“Not how I remember it,” Leander said.
Once Tecca had lost her baby, she’d been the center of everything.If they watched television, she was in the middle of the couch with the remote and all the attention.If they went out for dinner, she was the one they all had to pay for.And she had chosen places Leander couldn’t afford and shows he couldn’t stomach.The others just put up with it and worked extra shifts and stole a few more wallets to pamper their precious, precious princess.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to relive the past,” Xi said.
“Trust me.I don’t.However, I want to know what secrets you’re keeping.”
A flicker of fear crossed Xi’s face.Leander wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been watching so closely—and if he hadn’t retained a ghost image of Xi’s body from when the poison had flowed through his veins, highlighting them to Leander’s senses.
Anger made Leander clench his jaw.“Secrets.We’re isolated, hunted, in danger from every direction, and you keep secrets.”
“I don’t!”Xi winced.“I can’t tell you other people’s secrets,” he said in a much quieter tone.
“Who do you know that is more dangerous than the police?”
Xi gave Leander a blank stare.“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Shanlin told me that his mother was afraid of your other friends—the ones who were more dangerous than the government.She said she would work with the police to avoid them.”
With every word, Xi appeared more alarmed.“What?”He struggled up onto one elbow, clutching the edge of the mattress.“Tecca...she didn’t know....She wouldn’t have told a child....”
Leander sank into one of the ornately carved ch airs.It was ridiculous to spend so much time creating something just to hold up someone’s ass.“She knew more than you assumed, and Shanlin thinks your anonymous friends found us.I might not have liked Tecca, but I trusted her judgment.So, who is hunting you, Xi?”
Rolling onto his back, Xi stared up at the carved canopy.“They wouldn’t....”
Leander snorted again, and Xi gave him a weary look.
“There are Westerners in the nearest town,” Leander said.“Tecca was more afraid of these strangers than the police.Is this the time to keep secrets?”
Xi didn’t meet his eyes.
“I’ll leave you,” Leander threatened.“I’ll take Shanlin and leave you to deal with your own shit.”
“It’s your shit, too,” Xi snapped, his gaze pinned to Leander as though afraid he would vanish this very second.
Leander jerked away, startled by the vehemence in his tone.“Do you mean Druwolf?Is he behind this?Were you involved with him?”
“That psychopath?Fuck, no.I have more self-respect than to get involved with that bastard.”
Shame burned in Leander’s veins.As an adult, he could see the other choices he’d had, choices he hadn’t noticed as a teen.But the rest of the friend group who had survived had made the same terrible choice.
“The people....I....”Xi swallowed.
Leander hated emotional manipulation, but Shanlin’s life was on the line.He put a hand on Xi’s forearm, squeezing for a moment the way the lead supervisor at their group home had always done right before she asked them to do something they desperately didn’t want to.He established a moment of connection where it was the two of them against the world.
“Tell me who we’re in danger from.Let’s prepare for this together.”He felt slimy even saying the words, but something in Xi softened.His gaze slid away, and he curled his fingers into the slick sheets.
“I always knew the police were wrong,” he whispered.“Even when they took me away.They acted like they saved me, but they took me away from everyone I loved.Our friends.I loved you...even when you worked so hard to push us all away.”
“Tecca’s pregnancy....”
“Came later,” Xi interrupted him.“I was gone by then, but you were already pushing people away.You were a cactus, and we all had to navigate around your spines, but I loved you.I loved Tecca and Finn and...the others.”He closed his eyes, and so did Leander.Remembering those bright flames that life had extinguished...this is why he avoided people.
“A cactus is probably appropriate, but I always thought of myself as a beetle–hard shell, ugly.”
“You’re not ugly!”Xi grabbed Leander’s arm, squeezing it in a much more genuine mirror of the gesture Leander had used on him.“You’re not,” he repeated.Then he sighed.“But the government took me away from all of you, and I didn’t see you for years as theytrainedme.”The word dripped with disgust and fury.
“You were working against them,” Leander guessed.It was the only possibility that made sense.
