8. Zaria #2
"I used to come here when I was a kid," I tell him, navigating the slippery rocks with practiced ease. "Before my father got locked up. He'd bring me here late at night, teach me how to read the tides, which fish were edible if you got stranded."
"Survival skills."
"Malcolm Bennett didn't believe in coddling." I find a flat rock and sit, dangling my legs over the edge where water surges between the stones. "Everything was a lesson. How to fight, how to read people, how to survive when the world wants you dead."
Greer sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. "Sounds lonely."
"It was. Is." I don't know why I'm admitting this.
Don't usually talk about the isolation that comes with being Malcolm's daughter, with holding territory when everyone's waiting for me to fail.
But something about the darkness and the ocean and the way Greer looks at me makes the words come easier.
"Everyone wants something from me. Territory, protection, connections. No one just wants me."
"I want you."
The simplicity of it steals my breath. No qualifiers, no conditions. Just honest desire.
"You want the darkness," I correct. "The violence and the danger. You're chasing the high."
"Maybe at first." He turns to face me fully, and his expression is serious in the dim light.
"But tonight, watching you work, seeing you handle that dealer and navigate this world like it's an extension of yourself—that's not about the high.
That's about wanting to understand someone who's more complicated than anyone I've ever met. "
Fuck, he's going to ruin me.
"Come on." I stand abruptly, needing to move before I do something stupid like kiss him or admit he's already under my skin. "There's one more place I want to take you."
The boardwalk is mostly deserted at two AM, just a few stragglers and the carnival workers closing up their rigged games. But the lights are still on, casting everything in garish colors that feel both nostalgic and slightly sinister.
I used to come here all the time as a kid. Now I come here when I'm trying to outrun my problems.
I drag Greer to the balloon-pop game, where an older man with a mullet is packing up darts.
"We're closed," he calls.
"Five minutes." I slide a fifty across the counter. "I want the giant panda."
He eyes the money, then nods and sets out the darts. "Three hits, you win the prize."
I throw the first dart. It hits a balloon dead center but doesn't pop—the damn things are underinflated on purpose.
Second dart, same result.
Third dart, and the balloon finally pops with a sad little wheeze.
"Sorry, sweetheart. You need three pops to win." The carnie smirks like he's told this lie a thousand times.
I feel Greer tense beside me. His hand slides to the small of my back, fingers spreading possessively, and when he speaks his voice is dangerously calm.
"She hit three balloons."
"But only one popped. Rules are rules."
"The rules don't account for you deliberately underinflating the balloons to make the game unwinnable." Greer's still smiling, but there's nothing friendly in it. "Which is fraud. And assault, technically, since you're taking money under false pretenses."
The carnie's smirk falters. "It's just a game?—"
"Give me the panda," I interrupt, pulling a knife from my boot and setting it on the counter with a soft thunk. "Or we can discuss your business practices in more detail. Your choice."
The carnie looks between us—me with my knife, Greer with his terrifying calm smile—and makes the smart decision. He reaches up and pulls down the giant panda, shoving it across the counter.
"Have a nice night," he mutters.
"You too." I grab the panda, which is almost as big as I am, and walk away laughing. "That was beautiful."
"He was cheating."
"Everyone here cheats. That's the point." I hug the ridiculous stuffed animal to my chest, grinning at Greer's outraged expression. "But watching you threaten him with logic and a smile was better than threatening him with violence. More creative."
"I'm learning from an excellent teacher."
We wander the boardwalk with our stolen prize, eating funnel cake from the one stand still open and talking about nothing and everything.
He tells me about his marketing job, the patterns he finds in consumer behavior, how people are predictable if you know what data to track.
I tell him about growing up in Malcolm's shadow, learning to fight before I learned to read, the weight of holding territory that wants to slip through my fingers.
The conversation flows easy despite the darkness in it. Or maybe because of the darkness—we're both comfortable in places most people flinch from.
By the time we circle back to where we started, the funnel cake is gone and my face hurts from smiling. Actual smiling, not the sharp-edged version I use to intimidate people. Real happiness that feels foreign and dangerous and addictive.
"Where to next?" Greer asks.
I'm about to suggest we find somewhere more private—a hotel maybe, somewhere I can finally close the distance between us—when I notice someone leaning against my car in the parking lot.
Cain.
My stomach drops. He wouldn't be here unless something was seriously wrong. He knows better than to interrupt when I'm with Greer unless it's an emergency.
I walk faster, the panda clutched awkwardly under one arm, Greer keeping pace beside me.
Cain straightens when he sees us approach, his expression grim in the parking lot lights. There's blood on his knuckles—fresh, still wet—and a tension in his shoulders that screams trouble.
"Zaria," he says, not even bothering with his usual sarcasm. "We've got a problem."