Page 60 of The Kraken Games

Kai gave the ugly creature a disgusted look. Sure, he was hungry, but not that hungry! And then suddenly he saw who it was. The shadowy form was his best friend.

“Torqua?”

The dolphin clicked sharply in greeting, the sound bouncing off the cave walls.

Kai was touched to the core that his friend would go to these lengths to visit him.

“What are you doing here?”

“When you lost the games, I knew you’d end up here. No way was I going to leave you to suffer alone.”

“But it’s against the rules. I’m in isolation.”

“Yeah, but they’re kraken rules, and last time I checked, my species began with a D. So hey, I can do what the hell I like.” Torqua clicked gleefully. “Now, tell me what the fuck went down there in the big smoke.”

Kai sighed heavily. “You don’t want to know.”

Torqua chuckled. “Which means I really,reallywanna know.”

Even Kai had to smirk at that. In the light thrown by the deep-sea fish’s lantern, he recounted the whole sorry fucked up mess. (Skipping over theintimatedetails—not even his best friend would ever know them.)

After Kai had finished, Torqua rubbed at his forehead with a flipper. “So the elders believe she’s working for the Tween Council of Towns?”

“Yeah. It must be true. What other reason would she have to take shots of me in my fucking birthday suit and broadcast them around?” Kai chewed on his lip, frowning. “But fuck, when she told me that stuff about her family, it seemed so genuine. I was ready to confront Razad, all the elders, arrange for her to meet them… then she said she’d lost her phone… another fucking lie.”

“Why would she lie about that?”

“To hook me in, I guess.”

“Sounds like you were hooked from the moment you saw her.”

Kai frowned. It was true, she’d not searched him out.He’dchasedher, from that very first time he’d seen her near the caves.

“I don’t know what to think of her, Torqua, she’s a bunch of contradictions.”

“If she’s a spy she could have just fucked you and photographed you. No need for a whole sob story about lost family.”

“Gee thanks, you reckon I’m that easy a lay?”

“Desperate, more like.”

Kai thumped his friend on the flank, his mood already lighter. Apart from making him laugh at his misfortune, Torqua was talking sense. He was right, nothing about this added up.

“What if someone else leaked them,” the dolphin mused. “She might have shown them to her trainer, maybe the orc did it.”

Kai pondered this. Unlikely, but…

Hell! The way she broke apart in his arms, the way she’d keened his name. Not once, but twice now. The pain inside her that he’d sensed from the very first moment he’d set eyes on her, surely that was real. And the photo in the locket. Those people were her family. He was certain of that.

“Torqua,” Kai said finally. “Could you do me a huge favor?”

“Anything— you know that buddy.” Torqua’s usually cheeky grin was gone, replaced by genuine concern.

“Could you go and talk to Luna? I—I have to know whether she leaked those shots, or I’m going to go crazy.”

CHAPTER 19

“Miss Storm.”

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