If I don’t do it for him, the coat will end up over a chair or a couch.
Asch hands it to me. “Uh huh,” he replies.
He couldn’t sound more skeptical if he tried.
I go to the couch and flop down.
“I have to be okay,” I say quietly. “Not for me. For Pandora.” I run my hand through my hair. “The rest doesn’t matter right now.”
He joins me on the couch. “It’s going to matter soon enough,” he remarks. “We shouldn’t go into this half-cocked, and you know it.”
“I don’t do thingshalf-cocked,” I joke.
Asch rolls his eyes. “Don’t copy Pandora’s bad jokes. They aren’t funny.”
“They are!” I grin, but the smile fades fast. “I don’t know. What the fuck am I supposed to do, Asch? My dad’s not going to let me waltz into one of these facilities and take a girl for no reason.”
“He might if you tell him you want her,” Asch says. “But I think that might cause more trouble down the line, and…” He hesitates, then continues carefully, “Zayden and Ezio have probably told him about Pandora. He may not believe you want Zayden’s ex.”
“Not like my dad knows Zayden was stringing her along.” I tap my fingers on my thigh. “I could go tour a facility. You could join me. We can scope the place out, see if there are any vulnerabilities.”
Asch takes a deep breath, and I can see his discomfort. He steels himself, though, schooling his expression into something more neutral. “Yeah. Assuming your dad doesn’t think it’s weird that I’m showing up after you’ve spent so much time shielding me from all of this.”
“He won’t care.” I get up and pace across the room, just for something to do. “He’s got zero interest in what you do. I’m more worried about keeping Pandora from doing something really, really stupid.”
“Like burn a frat house down?” Asch suggests. “Or chop someone into pieces?” He watches me pace, pursing his lips. “I think the only thing left is mass murder, and I wouldn’t put that beyond her, honestly.”
After how she’d been acting last night… neither would I.
Okay, realistically, it was Zayden’s head that convinced me of her ability to commit mass murder.
It’s not like my own family is free of guilt. I don’t know how many people my father has had killed, but it’s not only a few.
And I’m the one who had a classmate killed because he was a dick to Asch.
I would have done it with my own hands, too, if I hadn’t been worried about potentially getting caught.
Pandora never seems to worry about that part.
“I just don’t want her to do anything that could blow back on her,” I say. I go over to the armchair and sit down. “She’s not as invincible as she thinks she is.”
Asch shakes his head. “She’s not. And…” His lips quirk into a weird smile. “I don’t really want her to find that out the hard way. That’s stupid, right? After everything?”
Is it dumb to want this crazy woman who cut me up, got Asch to hate me, had him fuck my face, to still think she’s on top of the world?
Guess I’m dumb, then.
And crazy too.
“She deserves the fucking world,” I say. I glance down at my hands. “She deserveseverythingshe wants.”
“Does she?” Asch asks. But he sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess she does. And she’s used to getting it. I guess if we’re going to be properboyfriends, we need to make sure she does.” Another crooked smile. “So how the fuck are we going to do this without your dad coming down hard on you?”
That’s the million dollar question.
I’m still trying to come up with an idea,anyidea, when the front door opens again.
River and Pandora walk in. She’s got a duffel bag over her shoulder that I eye suspiciously.
