Page 104 of Martyr

“Yes!” She bobbed her head. “It wasn’t what we were shown at all. You painted a bird on fire.”

A…phoenix? Nix inspected his face, but Yejun’s attention was on the professor.

“Who had access to this area?” Lake took control of the conversation.

“Screw this.” West swiveled on his heels and stormed out, using the door Yejun had just appeared from. Nix frowned after him, but no one else made any moves to follow.

“Lots of people,” the professor replied. “It was open to all of the students involved in the showing. People have been coming and going all day.”

There weren’t many other pieces in this section of the gallery, but there were enough to make it difficult to narrow down anyone who might not have belonged. Though, Nix felt like someone probably should have noticed if the main piece had been removed and swapped. What did he know.

“Get up and go find my original work,” Yejun ordered, pursing his lips as she scrambled to her feet and exited through another side entrance.

“Clearly someone is trying to drive a wedge between you,” Beck concluded then. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. That, or they seriously hate Nix.” He glanced at him. “Do you have any enemies, Nix?”

He shook his head, but before he could get a word out, his multi-slate dinged. As he was lifting his arm to check it, Yejun grabbed him, hitting the screen to open the text.

“Unknown,” the Demon read the contents out loud, “guess now we know the reason you didn’t take my advice and get out of dodge is because you were too busy sitting on Demon cock.” He growled. “Who is this?”

“I don’t know who they are. They’ve been texting.” Nix couldn’t look any of them in the eye.

“What? Why didn’t you tell any of us this?” Lake demanded.

“I—”

The side door banged open and West strolled back in with a tablet in his hands. “The guy we’re after was smart enough to erase the security footage of the gallery,” he said. “Got most the cameras that lead to your studio, too. Except for one. I’m downloading the footage now. In a minute, we’ll know who stole your birthday gift. Whoever that is, they’re most likely also the person responsible for swapping them out—Why is everyone staring at Nixie like that for?”

“Did you know he’s been getting threatening text messages?” Lake asked.

“Yeah,” West threw them a curve ball by stating. “Why? Did he just get another one?”

Nix was too confused to speak up, but…He was fairly certain he’d never said a word about the unknown messages to West. Either he was lying to help him save face, or he’d known about it all this time. Which was it?

West must have realized he was having an internal debate over it because he blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. “Nixie, we’ve been sharing a bedroom for a week now. Of course I’m going to have seen random messages popping up on your screen when you’re in the shower or taking a dump.”

He winced at that last, and totally unnecessary, example. Nix wanted to ask why he hadn’t said anything, but now wasn’t the time, and if it helped to calm Lake and Yejun down so they could all think clearly, he’d let them believe West and he had spoken of it already.

“I think we should focus on what’s important,” Beck said. “You’re saying you can find out who did this to the paintings?”

“Yeah,” West nodded.

They huddled together as they waited for the program he was running on the tablet to finish up. It didn’t take long. As soon as it dinged, the video appeared full screen, and Westtapped a button to increase the speed so they wouldn’t have to sit through hours of footage in real time.

“How far back did you go?” Yejun asked as they all watched students and professors zip up and down the stairwell. The camera must have been tucked in a corner somewhere, and it only caught one section of the stairs, but it was enough to make everyone who came and went out clearly.

“Last night,” West replied. “Here, there’s you leaving.”

“This was eight this morning,” Yejun said. In the video, he was carrying a canvas with the same white cloth draped over it. They couldn’t make out what was beneath the sheet. “You believe me, don’t you?”

Nix realized he was talking to him and considered it. He remembered the moment painted on the canvas at their feet vividly. It’d been the first time he and Yejun were intimate, just the two of them. The whole encounter had been electric and exciting. After they’d finished, the Demon had posed him and told him to stay still while he sketched.

He’d mentioned that he’d come up with an idea on what to gift Lake for his birthday.

“Yes,” he decided. He was still mortified and wished the ground would open and swallow him whole, but he believed Yejun hadn’t been responsible for the way people kept sneaking glances at him.

Even though they were terrified of the Demons and of Lake’s threats.

Damn it.

---