Page 102 of Villain

“I want to get into developing,” Nix replied. “In order to do that, I had to learn programming skills. The hacking was sort of just...fun? I didn’t break into anything too illegal.”

Lake paused and then repeated, “Too illegal?”

“I never went near the club.” Nix didn’t have a death wish, and the last thing he’d wanted was to end up in prison. The change in topic did make him realize Beck hadn’t followed them. “What happened to your cousin?”

Lake turned around and glanced at the closed door to the room. “I forgot about him. He must have had something else to do.”

A professor at an elite university like this one probably had a ton of better things to do than chase after a couple of students. Nix didn’t have any classes with Beck, but he’d heard about him once or twice from West and, obviously, occasionally from the news throughout the years.

“Here.” He accessed the footage from the stables and rewound a little over a half hour until he saw himself enter on screen.

“Did you come to see me?” Lake asked. “You look upset, Songbird.”

“I was more upset after when…Here!” He pointed as another figure slipped into the stables behind him.

“Well damn,” Lake drawled. “That is a legitimate cloak.”

The man catching up to Nix was dressed in a long black rope with a hood. It concealed everything aside from the tips of his brightly colored shoes. The pattern was orange with neon yellow soles.

They both watched as the Nix on-screen realized he was being followed and started to turn. Before he could all the way, the cloaked man twisted to his side and shoved him straight into the stall with both hands. The second Nix fell in, the man slammed the door shut, flicked the bolt lock, and turned on his heels.

“He’s running,” Lake snarled. “Like a little bitch.”

Nix didn’t disagree.

“He didn’t say anything to you?” There was no audio included in the feed, but there hadn’t exactly been time for the two of them to have a chat.

“No,” Nix confirmed anyway. “Not a single word.” No one else entered until Lake and his cousin did twenty or so minutes later. He clicked to switch feeds, going to the one that showed the front of the stables, but it wasn’t much more useful. They saw both Nix and the cloaked man walk in, and then the cloaked man run out. Then nothing. He didn’t stick around or return. “Do you think it was random?”

Lake snorted. “You don’t actually believe that’s a possibility, do you?”

Nix slumped into the chair and rubbed at his forehead. All the screaming and panicking he’d done had left him with a splitting headache and a sore throat. All he wanted to do was climb into bed and sleep today and all its shitty events off.

He froze, recalling why he’d come here in the first place.

“What is it?” Lake spun the chair around and settled his hands on the armrests when Nix didn’t respond fast enough for him. He leaned in until their faces were close, openly searching Nix’s expression. “Did you remember something?”

Lake might not have been the one to shove him earlier, but that didn’t change the fact that his cousin was right. The only reason he was being targeted right now was because of his association with the Demons. Nix wanted to blame him, but he wasn’t exactly innocent in all of this either.

He’d been the one to hack into the app, after all. If he hadn’t, none of this would have happened.

Nix had been the one to start it.

“Is there even a hacker?” he blurted, opting to at least ask some of the questions he’d come all the way here for.

Lake’s eyes narrowed. “Are you letting my cousin get to you?”

“You didn’t tell me anything about being a fourth,” Nix pointed out. “How can I be sure there isn’t a ton of other shit you’re keeping from me? Is the hacker real or did you make it all up in order to—”

His hand settled around Nix’s throat and he tipped his head up. “You’re clever, take a moment to think this through before making accusations. Who am I?”

Nix frowned, but when those fingers tightened, he rushed to answer, “Lake Zyair.”

“Soon to be crowned Emperor of Tulniri,” he said. “If I want something, I don’t need to lie, or beg, or barter for it. I simply have to take.” He shoved Nix away, scowling as he straightened. “I don’t have to make up some story about an imaginary enemy to make you mine, Songbird. And let’s not forget, you were the one who reached out to me first.”

Nix dropped his gaze because hadn’t he just been thinking that exact same thing?

“Are you scared now, is that it?” Lake surmised.

---