Page 93 of Freestyle
“I will be monitoring the whole time. If anything happens, I can stop him. Trust me, baby.” Nix coos, caressing my cheek.
“I want him gone. I can’t handle him following me, stalking me, and leaving things for me anymore.” I plead, begging them with my eyes.
“Call your dad, Gray. We’re going to need a cleanup crew.”
“I didn’t say I was agreeing to this. We are sending an innocent woman out alone, so we can draw him out? That’s fucked up.”
The silence that falls afterward is sharp and brittle, thin glass waiting to shatter beneath the wrong word.
Gray’s pacing now, running a hand through his hair like he’s physically trying to keep the fury from slipping out. “There’s got to be another way,” he mutters. “Something that doesn’t involve her walking straight into his crosshairs.”
“I’m not walking into anything,” I say, steadying myself. “I’ll be surrounded. Watched.”
“You shouldn’t have to be.” He turns to me, his eyes lit with something dangerous. “You shouldn’t be the one out there dangling like bait.”
“I’m not helpless,” I snap, the words sharper than I intend.
His jaw works. He doesn’t argue, but he also doesn’t agree.
Phoenix, still crouched in front of me, meets my eyes. There’s a promise there, a tether. “The moment he shows his face, he’s done. We’re in position, we’ve got eyes in the crowd, comms in your ear. You won’t even sit down before I’ve got him in our grasp. I’ve already got eyes on his location.”
Gray grits his teeth. “And what if you’re wrong? What if she hesitates, or freezes—”
“Then I move.” Phoenix’s tone is final. “Because I’ve got her.”
I exhale slowly.
“I want this,” I say again. “I need this.”
Gray still looks like he wants to put his fist through a wall but after a moment he nods once, just once, and pulls out his phone.
“Fine,” he growls. “But if we’re doing this…” He scrolls, then taps. “…I’m calling in everyone.”
Twenty Three
Rowyn
Thefountainglowssilverunder the lamplight.
Not gold, not soft. Just cold and still, caught in the stretch of shadows that fold across campus like waiting hands.
I sit at the edge, the stone cool beneath me, the water whispering behind my back.
Every sound is too sharp in the dark; every footstep on the brick path, every rustle of wind dragging leaves like whispers. The quad is mostly empty at this hour, on purpose. Nix wanted it that way. Cleaner lines of sight, fewer unknowns.
Still, he’s out there.
I feel it like static under my skin.
Phoenix’s voice is in my ear again, soft but coiled tight. “You’re still good. Eyes are on you.”
My arms are crossed, fingers hidden in my sleeves. I keep my head down like I’m checking my phone, but I’m not. I’m counting breaths.
Then a noise, sharp and close. A laugh, thin and wrong, somewhere just beyond the fountain.
My spine locks.
I don’t turn.
