Page 24 of Mayhem

Ronan watched me long enough that Carter abruptly became fascinated with the paperwork in front of him. There was no real confusion between us. Ronan knew exactly what I was about to do, and I knew exactly how little he liked it. He also knew that telling me not to follow Echo would turn the impulse into a certainty if it wasn’t one already.

When he finally spoke, his voice was lower. “Do not touch her.”

I looked back at him. That was a much more interesting instruction than going to Hunter. “That feels unnecessarily restrictive.”

“I mean it.” Ronan stepped closer, keeping the conversation between us now. “We don’t know who she is, what she wants beyond Nichlas, or why she managed to get this far without us seeing her coming. Watch her if you’re going to ignore me anyway, but don’t make yourself part of whatever she’s doing.”

The fact that he thought I could watch Echo Matthews and remain outside of it almost made me smile again. I looked toward the library doors where Nichlas had already started edging away, then back at Ronan. “So do I.”

Nichlas started backing away from us, one hand already reaching for his phone. I watched him go. His shoulders were tight, his pace too fast for someone pretending he wasn’t scared, and every few seconds his head turned toward the nearest aisle or doorway.

Ronan came up beside me. “If Hunter asks, I told you to stay here.”

“You always tell me such boring things.”

“I’m serious.”

I looked at him. He was calm, but his eyes had sharpened in the way they did when he was deciding how much trouble he was willing to let me cause before stepping in.

I kissed the corner of his mouth because I knew it would irritate him.

His hand closed around the back of my neck before I could pull away. “Malakai.”

“I’ll be good.”

“That means nothing when you say it.”

“Exactly.”

I slipped out of his grip and headed after Nichlas before he got far enough ahead to become inconvenient. I’d already spent most of the afternoon wondering what Echo Matthews looked like when she wasn’t nearly running into me in a crowded hallway.

Apparently I was about to find out.

Nichlas left the library looking over his shoulder before he even reached the doors. I gave him enough time to get downstairs before I followed, staying far enough back that he wouldn’t notice me unless he stopped and started looking properly.

He was too busy checking every doorway he passed, his shoulders tight beneath his coat, one hand touching his split lip every few seconds as if he needed to keep confirming that Echo had actually gotten close enough to do it. Ronan was probably already on his way to Hunter, which meant I had a limited amount of time before somebody decided I should be doing something useful. I knew exactly what the useful thing was. I simply wanted something else more.

Nichlas cut through the older academic building instead of taking the main path across the quad, moving faster than he had yesterday and checking every doorway before he passed it. I followed him through the second-floor corridor until voices carried from the faculty wing ahead.

Echo already had him against the wall.

I stopped before I came around the corner far enough for either of them to see me. Her fist was twisted in the front of his shirt, Nichlas’ split lip bleeding again while he talked too fast about the ledger, the people who had threatened him, and how he’d kept her real name and her family from them.

“They were going to kill me,” he said.

Echo’s expression went still. “You were scared, so you picked yourself.”

Nichlas tried to argue that it hadn’t been that simple, but Echo only pulled him closer. Interesting, I muttered to myself. Nichlas was a piss poor excuse of a human, enough that it wasn’t surprising he had betrayed someone. But I didn’t think it would have been someone like her.

Whatever the ledger was, whatever had happened afterward, he had traded something that belonged to Echo to save himself and then disappeared. The strange part was how much I enjoyed seeing the consequences reach him. He was protected. Desmond himself had made that decision, which meant I should have stepped in the moment Echo put her hands on him.

Echo switched her grip to his throat, and Nichlas’ fear sharpened immediately. She watched his face while she squeezed, not hard enough to finish anything, just enough to make him understand how easily she could. There was intent in it. She wasn’t losing control. She was choosing each second. When Nichlas tried to use her fathers against her, I saw the change in her before I understood the words. He thought he had leverage. Echo laughed in his face.

That was when I stopped pretending this was only curiosity.

I wanted to know her.

I wanted to know what made a woman laugh when somebody threatened her with the men who raised her. I wanted to know why she had crossed the country for Nichlas and why, now that she had him in front of her, she was taking her time. I wanted to know why she had looked at me in the hallway like she could already see something worth testing.