Page 71 of Rising

It was an insult that only I would get. She’d tossed me to the ground during our first spar. Caught me off guard and embarrassed me, had enjoyed it too. It was the first, and only time I’d seen life in her eyes for the first few weeks I’d entered The Compound. Once I’d been assigned to Riley, I’d watched them move weightlessly around in The Ring.

In hindsight, the light in her eyes I’d accused her of when around Riley had likely been about the sick trauma bond they had going on. I’d fought Riley too. They both struck to kill and intended for their opponents to do the same. Pain made them happy.

Pain had made my father happy too, one of the many things I hated him for passing down to me.

I rolled my eyes, feigning boredom instead of instigating a fight. “Again, two of the three people you are talking about, I went out of my way to save.”

“Okay, I wouldn’t call it out your way. You were there. The only way to get out was to fight. What were you gonna do, let us all die?” I hadn’t taken Seth to be one with a small ego,noted.

“Point stands.”

Amaia wasn’t buying any of it. “As does mine. Reina? Moe? Any objections?”

“Uh, yeah,” they chimed in unison.

“My objections don’t count?” Seth grumbled, face red and eyes lethal.

“They do, but yours take less hesitation to overrule.”

Another thing I’d noticed, if Seth wasn’t fighting with his sister, he was fighting with Amaia. Never taking the same tone with Riley or Moe. Tomoe was assertive, blunt with her words, but not cold. She meant well. Gave me hope that she at least tried to stand up for herself with Seth behind closed doors. The way my mother had failed to with my father.

I hadn’t held any issues with Seth myself, hell he’d advocated for me to come along, but Amaia’s choice to make him her second was … questionable. Despite her own internal struggle, I’d come to find each move she made calculated. She’d let me accompany them, but under her watchful eye. Perhaps that’s why she’d left Riley in charge.

She walked to the furthest part of the little square we’d decided to reside on for the night, taking inventory on the items in her pack and writing in some notebook. Reina and Seth started bickering. They snatched a larger tent from Seth’s pack back and forth, debating on the way their father had taught them to pitch a tent leaving me and Tomoe staring face to face.

Her eyebrow arched, and she laughed sarcastically under her breath, shaking her head.

“Sake reveals the true heart, huh?” I mumbled.

Her jaw went slack, and for once her eyes focused as she studied me skeptically, recognition sliding over her features before fading away quickly.

“My father made sure I was quadrilingual. ‘Good for business.’”

More curiosity. “The business of?”

“Nothing good.” I scoffed, leaving it at that.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm.”

With nothing else to say, I started to walk away, a soft hand wrapping around my forearm stopping me. “I’ve known Amaia for a few years now, you two are more alike than you think.”

I tilted my head, her fingers answering before I could ask what she meant, pointing to my own. “Hellbent.”

“More observant than you let on.”

“It’s the eyes, huh?”

Her sense of humor made me feel at home. If I was open to friendship, she’d be the type of friend I’d want to have.I think.

“The losing consciousness didn’t help.”

“Happened once.”

“Twice.” I tossed up two fingers. “Technically you were passed out that first day I arrived at Amaia’s door.”

She bit down her lip, eyes going somewhere else, lost in thought before finding my own.

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