I wished I didn’t have tobeher enemy.
“Not bad, right?” Alex removed her helmet, and a grin spread across her cheeks.
I wanted that smile to stay there, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Nope, definitely not the right words.
Her face fell, and she rolled her eyes. “Of course it was.”
“How many tattoos do you have?” I asked quickly, trying to fix it, trying desperately to keep her talking to me.
But she shrugged me off, already waltzing into the tall building made of windows, as if she owned it. “More than you’d think, but you’ll never find them.”
I paused behind her, my face contorting. “Huh?”
She turned back, a smirk on her pink lips as she undid the braid in her hair and tied it up into that classic ponytail. “You can’t see the rest with my clothes on.”
With a last wink, Alex headed inside, and I was left on the street with my jaw on the pavement. Something tugged in my stomach, and I didn’t want to call it desire. Alex was Joon’s family—now that he was gone and she’d rejoined the VIA, my mission was to protect her. I couldn’t act on the thoughts that used to slip into my mind, the ones that would come up and choke me right before I said something fucked up to push them away.
Just play it cool, Leo. Take down the organization and get her out of the VIA. Everything will go back to normal after that.
Right?
“The eight Variantsyou caught haven’t cracked, and none of them have chips. They’re ghosts to the VIA, and we don’t have anything to leverage against them,” Dahlia sighed as we sat in her office. “I’m hoping you live up to your name, Daydream.”
Alex cocked her head beside me, and I was too fixated on the space between us on the leather couch we sat on. I took up most of the room, and my weight nearly made her slide into me as she sat squeezed against the other side. She latched to the arm of the couch like a lifeline.
It bothered me how much she pulled away. Was I really that bad? Had I always been the villain in her story? I’d taken plenty of jabs at her over the years, but she’d done the same to me. The goal was to keep her at a distance, not to have her loathe me completely. I guess it was easy to hate me, though.
I could hear Joon’s voice in my head now.If you weren’t such an asshole, she’d actually tolerate you. Figure out how to control yourself, and maybe we could make some progress.
I’d managed to incinerate three mock buildings that day and made Alex flip me off after an offhand quip. Joon was never wrong about me—I was the definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Where are they being contained right now?” Alex mused, as if I was the last thing on her mind.
My fire wanted to burst out, to consume everything in my frustration. I was more brawn than brains, but I should at least be able to focus on the conversation, focus on our orders. But she was there, smelling like lemons, and I wanted to…what?
You don’t even realize it, do you?Joon’s voice was there again.
I ground my teeth as Reed watched me with that multicolored gaze. A smile crawled over his lips, having the time of his life.
“Nightmyre PD,” he chimed in with a wink in my direction. “There’s a detective who specializes in Variants. He’s got them locked up pretty well. It shouldn’t be an issue if we stop by unannounced.”
Alex beamed. “Are you talking about Gabriel? We’ve worked together before, he definitely won’t mind. I haven’t taken on a PD contract in a while.”
My knee started to bounce as I clenched my jaw; I must have been irritable today. That was all, just… hungry, or something. It was June. June messed with my mind, and I’d skipped lunch. Yep, that was it. That was all.
“Oh yeah? Sweet,” Reed grinned. “We’ll make our way over then. Sound good, Dahlia?”
The older woman nodded once, always cold and expressionless. “Find out what you can from the prisoners. What the organization calls itself, where they’re located, how they’re recruiting Variants. We’ll take anything we can get.”
Alex leaned back, and her shoulder brushed against my arm. My skin pebbled, and I tried not to jolt from her touch.
“Shouldn’t be too hard. Grunts always crack fast,” she hummed.
I started wondering how quickly she would get me to crack, too.
TEN
