Chapter 22 #3
"The pack changed things," he admits quietly. "Kai especially. He... demanded. Kept pushing. Wouldn't accept the empty version of me."
"Annoying habit of his," Blaze comments with a grin.
"Very annoying," Jett agrees, but there's something almost like affection underneath the flat delivery.
"Blaze?" I turn to the last one. "Your turn."
He leans back in his chair, golden eyes bright with something that looks like anticipation.
"I set things on fire," he says simply.
"That's... not a backstory."
"Sure it is." His grin widens. "I've always been drawn to flames. Even as a kid—couldn't resist them. The way they move, the way they consume, the way they transform everything they touch into something new."
He extends one hand, and fire blooms.
Actual fire—a small flame dancing across his palm, casting flickering shadows across his features.
"It's a gift," he says, watching the flame like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "Or a curse. Depends on who you ask. My family thought curse. Tried to beat it out of me. When that didn't work, they sold me to people who thought they could weaponize it."
"Weaponize fire control?"
"Arsonist for hire." The flame extinguishes, leaving nothing but a faint trace of smoke. "That's what I became. Need a building destroyed? Call Blaze. Need evidence eliminated? Call Blaze. Need someone to suffer in the most painful way possible?" His smile turns dark. "Call Blaze."
"How did you end up here?"
"Same as Jett, more or less. Kai acquired me during a... transaction." He makes air quotes around the word. "His family was employing my services, and he decided he'd rather have me as pack than as hired help."
"You make it sound like he collected you," I observe.
"He did," Sage confirms. "Kai has a habit of finding broken things and claiming them before anyone else can."
My eyes drift to Kai.
He's still eating—cutting, chewing, swallowing—like this conversation is happening in another room entirely. But I can see the tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw tightens at certain words.
Broken things.
He claims broken things.
Is that what I am to him?
Another acquisition?
Another piece of his collection?
"So we're like our own unique ring of circus-crazed fanatics," I say, processing everything I've heard. "In the world of bloodshed and sin."
"Pretty much," Blaze agrees cheerfully.
"Yeah," Sage confirms.
"Essentially," Jett adds.
I look at Kai.
He hasn't said anything about himself. Hasn't shared his passions or his history or any of the things the others have revealed.
"Kai." My voice comes out more demanding than I intend. "Your turn."
"I don't share."
"Everyone else did."
"I'm not everyone else."
"No." I lean forward, meeting his dark gold gaze directly. "You're the pack leader. The one who collected all of us. The one whose father is trying to kill us. I think you owe us at least something."
The silence stretches.
Tense.
Charged.
I can feel the others watching, waiting to see how this plays out. Waiting to see if anyone has ever successfully demanded something from Kai Lawson and lived to tell about it.
"Hurry and eat," he says finally, returning his attention to his plate.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
"Kai—"
"Fine." He sets down his knife and fork with deliberate precision. "You want to know something about me? Something I like?"
"Yes."
He looks at me.
Really looks.
Those dark gold eyes scanning my face, my hair, my everything—cataloguing details the way I catalogue numbers, filing away information for purposes I can't begin to guess.
Then he says, very quietly:
"I like pink."
The statement is so unexpected—so completely random—that it takes a moment to register.
Pink.
He likes pink.
My hand rises automatically to my hair.
Pink hair.
My hair.
I look across the table at the others—at Sage, whose lips are twitching. At Blaze, who's grinning like a cat with cream. At Jett, whose expression hasn't changed but whose eyes have warmed by several degrees.
They're smirking.
All of them.
Like they understand some underlying joke that I don't. Some secret meaning behind Kai's words that's apparently obvious to everyone except me.
Pink.
He likes pink.
And my hair is pink.
And Sage's hair is pink.
And—
Oh.
The realization lands slowly.
He's talking about me.
About us.
About the people in his life who matter, who carry the color pink like a flag, who've somehow become important enough that he's claiming the color itself as something he likes.
It's such a Kai way of saying something meaningful.
Indirect.
Coded.
Requiring interpretation instead of offering clarity.
But still... something.
Still more than he's given anyone else.
I shrug.
"Good enough," I say, because what else is there to say?
What else can you say when your enemy just admitted, in his own convoluted way, that maybe you're starting to matter?
The tension breaks.
Conversation resumes—lighter now, easier, punctuated by the sounds of eating and the occasional comment about the food or the plan or the days ahead.
But something has shifted.
Something fundamental.
We're not just strangers sharing space anymore.
We're not just an alliance of convenience, held together by strategy and survival.
We're... something else.
Something that feels almost like family.
Almost like home.
One-two-three-four.
My toe taps against the floor.
One-two-three-four.
The counting is gentler now.
Less desperate.
More... rhythmic.
Like my brain is settling into something it recognizes.
Safety.
Belonging.
The particular kind of peace that comes from being surrounded by people who see your broken pieces and choose to stay anyway.
I reach for another roll.
Take a bite.
Let the warmth of the bread and the company and the impossible situation I've found myself in wash over me.
Good enough, I think.
This is good enough.
For now.
Maybe forever.
Who knows?
I don't have all the answers.
Don't know how this ends, or what happens after Kai's father is dealt with, or whether any of us survive the coming confrontation.
But right now, in this moment, sitting at this table with these broken, beautiful, absolutely insane people—
I'm content.
And that's good enough before they eat in a calm silence.