Page 47 of Mayhem

“I walked across Aldrich in the uniform you picked while carrying the shoes you picked, which feels like an impressive amount of cooperation from me.” I stretched one leg out and checked the edge of the blister pad that had started lifting near my ankle. “If you want footwear on my body every second I’m outside this room, give me my boots back. Otherwise, I’m going to follow your rules however I decide to follow them.”

Hunter sat back and studied me with the expression he used whenever I found a hole in something he thought had been perfectly clear. “The point of changing your clothes was to stop you from deliberately drawing attention every time you crossed campus.”

“That plan is going beautifully. Everyone stared at the barefoot woman instead of the boots you hated.”

Ronan’s mouth shifted behind his laptop, but he kept his attention on the screen. Hunter caught the movement anyway and looked even less pleased when he returned his attention to me. “You could have changed into another pair.”

“I could have if somebody hadn’t filled my closet with variations of the same mistake. I’ll wear the skirts, the jackets, the ridiculous little shirts, whatever makes the three of you feel like Aldrich hasn’t been personally insulted by my wardrobe. My boots are where I stop negotiating.”

For a few seconds, Hunter said nothing. His gaze stayed on me long enough that I knew this was no longer really about shoes. Every agreement between us seemed to end the same way: Hunter wrote a boundary broad enough to satisfy himself, and I discovered exactly how much room existed inside it. He hated that I kept doing it. I had started enjoying how long it took him to decide whether correcting me was worth the fight.

Malakai leaned toward my feet and frowned at the bandages. “Those look worse than they did earlier.”

I pushed his shoulder until he straightened again. “Aeron already gave me the parental lecture, so unless you’ve recently qualified in podiatry, you can keep your medical opinions to yourself.”

That got Hunter’s attention for a different reason. “You talked to your family.”

The question was casual enough that someone who didn’t know him might have missed the interest underneath it. I didn’t. My conversation with Samael had been sitting in the back of my head ever since I hung up, and Hunter was still the most obvious explanation for someone suddenly scratching at Primrose-era records.

“I talk to them regularly,” I said, watching him instead of pretending the subject meant nothing. “They’re annoyingly invested in whether I eat, sleep, wear shoes, and survive college.”

Hunter’s expression barely changed. “Anything interesting?”

There it was.

I smiled and reached for the book inside my bag. “They told me to put bandages on my feet. Life-changing stuff.”

He held my gaze for another moment before letting it go. I did the same. If Hunter wanted to tell me exactly what he had started digging through, he could use his words. Until then, Samael had asked for anything suspicious, and Hunter asking after a routine call home immediately after somebody had started pulling old family records qualified nicely.

Malakai had already gotten bored with the silent part of the conversation. He stole the pen I had just pulled from my bag, rolled it across his knuckles, and started telling Hunter about Lacey Durant before I could decide whether I wanted him to. He did it badly, naturally. Somewhere in his version, I had apparently dismantled an extortion empire before lunch while barefoot and wounded, and Priya had been seconds away from indentured servitude. I let him talk until Hunter finally looked at me for the version that had any chance of resembling reality.

“Priya owed somebody a favor,” I explained. “The woman changed the terms after Priya had already started paying it back, then tried to use an old access log to force her into giving up information about me and the three of you. We found enough other people she’d done the same thing to that keeping the threat alive became more expensive than dropping it. Priya got the original record, Lacey deleted the copy she was using, and nobody died. You should be proud.”

Hunter did not look proud. He looked interested. “Why were you involved?”

“Because Priya was being squeezed over something she never agreed to.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

I stopped reaching for the pen Malakai kept moving out of range and looked at Hunter properly. His tone had changed just enough that I knew he was not asking whether I had been bored, curious, or looking for an excuse to interfere. There was a structure underneath the question.

“She’s my friend,” I said. “Somebody decided that made her easy to use. They were wrong.”

Hunter rested one forearm on the desk. “Are you protecting her?”

The wording made me glance toward him again. “Apparently.”

“I’m asking because that means something here, Echo. If you step between Priya and anyone who comes after her, use your access to settle her problems, and make people believe they have to go through you to reach her, then you’re claiming responsibility whether you bother naming it or not.”

That finally got me to close the book I had barely opened. Hunter was telling me I had just stepped into another rule nobody had bothered explaining because most people at Aldrich had grown up knowing it.

He continued before I could dismiss it. “Protection isn’t just telling somebody to back off because you like the person they’re bothering. It means if Priya makes a promise under your name, creates a debt she can’t settle, or damages someone who believes you stand behind her, they can come to you. Same goes for anyone else you decide belongs under that umbrella. You inherit part of the consequence.”

I understood the structure once he spelled it out. “Fine,” I said, settling back into the chair. “Then she’s protected.”

Hunter’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You should probably think about that longer than three seconds.”

“I did think about it. Priya is still Priya after your explanation, so the answer didn’t change.”