Atticus. Also bloody, also wrecked, also burning with that same post-fight energy.
“My turn,” he says, reaching for me.
But Revan is there, pulling me back against his chest, his arm a bar across my collarbone. “Neither of you get a turn until you cool the fuck down.”
“Cool down?” Koa laughs, dark and dangerous. “You started this, Rev. You came after me out there.”
“Because you deserved it.”
“For what? For fucking her first?”
The words hang in the air like a grenade with the pin pulled.
Atticus steps forward. “We all fucked her. That’s not the issue.”
“Then what is?” I finally speak, my voice cutting through their testosterone-fueled standoff. “What is the actual issue here? Because you’re all acting like boys fighting over a toy.”
“You’re not a toy,” Koa says, his voice dropping.
“Then stop treating me like one!” I push away from Revan, putting space between myself and all three of them. “You want to fight? Fine. Fight for me somewhere else. Not here, not where everyone can see, not where it becomes a spectacle.”
I turn and start walking toward the exit.
Behind me, I hear footsteps. All three of them following.
My heart races.
A feeling like water overtakes my chest.
Power.
I feel it in my bones.
I push through the arena exit doors into the night. The cold air hits my face, sharp and clarifying. The parking lot is empty of people, only cars. Everyone’s still inside celebrating or commiserating.
When I turn around, they’re all there. Standing in a loose semicircle, bloody and battered and still radiating that violent energy.
“So?” I cross my arms, the feeling in my chest stretches and wakes under their stare. “Now what?”
They look at each other, then back at me.
And I see it finally click—the realization that I’m not the prize in their game.
I’m the one making the rules.
“Your move,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake.
I hold my breath, waiting to see what happens next.
53
Lexi
The safe house is different from the cabin—smaller, older, with walls that have seen things that would make normal people run. It’s tucked away in the industrial district, sandwiched between abandoned warehouses that provide cover and isolation. The kind of place the Reapers use when they need to disappear.
When we need to disappear.
The drive here was silent except for the sound of heavy breathing and the occasional hiss of pain when one of them shifted wrong. Revan drove. Atticus rode shotgun, holding a towel to the cut on his cheekbone. Koa sat beside me in the back, his hand on my thigh like he was afraid I’d evaporate if he let go.
