Chapter 10

“What’s up with you?” I ask, coming out of the gym and finding Cove pacing the lounge and muttering to himself. I pull my earbuds from my ears so that I can hear his reply, cutting off Greenday’s ‘Basket Case’.

“Nothing,” Cove grumbles, still pacing.

“Yeah, I’m not buying’ it. You’re like a bear with a sore head. It’s totally out of character for you. I’m supposed to be the grumpy one around here. Or the prof – though I maintain he just enjoys being an asshole.” I flick my towel at him and it whips him on the thigh. He glowers at me, but it looks almost comical on his usually smiling face. Dark and brooding, he is not.

“It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Another flick. “Spill.” Again. He swears this time. Think I clipped his ballsack. “I’ll just keep annoying you until you do.”

Cove sighs. “Fine. It’s Malia.”

“What about her?” I ask sharply, suddenly tense and interested.

“She stood me up.”

“Oh? You guys had, like, a date planned or something?” I keep my tone light but really I want to frown, not liking that at all. I thought me and her were getting on pretty well…until she bolted on me. If she’s not leaving her room, even for lessons, how is she dating Cove?

“We do things together online,” Cove explains.

I snort. “Well, that sounds dodgy.”

“Shut up.” He grabs a cushion off the sofa and throws it at me, but I easily bat it away.

“Seriously though, can you explain in a less…bad way?” I ask, pretty fucking diplomatically if you ask me.

“We watch films together on Netflix and stuff. We’ve been talking a lot, texting every day. Video chats. That sort of thing. We were supposed to have another date last night but she was a no show, and now she’s blanking me.”

I hate his use of the term another date but I grit my teeth and try not to let my jealousy show. If I were able to think logically right now, I would be able to pin my feelings on the prophecy…if Malia was the Star. But I don’t think she is; my feelings are genuine. It’s just my bad luck that Cove would be into her too.

“Have you been over to her place to check on her?” I ask. I mean, it’s what I would do. Confront the problem head on. Don’t take no for an answer.

“Yeah, and the stuff I left out for her last night is still sitting on her doorstep, untouched.”

“Bummer.” I try not to smirk. I’d probably be gutted if I were him. I try not to get too deep when it comes to the opposite sex – unless we’re talking balls deep – but I have to admit to working a little harder than normal with Malia.

Which just leads me to think that she isn’t the Star. Because if there was a bond or a pull or some shit between us, wouldn’t she be reciprocating? Instead of trying to keep us at arms’ length and making us work like snow plows in Alaska.

“Maybe she’s just not that into you,” I say cheerily, “and this was the only way she knew how to let you down.”

“You’re a real asshole sometimes, Bhodi. Go fuck a cactus.”

“People pay a lot of money to do that shit, you know,” I point out, shrugging and making my way over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water. “Look, just go for a surf or a wank or whatever it is you do to de-stress, and then look at the issue again with an open mind.”

“Yeah…yeah, actually that’s not a bad idea,” he replies thoughtfully before shuffling around the lounge.

“I’ve been known to have one or two.”

“You’re still a dick.”

“You’re welcome,” I call after him as he grabs his board and slams the front door.

Surfing, not wanking then.

As soon as he’s gone I grab my phone and text Reef.

Bhodi: Are you home?

Reef: No. I‘m out, why?

Bhodi: I need to borrow your laptop.

Reef: Why?

Bhodi: Research project.

Reef: Can’t you use yours?

Bhodi: Not for this type of research *winking emoji*

Reef: You better not be “researching” porn, asshole

Bhodi: Lol. Text me the password. I know you changed it after last time

Reef: *middle finger emoji*

Laughing, I pocket my phone and go grab Reef’s laptop from his room. He’s being a dick; he knows what I want it for. Only Reef’s fancy laptop has access to the databases that I want to look at, and is untraceable. Like, completely, one hundred percent untraceable by humans and supes alike. Some clever voodoo shit went into protecting that machine, so I understand why Reef got a little bit pissy the last time I borrowed it and spilled milk on the keys.

Apparently saying “no use crying over spilled milk” wasn’t the best way to break the tension. Just my nose.

I promise I’ll be more careful this time because I actually want answers. Returning to the sofa with Reef’s laptop, I open up the lid, power it up and check my phone for the password. He hasn’t sent it.

Bhodi: Password, dickhead.

“That’s not it.”

I nearly jump out of my skin when Reef’s voice comes from behind me.

“Oh my god, you absolute fucktard! Why would you do that?”

He laughs. “You should have seen your face. As if I’d trust you with the password or the machine.” He drops down next to me, snatches the laptop from me and types in the password too fast for me to catch it. “What are we researching?”

Great. Just what I didn’t want to happen. When I don’t reply, Reef looks up at me.

“What are you up to?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to know a bit more about Malia, is all.”

“Right. And you thought that you would be able to find what exactly, compared to me?”

“Oh fuck off.” I know Reef is the tech guy, the research guy, the info guy. Mr fucking know it all.

“Do you just wanna read her file?”

“You have a file on her?”

“Of course.”

“Since when?”

“Does it matter? You wanna read it or not? It’s not…pretty.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Just see for yourself, but promise me that whatever you read, you won’t take it out on the laptop.”

“What the hell?!” I snatch the laptop from him and click on the first document in Malia’s open file. I scan the hospital report and blanch.

“Yeah.” Reef gets to his feet, squeezes my shoulder and goes to leave.

“Holy fuck.”

“It gets worse,” is all he says, and then he’s gone.

* * *

I read for hours. I have to keep taking breaks because I alternate between needing to vomit and needing to kill someone. I’ve never read anything so difficult or harrowing in my life. You can’t make half of this shit up.

What she’s been through…fuck.

“You done?” Reef asks, returning to the lounge. He’s damn lucky his laptop is still in one piece.

“What the fuck?!” I growl. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“The prof didn’t deem it necessary.”

“The fuck it isn’t.”

Reef shrugs. “Just following orders man.”

“This fucking sucks.“

“Which part?”

“Fucking all of it.” I shake my head. How the fuck is she even alive, let alone sane?

When I think what a prick I was to her just because it was fun to watch her blush and stammer I feel like absolute shit. Worse than shit, like the fucking bacteria that grows on festering shit. The lowest of the low.

How do I make it up to her?

I thrust the laptop at Reef and get to my feet once again.

I need to fucking kill someone. Preferably her piece of shit parents who…I shake my head. I can’t even think about what they did. Right now anyone on this island and not the other side of the world will do.

“Where you going?” Reef asks as I grab the keys to my motorbike which I keep in the garage. Technically it’s not allowed on the island, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s for emergencies and this is a fucking emergency.

“Out.”

“Bhodi, wait.” Reef catches my arm and I have to shake him off.

If I don’t get out of this house right now, I might take my rage out on Reef, and he might not live to tell the tale.

“I can’t. I have to…go.” I shake my head again, my eyes imploring him to understand. He sees it, gets it, and nods. He releases me.

“Don’t do anything too crazy.”

“No promises.” It’s the best I can offer him.

I step through the front door and quickly make my way along the lane to the garage where we leave our illegal vehicles. I’m so angry, my strides are longer and more purposeful than usual and I find myself there in no time. Opening the garage, I grab my helmet off the hook on the wall and then take my bike off the main stand and walk it backwards out of the space. I straddle the bike, pull on my helmet and connect my phone to the built-in Bluetooth system. Once my playlist is set to go, I start the ignition and rev the engine to warm her up. It’s been so long since I started her up that I’m lucky I don’t have a flat battery. The anger in my veins thrums to the roar of the engine.

I know I should calm down, need to in fact, but never in history has anyone ever calmed down from being told to do so. Even when talking to yourself. Stay alive. Don’t be reckless. That advice will have to do.

I gun the engine and take off too fast, too reckless. I need to get to Two Harbours. There’s a fight tonight with my name on it. Several fights in fact.

I stick to the back roads, most of which are like dirt tracks, until I come to the outskirts of Two Harbours. It’s smaller than Avalon so I can get to where I need to be on foot. I park my bike up a side street, leave my helmet on the handlebars and head in the direction of the campsite. It’s the perfect location for an underground fight club because people come and go all the time. It also means if you get your ass kicked so badly you can’t make it home, there’s a place to crash for the night. Or the weekend if you need that long to recover. Best of all, it’s owned by a supernatural doctor – we never ask what species she is – with epic healing powers, so most people can be patched up and sent on their way within a few hours. If you can afford her fees.

“Doc, you’re looking gorgeous as ever,” I tell her with a winning smile when I step into the campground reception area. She gives me a ‘don’t fuck with me’ look which is pretty standard, and clicks her forked tongue at me.

“You look like ass, Bho. Why are you here?” She blinks her freaky yellow eyes at me but I know better than to be anything but charming to the doc.

“Heard there was a fight tonight with my name on it.“

“Oh yeah?” She raises a brow at me. “Which one?”

“All of them.” I wink and she sighs.

“Are you going to leave any of my best fighters standing for the rest of the week?”

“Can’t guarantee it,” I reply with a shrug.

“Wow. Someone must have really pissed in your beer today.”

“Beer tastes like piss anyway,” I quip. “But yes. I have some rage I need to work through tonight.”

“Fine. Go down and tell Dami you’re the main attraction tonight—”

“The only attraction.”

She silences me with a look. “So that he can chalk up the odds. You can warm up in the cage if you like. Or not. I don’t care. You need to disappear now, I have actual customers arriving.”

I don’t hang around because the doc never asks twice, she just starts shooting. Once I enter the basement and pass the message on to Dami, who promptly hands me a bourbon, I strip off my shirt and begin warming up. It may be hours until the crowds start appearing and the fights start, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins won’t wait.

It’s going to be a good night.