I see the exact moment she finds her opening, and her chin lifts just enough to tell me she’s going to use it.
“Your island?” She says, taking her time to look around and then back at him. “That’s funny because I was told someone else owns this place.” She tilts her head, taunting him a little more. “So what you meant to say is, it’s not your island. You work here... you’re just staff.”
Clay’s entire body goes rigid, and I hide a smile because I know she has cracked his armor.
“You want to be very careful,” he says quietly, which is worse than loud with Clay. I know that, and so does Vero.
Kayla apparently doesn’t care. “Or what?” she asks sweetly. “You’ll write me up? Put a note in my file?” She gestures vaguely in the direction he came. “Go patrol something. Isn’t that what security does?”
He moves before the sentence is finished, closing the distance between them until there is almost nothing left. Clay looks down at her, his jaw tight, eyes locked on hers.
It would make normal women take a step back in fear, but Kayla doesn’t even move an inch.
Beside me, Vero shifts forward, his instinct to protect her kicking in. I close my hand around his arm, and he stops to glare at me. But I want to see this; Ineedto see this.
Clinically speaking, it’s fascinating.
Clay uses proximity the way he uses silence—as pressure. A way of forcing the other person to flinch, back down, or blink first. It almost always works. I have watched grown men pale standing where Kayla is right now. Yet she tilts her chin up to hold his gaze.
“You’re in my personal space,” she snaps.
“Yeah,” Clay says. “I am.”
“And you think that’s going to do what, exactly?”
“I think it’s going to remind you of where you are.”
“I know exactly where I am.” Her eyes don’t waver, and she stares at him as hard as he stares at her, neither backing down. “I’m on an island. Standing in front of a man who is angry that I even exist, for reasons that have nothing to do with anything I’ve done.” She waits a second before she continues, “I’m still not scared of you. You can stay in my space as long as you want—I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
Something moves across Clay’s face that I don’t often see. It isn’t rage; it’s frustration. He stares at her for a long moment, then slowly steps back. The look he fires my way tells me silently that we will talk about this later.
The three of us watch him leave, and I release Vero’s arm.
“He was going to—” Vero starts.
“I know.”
“Then why did you grab me?”
“Because she didn’t need you to interfere.”
Vero looks at Kayla, back at me, then at Kayla again.
Kayla watches Clay carefully as he walks away, something unreadable moving behind her eyes. Then she turns back to Vero as if it never happened, that she didn’t stand nose to nose with the coldest person on this island and emerge without a single scratch, physically or mentally.
“You haven’t shown me the cemetery yet,” she says cheerily.
Vero stares at her for a moment, and a grin so wide takes over his face. “I love her.”
I don’t say anything, but I mentally take notes: she didn’t flinch or bite back harder than she needed to, and she moved on the second it was over, not needing the last word.
The cemetery sits at the back of the island, full of stone graves, overgrown paths, and crosses leaning at angles thatmake it look older than it is. Noa keeps it that way as part of the illusion.
“At night this whole area becomes chase territory,” Vero says, spinning slowly with his arms out, taking it all in. “It’s one of my favorite places on the island. And I work in the asylum, so that’s saying something.”
Kayla looks around the cemetery. “And you chase people through here?” she reiterates.
“Sometimes. It depends on who you belong to.” Vero waves a hand. “But listen, before we go any further, there is something you need to know.”
