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“Aggressive tastes,” I mutter.
“I’ve always been attracted to it.” Sasha pushes the empty water glass back into my free hand. “Like a bull.”
A bull. Hilarious that he could describe himself that way when he looks like a strong breeze could lift him up and pin him to a tree.
“Can we talk about rainbows next?” Leo asks.
I point to him with my knife. “No. We don’t talk about rainbows.”
Sasha chokes on a laugh. “You don’t talk about rainbows?”
“He thinks they’re a trick,” Leo informs him.
I want to correct the little ankle-biter because I don’t think, I know, but Sasha talks before I can.
“A trick? Like, of the light?”
“No. A trick of the spirits trying to lure you toward the promised treasure, where they’ll eat your insides and steal your skin to sell to the mimics.”
Sasha slaps his hands over Leo’s ears. “Don’t say that stuff in front of him. You’ll scare him.”
Leo growls and pulls out his knife, but I pluck it from his hand before he can attack. Has this cub learned anything? “I’m not scared!”
“He still shouldn’t say that in front of you.”
“Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t teach my cubs?”
Sasha straightens, blue eyes locked on mine, even though he’s barely tall enough to reach my chin. “He’s not a cub. He’s a child. He deserves to act and behave and live like a kid.”
“What a fun and fancy little world you must come from.”
“There’s nothing fun or fancy about it,” Sasha throws back. “Which is why I know what I’m talking about. Leave these kids alone.”
Anger bubbles in my gut like I haven’t felt in years. Leave these kids alone? For what? The world to grind them into dust? They’re my pack. My people. And I will give up my very last breath to make sure they get to keep theirs.
My voice hardly sounds like mine when I talk again. “Know your place, rabbit. I don’t take kindly to disruptors in the End. Fall in line, or get out of here.”
Irritation pulls at his brow. “What the hell do you think I’m trying to do? Ending up here wasn’t a choice, and I can’t wait to leave again.”
“You know the way to Wayward.”
“Yeah, and you know that I’m not going back there.”
My rampant curiosity still doesn’t know why though, and I refuse to give in to it long enough to ask. “Then you only have one option. Until your car is fixed and your debt is paid, get back to work. I want those potatoes by sunset.”
He holds his hands up between us, showing the thick black lines of dirt under his nails. “My nail beds are bleeding.”
“Fascinating.”
“Painful, actually. I can’t do this every day.”
“Take it up with Wilde, then.” Our fearless leader should be the one dealing with complaints, not me. I’m still annoyed that I’m the one who got stuck with babysitting this runt anyway. I’m supposed to be doing a sweep of the south side of our land, and instead, I’m dealing with nail beds.
“I’m taking it up with you!”
He takes what I’m sure is supposed to be a menacing step forward, but before he can do more than that, my knife is out, and Leo hisses a warning from beside me. My lips curl at the way Sasha’s face blinks from frustration to surprise. “I know you’re not raising your voice at me.”
“I know you’re not threatening me. Again.”
