3. RAVEN

3

RAVEN

Maddy thinks this is going to be a simple hit-and-run sort of thing. But I'm going to pry her open and find out every little secret she has. As much as I want Maddy, I really want to know the version of her she ran away from. She grew up in wealth, among brutal men, guarded and pampered. And though she is used to cruel men, I bet sweet Maddy never intended to get mixed up with a guy like me.

I would've liked to tell her exactly what I wanted from her. That clumsy giant, Guff, is one of her best friends from the Eastside, and his interruption was untimely.

But I'm already anticipating whatever will happen to me and the beautiful girl who is Ayana's biggest secret.

I get on my motorcycle parked at the front of the restaurant, then zoom through the resort toward the beach. On foot, I cross the sandy part, past the pier, and toward the rocks on the northern part.

It's dark, only the pier lit up by the lights, clusters of them dotting the horizon, where the luxury yachts are anchored. The salty breeze wafts into my face, and I inhale deeply, finally letting my smile out, remembering how unfazed Maddy looked. She sure knows how to stay calm. Oh, but wait, that's Milena Tsariuk, who perfected her disguise for two years on Zion.

I reach the rocky part of the Ayana beach and take a steep path up between the rocks until, a minute later, I step onto a flat stone surface, hidden among the rocks.

I'm in my safe haven, a shallow alcove twice my height. The coolness is soothing when I stand with my back pressed to the flat wall that looks as if a giant punched the rocks. I let my eyes roam over the dark ocean in front of me.

The waves crash against the rocks, but during the low tide, the mist doesn't reach me.

I come here often, sometimes twice a day. Humans are so full of unnecessary noise, but this place soothes me. None of the guard towers are visible from this position. Not a single yacht or party boat mars the majestic view. The loud crashing of the waves drowns any other sounds. On bad days, it resonates with the storm inside me, urging me to take out my Swiss Army knife, lift up my shirt, and make another shallow cut just below my ribs to continue the intricate pattern of the dozens and dozens of other small cuts.

So many people try to get rid of physical pain. A few of us consider it a therapy. Physical pain is nothing compared to the mental torture, courtesy of the demons from the past. Mine are few, but, oh, do they have teeth and claws.

I grew up as an "unfortunate" type. "The troublemaker." That's what they called us in foster care, those who couldn't manage to make a home in one place. I was raised by barks and slaps, pushed from one foster home to another. You get used to abuse. It becomes your normal. You learn to manage pain. After a while, it becomes your middle name—something you learn to ignore. And after a while, you get used to the idea that you are unwanted, a worthless little thing. You start believing it, because everyone tells you that you are. Grownups know better, right?

Fuck them. Well, most of them.

Often, in moments like this, when I think about my past, I try to imagine an alternative scenario of what happened twelve years ago, the day I went to juvie for stabbing my foster father eleven times… I was hoping to save Emily. I was fifteen. She was eleven. I thought I'd gone through hell, broken bones, stitches, bruises, repeated burns at the hands of that foster psycho. Emily went through worse. Her childhood was stolen by the sick fuck in his basement where he had her all to himself.

Going to juvie was my punishment. The monster was dead. It was supposed to give Emily a new start. But I fucked up, yet again. Of course, there is no one else to blame but me for what happened to her after that.

When you live on the streets, you don't resist the chaos—you embrace it and learn to surf it. You get pitted. You ride the waves of violence. You find yourself in a barrel and learn to surf out of it. You get better. You have to. If you don't, you go under and are swallowed by the darkness. Many don't make it out alive.

But if you do, you start believing in fate and the golden rule—no one stumbles into your life by accident.

Everything is a lesson.

There's no better advocate than me, who was literally plucked off the streets by a man called Mac. He didn't care about what I did in the past but cared about my future.

Weeks ago, during my last fight at Carnage, I felt so fed up with this island that I contemplated telling Archer that I was moving back to the mainland.

That was the day Maddy walked into the patient room at the medical center to do my medical check.

That day, everything changed. I got a glimpse of something I wanted for myself.

Maddy's secret makes it so much more special. Today, for the first time in a long while, despite my body burning with anticipation, I don't feel like cutting myself. Maddy is a big enough distraction. I know that hers is a dangerous secret to keep. When it's all over—and it will be, I'm not a fool, and secrets like this don't last long—it might be too late for me to regret it. But what do you do when you have everything you want and nothing you can't buy? You play games.

A noise distracts me. It's a muffled shuffle, like footsteps, and since they cut through the crashing of the waves, it's close.

Too close…

A momentary thought flickers in my mind that it might be Butcher's minions. Lately, anything is possible at Ayana. Many things can go wrong. Butcher, the self-proclaimed mayor of Port Mrei, can blow up this island. Or a slightly different scenario—send someone to kill me so he can gain control of the port. Or bring Tsariuk to this island. Murder is not the worst of it, trust me.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Any way you look at the future, the scenarios are grim. And all I want is to have a bit of fun before this place goes down.

My body is burning up at the thought of Maddy. I haven't felt so much anticipation in a long time.

Tomorrow, I'll see her again. We will make a deal. She is a smart girl. I'm sure she knows what men want from pretty women. Especially the women who like to play dangerous games, too.

The noise behind the big rock that hides the path to my alcove makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I swear something is there. It sounds like an animal, though I know that no animal could find its way so close to the ocean and up the rocky path.

Immediately, my body is on full alert. I only carry my gun when I go to Port Mrei. So, this time, my hand goes into my pocket and pulls out my Swiss Army knife. It's not really a weapon unless you know what you are doing. If I'm face to face with a threat, I know how to make this little knife do deadly things.

Quietly, I step along the curved back wall of the alcove until I reach its edge and peek around it.

It's dark, and it's hard to see. But as soon as I step off onto the sandy path, the shadow ahead leaps up and disappears down the path.

I track after it, and when it darts onto the beach, slightly brighter under the lights of the mansions and bungalows up the hill, I see a little body running across the beach toward the resort, his long hair flapping in the wind.

An amused chuckle escapes me.

It's that kid, the one Kai and Callie brought from Port Mrei. He snoops around Ayana like a sparrow with no business other than knowing everything about every single person.

He is the first one to ever find me here, and as I watch his little clumsy figure running away toward the steep slope of Ayana's villas, I tuck the knife back into my pocket.

I don't care what the kid does around here, but he needs to stay out of my business. He used to be homeless. So was I. But he is too little to understand than sometimes it's a matter of seconds and a wrong move that decide a life-or-death scenario.

I know, I've been there, eight years ago, when a man I pulled a gun on saved my life.