“Fuck, it was so dumb. And just… I want you to know that Ihavelearnt, and Ihavechanged. So don’t, like, judge me. ‘Kay?”
“Why the fuck would I judge you?”
I shift uncomfortably again, long-held shame making my back all itchy. “At first it was just kids’ shit. Pranks, we’d call them. We’d steal people’s washing and throw it in the caves where the astal spiders would get them. Graffiti was another one. Aleksi had this knack for burning swear words and dick and balls into the caves. We’d skip school, get into fights. Eventually we started pinching our parents’ smokes and booze. Thought we were real tough. Earned ourselves a reputation.”
“There’s a town close by, at the bottom of the mountain. It’s where we’d nick off to when we wanted to run amok away from the clan. We were about fifteen, thinking we were grown-ass men, when Aleksi started to hang out with a different crowd. He loved having a new audience fawning over him. He was too up his own ass to see they were just buttering him up.”
“They… they were different from us. We fucked around, but they wereactuallybad guys. They were running all kinds of shit on the black market. They started asking him for things. Little shit at first. Charms, shit we grow up higher on the mountainthat can be used for all kinds of dodgy shit. I didn’t like it. But Aleksi just had this control over me, and so I fucking did it.”
“Compulsion or were you just into him?” Kai asks, cocking his head.
“Neither. Honestly. He just had this way about him. He’s a natural leader. Except he’d been so fucking coddled, he used his powers for evil.”
“Ah. Gotcha. Go on.”
“Yeah, well, just after he turned seventeen, the requests got bigger. They wanted weapons from the armoury. I said no. That was a line I refused to cross—even though it was really fucking too late. Aleksi—he didn’t even think twice. I tried to stop him, and we got busted. And just like every other time we got caught, I took the heat.”
“What the fuck? Why?” Finn jumps in this time, and I flash him a smile.
“Because they couldn’t stand that their little golden boy wasn’t so golden. They wouldn’t listen to me. The whole fucking council of elders stood there and told me what a piece of shit I was, and I hadn’t even done anything.”
“What did your parents do?” Kai asks. His parents are awesome, so it makes sense that he’d think mine would be, too.
“They told me to listen to the elders. That I’d brought shame on the family yet again. It was hard for them. I’m not making excuses or whatever, but I was always in trouble for one thing or another. Aleksi may have been the problem this time, but it’s not like I was entirely innocent.”
“What about Aleksi?” Finn squeezes Kai’s arm, trying to calm his indignation over a thirteen-year-old slight.
“He didn’t say shit. He just stood there next to me, absolutely silent, while I took all the blame. Not that he’d ever admit it, but a lot of the time it felt like he thought it was his birthright and this was mine. Like it was my destiny to be his whipping boy. Iwas gonna leg it that night, but before I could, the elders came to the house. Told me it was time to go. I haven’t been back since.”
“Woah. Shit. I’m so sorry, Nikki. That is so fucked up.” Kai leans back on the couch, his whole body slumping into Finn’s. “And now Willan’s back on the scene. Is he causing shit on his brother's behalf or something?”
Finn looks panicked at Kai’s suggestion, either from guilt for bringing him back into my life or disbelief that his friend would do such a thing, I guess.
“Nah. It’s nothing like that. He just… wants to reconnect? We weren’t exactly friends—he was that annoying little brother always hanging around, you know?” It’s not the best description of my relationship with Willan, because I think, without Aleksi around, we would’ve been friends. Good ones, too. Not that it matters now. “But just the timing was shit. I have been having some… somefeelingsabout mage stuff in general, and then he pops up, and it felt like all my perfectly compartmentalised life was going up in flames. And,” I pause, rolling my lips over my teeth and looking Kai in the eye. “I guess I was worried. That he was going to tell you all this stuff about what the clan thinks of me and that I’d lose you and my life here like I did before.”
“That’s fuckin’ bullshit, man.” Kai is off the couch faster than a flash, hauling me off my seat to wrap me in a tight hug. I don’t cry, but I come very, very close. “I don’t care what dumb shit you got up to before. That’snotwho you are now. After everything we’ve been through, you're stuck with me for life.”
I laugh weakly against his throat, overwhelmed by the fierceness of his declaration. I chance a look at Finn, who only smiles back at me, not at all bothered by our affection. Guilt creeps in again about how I treated him, but I squelch down the unhelpful emotion.
“If it helps, Willan’s never said anything bad about you.” Finn says, then scrunches his nose and cocks his head. “Well,before Hearts Gate. He’s said some choice words about you since then, but even though he was pissed about whatever happened between the two of you, he’s never even hinted at anything about your past.”
“Well, that’s… something.” I mutter when Kai releases me and we sit down again.
“That’s still shit. I’m sorry, man.” Kai flips the cushion a few times, obviously thinking through everything I’ve just said. “You still talk to your parents, though, yeah? I’ve heard you on the phone and shit.”
“Yeah, we talk every so often. After I turned, Laurence made me get in touch with them. It’s not like we’re close, but we all apologised and we came to an agreement about keeping in touch. They just don’t share anything about me with the clan. I’m happy to have them in my life, but not the rest of the clan. It was a decent balance.”
“But was it? You just said that you were having issues with the mage stuff?” With his pretty-boy looks and giant-ass ego, it’s easy to write Kai off as an idiot. Especially after he spent months thinking he was in a relationship with someone who thought they were just friends. But he can be surprisingly astute when he wants to be.
“Yeah. But that’s different.”
“Is it, though? Or do you need to, like, realign your balance or whatever? Like, you’ve had these boundaries for so long but now you’ve outgrown them. I’m not saying that you need to go back to the clan or whatever, because they sound like dicks and can go jump, but like, does that mean that you have to write everything—or everyone—off?”
I stare at my best friend for a long minute.
“Have you been speaking to Laurence?”
“Nah, man, just my own big-brained thoughts.” He flashes me a cocky smile, complete with fang. “But I’m probably biased because I know Willan. Dude's not a bad guy, to me at least.”
