Page 83 of The Never List
For some reason, some buried instinct or pathetic imagined attachment, my eyes go to Jax’s. I want his searing indigo eyes to be the last thing I see before they deal with me.
“Here’s the thing, kitten,” Axl says, his voice calm, smooth. He waves an arm toward Kal, Pierce, and Jax. “We share everything, as I’m sure you’ve realized. It’s how we operate. If you’re going to stick around,” he says, then moves his lips to my ear and whispers, “which I hope you do…”
Chills erupt on my skin, skittering down my neck and settling deep in my core.
“Then you’ll have to accept that,” Axl continues at a normal volume. “We don’t keep secrets from one another. Not with stuff that matters.”
I can’t find the words to respond, so I merely nod.
Is he talking aboutmysecrets? Secrets he discovered while searching for information on Erin?
“You asked me and Kal to find information on your sister after what Baydel read at dinner,” Axl says.
A muscle in Jax’s jaw ticks, and he leans back in his seat, unsheathing a blade from the holster beneath his leather jacket and flipping it end over end.
“But what I’ve found needs to be said in front of all of us.”
Oh goddess. I’m so fucked.
How am I going to explain lying? How can I explain keeping the fact that I’m a demi from them?Wait. There isnoway anyone would know I’m a demi… The only othersouls alive who do are Erin, Layce, and Ivy, and they’d never sell me out. No, he can only know about the Ashlander part—
“I’m sorry, kitten,” he says, drawing me back to the present. “There is no record of your sister ever accepting a Never List mission. Either Baydel made that up or he had a false record.”
My stomach catapults to the floor.
She’s gone.
Sheactuallyabandoned me and never looked back.
Relief and grief mix together in a wave I let ride out inside me.
This is good. This means Baydel was using the information to give credit to the vague threat.
“But Baydel said…” I finally murmur, expressing the proper reaction instead of revealing the cards playing out in my mind.
“Exactly,” Axl says. “Why would he say that to you if it wasn’t true?”
“He hates me,” I explain, looking directly at Jax while I say it. “Ever since I denied him that first night. Ever since he learned I’m…from one of the lower cities.”
Kal smooths a hand over my thigh, supportive, claiming, comforting.
Jax tracks the move, visibly swallowing as he returns his focus to the blade in his hand.
“Baydel hates everyone,” Jax says, that slick, sardonic tone dripping over me like warm honey. Damn him. How can he basically ignore me every time he sees me and still affect me so badly?
“I seem to bring out the worst in him,” I answer, settlingdeeper into Axl and Kal. My fun place, my safe place.
“It does pose the question,” Pierce says, head tilted in that signature calculative way of his. Goddess, he looks so much like his father when he makes that expression.
He wears an emerald green shirt beneath his leather jacket, and I blink a few times to appreciate that this is the first look I’ve gotten at him out of the suits. I like him in both, but there’s a strategic set to his brown eyes right now that makes my fingers tremble.
“To what end would he deliver this information to our dear Rylee?” he continues. “What does he gain from the lie?”
“Control,” Jax says, catching the blade in midair.
“Why would he want control over Rylee?” Kal asks.
Jax smiles that brutal, lethal smile of his. “He’s scared of her.”
