I look at her. She’s staring at the water bottle again, her thumb tracing the label in slow circles. Her face is calm, too calm, the kind Mara puts on when she’s choosing what to share and what to keep to herself.
I know that face. It’s one I’ve been on the receiving end of many times. But I keep my questions to myself, at least for now. The guys don’t need any further reason to give her the heave-ho.
Armen moves first with barely a gesture. I catch the tilt of his chin toward the far corner of the room. It’s minimal but very on point, a communication that works among people who’ve been reading each other for a long time.
Sting gets the message, crossing the room without a word, his walk that of a man who doesn’t rush because rushing implies a loss of control and Sting doesn’t do that. Rogue pushes off the wall and follows, his movement looser, but his eyes have gone flat in a way I don’t often see with him.
What’s happening?
The three of them stand in the far corner in a huddle. Armen’s back is to us, Sting faces sideways, one eye on the room, with Rogue angled somewhere between, his head dipped, listening.
Their voices drop. They’re not whispering, but are speaking just low enough that the words lose their edges and blur into something I can only hear bits of.
But I’ve become a good listener since I entered the Rot. My weeks inside have taught me to catch fragments, at least enough to know what the hell is going on around me. I don’t hear everything they’re saying, but the few words I do catch spell out all I need to know.
Liability.
That’s Sting.
Perimeter.
Armen.
Can’t just let her walk.
I don’t know whose mouth that came from. Doesn’t matter. All three of them are thinking it.
Mara’s been watching the guys since they gathered in the corner, her eyes tracking their body language, their dropped voices, and the awkwardness of a conversation she’s not invited to. She doesn’t know the Rot’s rules. She doesn’t know the hierarchy, the protocols, the invisible lines that govern who speaks, listens, and decides. But she knows power when she sees it and knows her immediate future lies in their hands.
“They’re deciding what to do with me,” she says. “Aren’t they?”
Her voice is steady. The steadiness of someone who knows that the next few minutes will determine her fate and that she’ll face it with her eyes open.
As if she has a choice.
I don’t lie to her. I don’t lie to Mara, not even when the truth was cruel and the kindness of a lie would have been better.
“Yeah. They are.”
She nods once. Slow. Processing. “What are the options?”
I shake my head. I don’t know which of us is more nervous. “Don’t know yet.”
“But the options are not good, are they?”
“They’re not… going to be simple,” I say. “You’ve seen this place. You’ve seen the club. You know I’m… with these guys. That’s a lot of information they don’t want a stranger to have.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“I know that but they don’t.”
She looks at me with an expression I haven’t seen from her before. Not fear, exactly, but something like it. As if she’s realizing she may just have wasted her time coming to “rescue” me, and that she’s put herself in some grave danger.
She’s not wrong.
“Vi,” she says. “Are you safe with them?”
The question should be easy to answer but it isn’t.
