Page 91 of Villain

What if he’d already changed his mind?

What if, even now, he was gathering with the others and telling them all about Nix’s true purpose for being here?

It’s not like Nix had done any real harm, if anything, they were getting use out of him they otherwise wouldn’t if he’d never enrolled here. Did it really matter if he was looking for his cousin’s toxic ex if it wasn’t one of them?

He’d only kept the secret in case it turned out to be, but if he trusted Lake—which he didn’t, not fully, he wasn’t stupid—but if he did, that meant none of the Demons were involved. There was no reason for this to cause any sort of problems between the four of them. Still…Nix stepped out into the hall and glanced down both directions.

West wasn’t here, which meant his room was empty…Lake might eventually talk to him, but it might be smarter for Nix to stick with his original plan. He was used to doing things on his own. All his life, that was how it’d been. The only other person he could count on had been Branwen. He wasn’t like Lake with his forever best friends and their childhood memories.

No matter how sweet he’d been last night, or how physically attracted to him Nix was, he had to remember the stakes here.

Branwen was what mattered.

Period.

Last night he’d freaked out and almost lost sight of that. It wouldn’t happen again.

Mind made up, he selected a direction at random and slowly made his way down the hall, on a mission to locate West’s bedroom. He assumed all three of them slept somewhere on this level of the Roost, he just needed to find the right door.

The first he came across led to a closet. The next, a communal bathroom. The first door on the right attached to the center room he’d seen when they’d first come up the main stairs. It was a library of sorts and he didn’t linger since it was clearly not what he was looking for.

After almost fifteen minutes, he finally found another bedroom, stepping inside cautiously to make sure he was alone before fully entering.

The room was clearly in use, with clothes strewn about and the bed unmade. There was a computer on the desk to the left, but it quickly became apparent this space didn’t belong to West.

He should just go, yet Nix found himself pausing in front of an easel by the window, staring at the curve of dark black lines on the bright white canvas. It was a drawing of a woman, long hair strewn out around her as she sat on the ground with her face hidden behind her hands. He didn’t know much about art, but looking at it made him kind of sad.

“Looking for something, Firebird?” Yejun’s voice coming from off to the side startled Nix and he spun around to find the Demon standing in the open bathroom doorway. He was dressed in only a low-hanging deep red towel, strands of his hair sticking to the sides of his neck as he cocked his head and stared Nix down.

Nix struggled to come up with a viable excuse but, in the end, only managed to mutter, “Sorry.”

Yejun snorted and made his way over. “What are you doing?”

“I was looking at your drawing,” he admitted, turning back to it.

“That?” He shrugged. “It’s not finished. I just can’t seem to bring myself to throw it away.”

“Why would you do that? It’s good.”

He scoffed. “Don’t insult me.”

“No, really,” Nix insisted. “I don’t really understand art, but isn’t it supposed to make you feel something? That’s how you know it’s good, right? When I look at it…I feel kind of depressed.”

Yejun hesitated and then asked, “Do you?”

He nodded. “Why is she crying?”

“She made a mistake,” he replied. “And it cost her everything.”

That sounded personal…

“Is this her?” he asked. “The friend you mentioned before?”

“A version of her,” Yejun confirmed. “So don’t feel too bad for her.”

“I don’t.” Nix took in the drawing. “It makes me sad, but not for her. It’s like…I can tell you were upset while drawing it? I don’t know. Maybe that sounds stupid.” Put him in front of a computer and he could pick it apart and piece it back together again. He wanted to be a part of a gaming company after graduation, but he wouldn’t be applying for the graphics department, that was for certain. “She really left you frustrated, didn’t she?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to confess like he had last night to Lake. If he explained things to Yejun now, there wouldn’t be reason for him to be mad at Nix, right? It wasn’t like he was betraying him the same way this female friend had.

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