Page 72 of Martyr

“Whatever. Nix gets me. Don’t you?”

“I mean…” Nix cleared his throat. “Not really?”

“Oh, come on. You don’t have to fib for Grady’s sake.” He motioned to his neck. “You even let one of them bite you!”

Let was a strong word…

Nix adjusted his collar to conceal the scar better, but that only set Dew off more.

“It’s not fair. If I’d been given a claiming mark by someone in the line of succession, I’d be showing it off to everyone, including strangers on the street. Do you think I should try and seduce Professor Bardin?”

Khloe laughed. “Yeah, right. As if you could pull Beck Bardin.”

Dew glared at her, the overall vibe of the conversation swiftly darkening. “What? You don’t think I’m good enough for him or something?”

“Whoa,” she held up her hands. “No, not at all. That’s not what I meant. It’s just so many people have tried, but he’s never interested. I don’t think Beck’s dated anyone.”

“Not publicly,” Dew said. “We can’t know about his private life.”

Since the redhead seemed legitimately upset, Nix figured now was the best time to change the subject. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really think of anything to say, so he ended up blurting, “Hey, have any of you ever heard of Serendipity before?”

Three sets of eyes all turned to him at once in an eerie fashion that had Nix’s hackles rising.

“What?” He’d felt it was safe to ask since they’d already told him none of them had ever gotten far enough in the app to even speak to one of the Kings. His real hope had been they’d heard a rumor or something, since they were so active on Enigma and someone had to have hooked up with Serendipity at some point.

“Did one of them threaten you?” Grady demanded to know, and Nix’s frown deepened.

“What? Who?”

“The Demons.”

“Why would they…?”

“It’s Rase,” Dew finally answered for them. “Serendipity? That was his Enigma username.”

“Rase?” The guy Yejun had famously blinded in the cafeteria? That didn’t make sense. “He can’t be.”

Wouldn’t Lake have known? And what about the others? They’d mentioned Iris in passing a few times, but no one had said anything about Rase being involved with her or her supposed schemes.

“It’s definitely him,” Grady said.

“Why are you asking?” Dew tilted his head. “Are the Demons not done with him?”

“Last I heard,” Khloe pursed her lips, “he moved to the other side of the planet and changed his name.”

“I thought he moved off planet.”

“It would be hard to find him either way,” Grady stated.

“Not for the Demons,” Dew corrected.

Only, it wasn’t the Demons who wanted him found, it was Nix, and Nix didn’t have any power.

“Sorry, it was just a random question,” Nix lied. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I thought I saw the username somewhere, that’s all.”

He wasn’t ready to believe Lake was withholding important information. Either Lake hadn’t known since he’d been on the planet Vitality at the time, or there was more to this story than his friends knew. Considering how private the Demons actually were, that wasn’t too far out of the realm of possibility.

“Makes sense,” Dew said. “Some people still talk about it.” His multi-slate dinged and suddenly he was buzzing with excitement. “Gotta go!”

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