Page 69 of Marked by the Demigod

She sucks in another breath. "You think he killed Dave."

"Someone tipped off his brothers." Katya says, her voice soft, with something strange and foreign underneath it. "Dave had a payment from the twins, and then his remains were found. In the same way that...that everyone's been."

A payment from the twins, as if Dave would...would sell her out, would send someone after her who would hurt her, as if he hadn't had her self interest in heart.

Aimes blinks back up at her reflection in the mirror. Her face is sallow and her eyes already puffy, as if knowing that she is about to cry even if she isn't quite there yet. "He was...with me for part." she says, small, and even that feels like a betrayal. "His brother had seen me in a bar, and Iakov texted me to leave, and...and he took me back to my room. And then he...I saw him at dinner, he was watching me, I think..."

"What time was the bar?" Katya snaps out.

Aimes squeezes her eyes shut. "4 PM, I think? Ish? I...I'll look at the texts and tell you the time stamp." She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, the phone laying on the bed next to her. "Dave told them about me? Why?"

Katya's voice comes back miserable and heavy. "I don't know, Aimes. I don't know."

Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes, and she blinks them back, her appearance in the mirror blurring, then clearing. "He asked who it was, I didn't tell him." She blurts out. "I said you told me not to."

Katya sucks in a quick, panicked breath. "Thanks for letting me know," and her voice is odd, strained against her throat. "I should...I should go. Redo the wards on my place."

Her place, her place, which Aimes has never actually been to, that she keeps secret. For these reasons, apparently. "Iakov said he put up wards on my hotel room, and my apartment."

"Good," she says firmly, then the phone clicks off.

Aimes lets her arm fall next to her on the bed as she stares up, her mind racing and her throat feeling like she's trying to swallow something way, way too large.

She's known Dave for six years now. He's listened to her rant about Rocky, called her for all measures of weird library issues, and...and connected her with Katya. And warned her from the necklace.

Her eyes stray over to where it lays on the hotel dresser, glittering in the light. If Dave had known, just from the necklace, enough to alert --

She can't find it in herself to believe that he had been the one to tell them. Not after he called in Katya, and...and she doesn't know if she actually told him she was going to Vegas. It wasn't exactly something she slapped around the internet, or told everyone at the convention.

Just.

She flicks her phone open again with the swipe of her finger.

AIMES (12:02 PM): I didn't tell him I was going to Vegas.

There's nothing, no response, and she curls up on herself, shutting her eyes.

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