Chapter 22

Nix sat cross-legged in the center of West’s bed, rearranging the information he had in his head like a warped jigsaw puzzle left out in the rain. Just as he thought he’d fit certain pieces together, he’d realize the edges weren’t quite as seamless as initially believed.

Lake had told him Iris had tried to break into the Club House systems via his uncle’s computers.

West was saying that wasn’t true. In actuality, he was the one behind that hack, as an attempt to gather intel on Hendrix Bardin.

Yejun now hated Nix because he was related to Iris, whose actual crime against them was a murder attempt.

“This is so convoluted.” If they’d told him the truth from the beginning, it wouldn’t be, and Nix sort of hated how he understood West’s explanation over why they hadn’t. “If this involves the Emperor, that means Iris should have been tried for treason and sentenced to death.”

“Lake wanted that,” West replied, then confessed, “I did too. Yejun wouldn’t allow it. Since he was the one who’d interrogated her, we agreed to let him make the final decision. He was livid, but he said she’d broken down when the Emperor’s death was announced the same day I slipped into a coma. Because of that, my condition was hidden. I wasn’t even brought to the hospital. I was left here and a doctor and his medical team came and stayed with me.”

Nix didn’t want to know what happened to that team after they were done healing him. He didn’t think he could stomach any more tonight. “You said Iris said she’d never met this person, the hacker, in real life before?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I’m—”

“Not yours,” Nix shook his head. “I mean hers. She lied to Yejun. In her letter, it was very clear she’d met this person. They were dating, at least, she thought they were dating.”

West hummed. “Yejun said it seemed like she was attached to the hacker. Called her a crazy cult follower. We bought that they hadn’t met because someone had remotely hacked into her multi-slate and deleted every thread of data relating to them. Chats, texts, calls, even messages on social media were erased.”

Nix frowned. “That’s where you picked up his signature?”

“He left it on purpose,” West growled. “But hey, at least we were able to prove you weren’t who we were after, right?”

“Oh yeah,” he drawled, “I’ve definitely come out of that completely unscathed.”

West blew a kiss at him and Nix rolled his eyes.

“What reasoning did she give for doing this?” Nix brought them back on track.

“She told him the goal was to ruin the Demon’s reputation so that Legacies were no longer given the power they’ve always had on campus. She thought she was helping him expose us, which would embarrass the Order enough they’d change the long-standing tradition of having Demons.”

“And Yejun bought that?” He was surprised. Considering how mad Yejun was and how much he blamed Iris for, the fact he’d also allowed her to leave without turning her in, and that he believed her story…

This was the same guy who only an hour ago had Nix pinned to a table. His muscles were still sore, and he was sitting in an attempt to save some face, but it wasn’t comfortable. The sun cream was helping, but with each passing minute, the more he came down from the adrenaline high, his body ached more and more.

Nix had been terrified Yejun would do something drastic like maim him—hell, even Yejun himself had threatened to break his fingers—but…Had he…inadvertently made things worse for himself than they had to be? If he hadn’t offered up sex, would Yejun had tossed him in a cell and tortured him the same way he’d apparently tortured his cousin?

Being kept awake for days was awful.

But it was a step up from being blinded or having his fingers broken.

At the first sign of trouble, Nix had instantly imagined the worst of Yejun, but—

“Good Fucking Light.” He dropped his head into a hand and laughed morosely.

“What’s wrong?” West asked.

“You guys have me so gone for you,” he admitted, so past the point of being embarrassed, he didn’t even hesitate, “I’m even making excuses to explain away his abusive behavior. This isn’t right, West. This isn’t the type of relationship I imagined myself being in with the person I chose to spend forever with.” Or, persons, as it were.

There was another part that was bothering him, and reminded of that, he lifted his head and scowled.

“Lake had absolutely no right to be angry with me at all. Sure, I didn’t tell him you and I had slept together, but that—”

“Lake knows?” West let out a low whistle. “Well shit.”

“He’s lied to me more than anyone,” Nix pointed out bitterly. “He has no right to complain when I’ve kept one thing from him!”

“I agree.” West held up both hands. “Relax, babe. I’m on your side here.”

“Bullshit.” Still, some of the anger left him and he sighed. “You’re not on anyone’s side.”

“That’s because I love all of you,” he didn’t bother trying to placate him further. “Now, can I finish with the story, or do you need to rant about how hypocritical Lake and June are a bit more?”

He huffed. “No. Go on.”

West wasn’t the one who needed to hear how Nix felt about that situation anyway. After this, Nix was going to have a serious talk with Lake—and Yejun. But maybe he’d wait for the latter to cool down before attempting a conversation with him.

“Iris might have lied about her relationship with the hacker,” West said, “but I still believe she didn’t know what was really going on. Because Lake was the next of kin, he was able to get the body privately taken care of. The planet was told about the Emperor’s illness since there was no way around that, as it’d been observed by members of the court for a couple of days leading up to her death, but Lake was able to keep the cause from leaking. The medical examiner found traces of the same poison in both the Emperor and me. Proof the same substance was being used. From there, it was fairly simple to deduce the true motive behind the hacker, and how they were using Iris to make it a reality.”

So when they’d referred to this hacker as a coward and accused him of using Iris, they’d meant that, at least.

Nix could see where this was going. “The real plan was to kill you as well, by the same means, and have that information get out to the public. Iris would either be used as a patsy, or all of the blame would be pinned on Yejun.”

“Since Iris wouldn’t have access to the palace and Yejun visited frequently,” West confirmed, “it’s more likely he was the target. Whether I found out and tried to stop him, accidentally consumed the poison unbeknownst to him, or got in the way is unclear. Take your pick. They all would have resulted in the same end.”

“Yejun accused of treason in order to pave the way for Lake’s ascension.” Nix rubbed at his forehead, tension brewing. “Lake’s word couldn’t be trusted since he had the most to gain, and you’d be gone so…”

“Yejun wouldn’t have anyone other than his parents in his corner, and they would have turned on him the second it seemed like there was a chance the family name would be smeared.”

Nix blinked. “What? They’d go that far?”

“They’re close…ish. Remember? So long as Yejun continues to be the prodigal son and makes waves in the art world, he’ll continue to garner their love and respect. But the second he stops? They’ll ditch him faster than my father can overlook me in an empty room.”

Nix hadn’t realized, and he’d spent over a month with them. Which meant…

“This person knows you all. Well.” The hacker, for lack of a better thing to call them, had to. “They were able to coach Iris on all the right ways to draw Yejun’s attention, and knew to target him instead of you. But the only one who could gain from this plot being successful would be Lake’s uncle.”

“Hendrix has been trying to dismiss Lake ever since, but if he was a part of this scheme, he hasn’t shown his hand yet. We agree he’s the most likely candidate since he’d be the one to take the throne if Lake didn’t, but so far, all he’s done is complain to the Order and try to block us with petty votes and stupid tasks.”

“Like finding the hacker who supposedly tried breaking into the Club House?” Nix pursed his lips. “Did he catch you, or did you want to be caught?”

West flashed him a toothy grin. “You’re so smart, babe. It’s super sexy.”

“I’m still not sleeping with you tonight.”

“A promise is a promise,” he agreed. “But, yeah. Once we figured out the plan to destroy us, we quickly moved into defensive mode and damage control. First, we needed to get everyone's attention away from the Emperor’s death. So, we staged an attempted break-in at the club. Then, we had Yejun loudly complain about how none of us had the time to deal with the Emperor’s passing, preparing for Lake’s ascension, and this. He told anyone who would listen he hoped the Order got to the bottom of it as soon as possible.”

“Thus planting the seed in Hendrix’s mind to saddle you all with the task.” Nix thought that was either genius or super risky. How had they known Hendrix would take the bait? Maybe it was simple because they were used to his antics. “With everyone thinking you were busy searching for this hacker, they wouldn’t be paying as much attention to you or what you were really doing.”

“Looking for Iris’s boss,” West said. “Unfortunately, the part about not having any leads was true. We read through her chat logs and found the one between her and Serendipity. A lot of it had been deleted, and even I couldn’t recover the missing files.”

“So you suspected Rase.”

“Yejun still had Iris locked up at that point and he confronted her about it. It took a while, but eventually he got her to slip up and confirm Rase was at least somehow involved. I hacked into his laptop in his dorm room and found a file with the poison’s composition on it. Iris had told June she always received the poison in the science wing, left for her in one of the lockers.”

“Whose locker?”

“It was unassigned,” West explained. “But, I set up a camera and guess who we caught opening it?”

“Rase.”

“That seemed like enough evidence.”

Nix sensed there was more to it than that, otherwise he wouldn’t have been brought into this. “Rase wasn’t the one you were after though, was he.”

“No.” West knocked his head back against the wall and glared up at the ceiling. “He was set up. The Serendipity account opened to his thumbprint, but he handed over his multi-slate with no fight, showing me the app on his device. It logged him into an account with the username Spike. He was only a Pawn. Used the app purely for hooking up.”

“How do you know that was his real account and not the other one?”

“I looked into when they were created,” West told him. “Spike’s account had been open for over two years. Serendipity’s account had been created earlier last year, and the first ping was located just outside the Club House. At the same time, Rase was in his third lecture class of the day. I checked the logs and he’s signed in. Someone copied his thumbprint and used that to create a fake account. As for the locker, he’d received a note telling him something of his was left there. Not sensing any danger, he’d gone to check. He still had the note since it was hand written.”

“Do you have it?”

“Lake does. We’ve collected all of the evidence and kept it in a safe location.”

That way they would be able to prove this person was against them from the beginning and responsible for everything. Smart.

“I’ve been searching for Rase in the off chance there’s more he hadn’t told us, since you’ve brought him up. But it seems unlikely. Since this now involves your cousin, do you know anything else that could be useful?”

Nix considered and then shook his head. “I was certain Rase was the King Branwen was talking about. I just know she fell for someone and was betrayed by him. She didn’t leave me his name or description in the letter, nothing. All I have is they used to meet in the library sometimes. If not for that, I would say maybe she was tricked into thinking it was Rase too. But…” She must have seen the hacker’s true face and known it wasn’t him. “She let you guys torture an innocent man.”

“Oh,” West snorted, “that’s not why Yejun blinded him.”

Nix’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“Yeah, no. It was pretty easy to rule Rase out as a suspect, but he was pretty shaken up by the fact he’d been targeted and handed to us, so he was going to finish up the year and then transfer elsewhere. You’re only allowed to use the Enigma app if you’re a student at Foxglove. The genius got the bright idea to use up his remaining time hooking up with as many people through the app as possible.”

“Okay…?” Nix wasn’t seeing the problem.

“I’ll give you two guesses why his name was Spike.” West wagged his brow.

Nix sneered. “Don’t tell me he drugged people.”

“Several, but the one that mattered happened to be dating Juri at the time. Juri might have waved away his rights as a Demon, but Yejun and I still take that seriously. He’s a Legacy, after all. You mess with one of us, you mess with us all. After what had already happened, knowing there was someone out to get us…An example had to be made.”

“Wait,” he held up a hand. “Juri was dating someone? Someone who got raped by Rase?”

“My guess is that someone was going to cheat on Juri anyway, since he was using the app, but basically. He was definitely drugged and taken against his will. It messed him up pretty bad and he and his family were all set to sue the university and demand the app be shut down.”

Which West and the others obviously couldn’t allow.

Shit.

“Who,” Nix almost didn’t want to know, “who was Juri dating?”

“You know his brother actually,” West shrugged. “You roomed with him for a bit in the beginning of the semester.”

“Grady?!” He covered his mouth but the name had already burst past his lips loudly.

“Yeah, his younger brother was one of the victims. Grady’s family fought hard, but eventually, they took the money my father offered them and decided not to press charges against Foxglove. The story got buried. Juri found out and came to Yejun begging for help. Since June had anger to burn, and had experienced being drugged himself, even though it wasn’t in the same way, he agreed.”

That’s why Grady hated the Demons. For Juri, the fact that they’d punished Rase was something, but for Grady, having his family silenced must feel like an injustice. Which, he wasn’t wrong about. No wonder he was so mad about Nix selling himself to them because, in his mind, his parents had done the same thing when they’d been bought off and traded their son's pain for coin.

“Iris was set loose shortly after and we never saw or heard from her again. Lake arrived back on planet, and we came up with the hacker story. All of that to say, we’ve got nothing. Someone who knows us to some degree wants to destroy us, and they’re not above roping in innocent people to help keep their identity hidden. I’ve tried everything. I searched through all of Iris’s devices and all of Rase’s just in case. The formula for the poison was definitely planted there since it appeared while he was out of his room.”

“There’s more than one person,” Nix interrupted, and when West gave him a questioning look, said, “Think about it. Whoever tried to frame Rase was sloppy. You easily figured out it was a frame job. But the person who manipulated Iris? The one who brainwashed her so deeply she was even willing to keep up the lie that they’d never met in the face of being tortured? That person is smart. They would never make a mistake like forgetting timestamps are a thing.”

West blinked at him. “You’re…right. Fuck me. You’re totally right!”

“We’re not after one person,” Nix stated. “We’re after two.”

“If only that helped us track down either of them. That doesn’t change the fact we’ve got a dead end. The hacker hasn’t approached you. Or, if they have, they don’t trust you enough to give themselves away. We’re running out of time. Honestly, I act confident in front of the others because telling them I’m stuck won’t do anyone any good, but…”

“You’re stuck.”

“Yeah.”

Nix felt like his head was about to explode, but if they stopped now, all he’d get out of this night was an information dump. He needed something . Some kind of breakthrough to make what he’d experienced downstairs worth it. Some new plan—

“Wait,” he shifted closer to West, “I have an idea. If this hacker won’t come to me, maybe this mystery accomplice will. We already know he’s sloppy, right? Let’s use that.”

West cocked his head. “How?”

“We spread the rumor around campus that we’ve found out who the hacker is.” Anyone who listened to any sort of gossip about Essential knew what Lake and them had been tasked with. “We’re closing in on them and we’ll have their name by the end of the week or whatever. Some specific time limit to give this person space to freak out and make a mistake.”

He nodded his head, excitement growing right along with Nix’s. “If there is a second person involved, they have to be a student. Only a student would have access to Rase’s dorm room, that locker, and be able to move about unnoticed.”

“Exactly. No one would suspect a classmate moving through the halls because he’d be where he belonged. Wouldn’t stand out.”

“There are hundreds of students,” West said. “And that’s just currently. What if the person we’re after graduated last year?”

“It’s a possibility, but we have to operate under the assumption that they didn’t. This is our only lead.”

“So,” he chuckled, “we’re desperate.”

“Aren’t we?”

West licked his lips. “Yeah, we are. If this doesn’t work, we’ll come up with something else. For now, let’s give this a try.”

“It can’t hurt,” Nix said. “But um…” he glanced away, “can we maybe wait until tomorrow to talk to Lake and Yejun about this? I don’t think I can see them right now.”

“Of course.”

“Really?”

“Babe.” West sighed and waited for Nix to meet his gaze. “I promise, they’re both feeling like absolute trash right now for what they’ve done to you. But even if they didn’t and they did try something again, I won’t let them humiliate you like that from here on out. Believe me?”

Even though he probably seemed weak for it, Nix found himself shifting so that he was sitting at West’s side. Then he lowered his head to the other man’s shoulder and exhaled. “Yes.”

At this point, Nix needed to believe in something or he’d go mad.