier to deal with, but Echo had gotten annoyingly good at hearing when people tried to hand her something cleaner than the truth.
“I do the same thing with Ronan,” I said. “I know where he is without looking for him. I notice when somebody moves wrong around him before I consciously decide whether it matters, and sometimes I’m already moving before I’ve finished thinking.”
Echo went very still.
“I’m not saying you’re him,” I continued before she could turn that into another argument. “I’m saying I recognized the reaction.”
Her fingers tightened slightly in my shirt. She looked past me for a moment, jaw working, then returned her attention to my face.
“That doesn’t give you permission to interfere with me.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not going to start asking whether you approve before I deal with somebody.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’re making this really fucking difficult to argue with.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.”
Her eyes sharpened enough that I knew better than to add anything else. She pulled her hand away and dragged it through her hair instead, pacing two steps before turning back toward me.
“What happens next time?” she asked. “Somebody gets too close, somebody grabs me, somebody looks like they might swing. Are you going to keep deciding for me because your instincts apparently developed a fucking attachment problem?”
“I don’t know.”
Echo’s mouth tightened. “That’s a shit answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.” I leaned back against the wall and gave her enough space that she would not read my position as another attempt to block her. ““I’ll try to give you the chance to handle it first. That’s the most honest answer I have.”
She stared at me for a long moment, anger moving behind her eyes without settling anywhere useful. “So you’re not even going to pretend you’ll stop.”
“No. I’m not making you a promise I already know I might break.”
Echo looked away again, breathing out through her nose, and when she started toward the stairs I fell into step beside her without touching her.
She made it halfway down before stopping on the landing.
I stopped too, leaving enough room between us that the choice was hers if she wanted to close it. Echo turned, braced one hand on the railing, and looked at me like she had spent the last thirty seconds finding a better version of the same argument.
“You understand why this pisses me off, right?” she asked. “I don’t need someone deciding which risks I’m allowed to take just because they care whether I come out bleeding.”
“I understand exactly why it pisses you off.” I watched her fingers tighten around the railing and kept my hands where she could see them. “I also know caring whether you come out bleeding isn’t something I can switch off because you find it inconvenient.”
Her gaze held mine, and the air between us changed enough that I felt it before either of us moved. Echo stepped away from the railing and closed the distance until the front of her jacket brushed my shirt.
Her hand came up slowly this time and settled around my throat.
She did not squeeze hard enough to hurt, but the intention behind it was unmistakable.
“Good,” she said, eyes fixed on mine. “Because I’m still fucking pissed.”
Her hand tightened just enough for me to feel the pressure of her fingers along my throat.
She was still angry, but the shape of it had changed.
The argument had stopped being about the idiot upstairs the second she understood why I had moved.
Now she was looking at me like the new information itself was offensive, something I had done without permission simply by allowing her to matter.
I covered her wrist with one hand but did not remove it. “You can be pissed. I’m not asking you to like it.”
“That’s convenient.” Her thumb shifted against my pulse. “You get to develop instincts about me, interfere when you feel like it, and then stand there pretending the fact that you admit it makes you reasonable.”