Chapter 8: Chapter 8

We leave her leaning against the building and take the long way across campus back to Theo’s car, avoiding any heavily populated areas. Theo pulls out his phone and taps out a message as we walk, and I have a feeling he’s seeing what can be done to cover our tracks and erase any evidence we were here.

I appreciate that.

Not that I think Natalie will go to the police. She’d be an idiot to go down that road, given everything she’s been an accomplice to.

“Jesus, Rose,” he murmurs as he slips the cell back into his pocket. He glances down at me, and at the bloody knuckles on my hand. “I knew you were a badass, but I didn’t know you were that badass.”

“Stupid ass, more like.” I grimace, trying to make a fist. My fingers shake as they curl, and I make a low, pained noise as I stretch them out. “I could’ve gotten us all busted.”

“Nah. We’ll take care of it.” Theo glances over my head at Ryland as he speaks, and Ryland nods. “But you did earn yourself another trip to Doctor Adelman,” the blond man adds as he shifts his gaze back to me. I groan, but he just shrugs. “Hey, you brought it on yourself this time.”

We reach his car and pile inside. This time, Ryland holds the back door open for me and then slides onto the seat next to me. As Theo pulls out of the lot, Ryland lifts my hand, examining my knuckles.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” he declares, still holding my hand in the palm of his. “But we should have Adelman check you out, just to be sure.”

“Yeah. We can have him certify that you’re one hundred percent, grade-A badass,” Theo jokes from the driver’s seat.

Ryland chuckles dryly, and I crack a smile. I can feel how much all of us are trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy, to pretend that a vital piece of the whole isn’t missing, but every bit of levity rings a little hollow.

It’s not time to grieve, I remind myself. Not yet. Not until you know.

Not so long ago, life without Marcus in it was my normal. Life without any of these men in it was normal. But now, I feel his absence as deeply as I feel the absence of my right forearm and hand.

That’s what it feels like, I realize with a start. Like I’m missing a piece of myself.

“What does it mean that Carson and Dominic had someone else helping them?” I ask as we drive away from the University of Halston’s campus. “Any ideas who it would’ve been?”

“One of the other competitors, most likely,” Theo says with a grunt. “Although it’s possible he was coordinating with someone outside the game.”

“But it’s a good bet whoever it was is the one who killed him,” Ryland adds. He’s still holding my hand, but I don’t comment on it. I don’t want him to stop, and I have a feeling if I draw attention to it, he will.

“So someone teamed up with him and Dominic to go after you guys, then turned on Carson and shot him in the head?”

“Yeah.” Theo glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Alliances in the game are about as stable as quicksand. They don’t last long, and they often end violently.”

“Why do you think Dominic showed back up at the warehouse district?” Ryland shakes his head. “We led him miles away before we managed to shake him. And I don’t think he showed back up there looking for us.”

“He was looking for Carson? To kill him?”

He shrugs. “Time was running out. He was probably hoping to get at least one kill in before the buzzer.”

My temples throb. I’ve only known about this insanity for about forty-eight hours, and it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around it all sometimes. The casual brutality, the way violence can flip on and off like a light switch. The lies and plots and manipulations.

It’s all too fucking much.

But I guess it’s to be expected when the prize for the game is the key to an entire fucking city.

“That means Dominic lied,” I say slowly. “When he said he didn’t know who killed Carson. I mean, maybe he doesn’t know, but if they were teamed up with someone else, then he must have a pretty good idea who it could’ve been. Who else would’ve known we were there.”

“Unless Dom didn’t know Carson had another ally.” Ryland finally sets my hand down on the seat, releasing it gently from his grasp. “Carson might’ve been double-dealing. I wouldn’t put it past the slimy fucker.”

I close my eyes for a moment, blocking out the scenery that rolls by outside the window. The bubble of hope that rose in my chest at the idea that we might have a lead is slowly deflating. It doesn’t feel like we’re any closer to answers; all we have are more questions.

Doctor Adelman greets us at the back door to his office just like he did last time, and his eyebrows twitch up in surprise when he takes in my most recent injury. But just like yesterday, he doesn’t comment, keeping his expression carefully neutral as he leads us down the halls and into a private room.

The broken chunks of Ryland’s phone have been cleaned up, and a large piece of white paper has been taped over the hole in the wall. I glance at Ryland’s hand, wondering if it still aches from his brutal assault on the wall yesterday. I know from experience how fucking painful letting your rage out through your fists can be.

Once again, I settle onto the exam table. Ryland and Theo stand on either side of me as Doctor Adelman cleans my wounds and examines my hand. He takes an x-ray to make sure there are no hairline fractures and then tells me I might want to wear a brace for a few days.

“I know it’ll be a bit of a hassle,” he says, his gaze flicking to the stump of my right arm. “But it’ll help you heal faster in the long run.”

“Okay.” I nod, testing my grip again as I make another fist. It’s easier this time than it was when we were leaving campus.

Doctor Adelman retrieves my x-rays and declares me free of fractures. He prescribes another painkiller but tells me that the one I’m taking for my head might be enough to ease the pain in my hand too.

As he leads us back through the office and out the door, I half expect him to comment on the fact that I’ve been to see him twice in the past two days. But he doesn’t say anything, just nods at Ryland and Theo before closing the door.

I wonder what he thinks of all of this. What story he’s made up in his mind to explain my injuries, both today and yesterday. Because even though he remains so carefully neutral and uninterested on the outside, he has to wonder, doesn’t he?

Well, Doctor Adelman, whatever you think it is, I promise you the truth is a hundred times stranger than whatever you’ve imagined.

We fill the prescription and pick up a brace, and as we drive back toward Theo’s house, an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu steals over me. This feels like a repeat of yesterday—only yesterday, I had some hope that tomorrow would be better, that we’d be closer to finding Marcus.

But it doesn’t feel that way now.

It feels like we spent the day running in circles, and if Marcus is out there somewhere, if he’s still alive, time matters. We can’t afford to waste it. I can’t afford to spend years searching for him, the way I have for the little boy in the faded picture I keep in my wallet.

The brother whose name I don’t even know.

“Marcus was going to help me find him,” I murmur, more to myself than either of the men in the car. But Ryland looks over from where he sits next to me in the back seat.

“Find who?”

My chest tightens. I’ve told almost no one about my search for my missing brother, or even that I suspect I have a brother. I only told Marcus because he went through my wallet without asking me and found the picture before I could stop him.

I hated admitting it out loud to him, hated how stupid and desperate it sounded when I put it into plain English.

But Marcus didn’t laugh at me. He just looked at the photo and then looked at me, studying my face with an intensity that made my skin flush. And then he told me he thought I was right—that the boy in the picture is my brother.

He offered to help me find him.

My heart thuds heavily in my chest as I reach into my back pocket and pull out the small metal cigarette case I use as a wallet. I fish out the picture, running my fingertips over the familiar lines before handing it over to Ryland.

It feels a little like handing over a piece of my heart and hoping he won’t break it, but after the way Marcus reacted, I don’t feel as terrified as I once would have.

When Ryland takes it from me, the delicate way he handles it eases the tightness in my chest a little. He touches it like he knows it’s important to me, and that makes it important to him.

“That little boy is my brother. Maybe,” I add quickly, hating myself a little for qualifying my words like that.

I tell them both the same thing I told Marcus that night, about how a girl from foster care gave me this picture and how I’ve spent countless hours and money I really couldn’t afford to spend trying to track him down.

They both listen in silence, and by the time I finish speaking, we’ve pulled back into Theo’s garage.

He turns off the engine and shifts in his seat, taking the picture from Ryland and examining it carefully before handing it back to me. His fingertips brush against mine as I take the small photograph, and he catches my gaze.

“I’m not surprised Marcus offered to help you look. He’d do just about anything for you, Rose.” He glances back at the picture as I tuck it away, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth. “And he knows what it’s like to miss someone. Ry and I are both only children, but Marcus had a little sister. She died when he was a kid.”

I snap the cigarette case closed, blinking at Theo in shock. “He never told me that.”

“Yeah.” Theo casts a glance at Ryland, his lips pulling to one side. “He doesn’t talk about her a lot.”

Emotions swirl around inside my chest, and I can’t tell if I’m angry Marcus didn’t tell me about his sister or… or what. He basically forced me to tell him about my brother, and then he didn’t even tell me he had a sibling too?

I hate that he didn’t. I hate that there’s still so much I don’t know about him. Pieces of himself he hasn’t trusted me with, no matter how deeply obsessed with me or attached to me he might be.

But then, I’ve kept parts of myself hidden too.

Despite the spark of chemistry that flared like white-hot lightning between us, despite the genuine feelings I’ve developed for him, I still kept parts of myself out of his reach. It was a self-preservation instinct born out of too many lessons learned the hard way over the years, but I wish I’d let him in more. That I’d trusted him more.

What if I never get the chance now?

“What was her name?” I murmur.

“Alexis.” Theo’s voice is low. “She died when she was six.”

“Did you know her?”

He nods, running a hand through his sandy blond hair. “Yeah. She was a sweet kid. Marcus fucking adored her.”

I can hear the truth of his statement in his voice, and I try to imagine Marcus as a little kid, doting on and protecting a little sister. A little girl with features that mirror his, who looks at him like he’s her knight in shining armor.

I bet he was a great older brother.

Stuffing the cigarette case back into my pocket, I glance between Theo and Ryland. “You guys have known each other almost your whole lives, right?”

“Yeah,” Theo says. “As long as I can remember, really. The three of us have always been a unit.”

“It’s why Carson and Dominic teamed up to take us down. Along with whoever else Carson recruited.” Ryland’s expression hardens. “Like Theo said, alliances between players don’t usually mean shit. But the three of us would never turn on each other; we’ll always have each other’s backs. It’s painted a target on all of our backs, because people know we’re stronger together. So they’ll do what they can to split us up so they can try to pick us off individually.”

He doesn’t say the next words, but I hear them anyway as my mind flashes back to the pool of blood I woke up in yesterday.

Maybe someone’s already succeeded.