Page 70 of The Grandest Game
Gigi reached for a book.
“Theshelves, Happy.” Knox’s eyebrows were emphatic on that point. “Not the books. Those are a time suck waiting to happen. Search for switches or buttons built into the shelves, anything that might be a hidden trigger.”
“Happy?” Gigi repeated. She reached over to pat Knox’s shoulder. “I call that nickname progress.”
“Shut up,” Knox grunted. Without looking at her, he stalked toward the shelves on the far side of the room.
Brady’s expression was incredulous.
“It’s a gift,” Gigi said.
Brady lowered his voice. “I told you—”
That Knox can be dangerous. That the dark place is always waiting for him. That he doesn’t think about morality the way you and I do.
“I know what you told me,” Gigi said helpfully. “I ignored it.”
She ran her hands over the wood of the closest shelf, pushing her fingers into the lines of the molding, exploring the underside of each board, and then she started lifting books up to check underneath them.
After a moment, Brady began searching the next shelf over. The longer they worked, side by side, the more Gigi found herself lingering on the memory of the way he’d touched her stomach hours earlier. She thought about the fact that his brain likedA Lot.
She thought about his smile.
And then she thought about Knox’s cutting accusation to Brady:It’salwaysCalla with you.Brady had insisted that this time, it wasn’t. And when Knox had seen the smile he’d given her, when he’d asked what thehellBrady was doing, Brady’s reply had beenbeing human.
Hyperaware of every inch of her own skin, Gigi allowed herself to disregard Knox’s order to search only the shelves. She skimmed the spines of row after row of books, then snuck a look at Brady. He’d climbed up and was balanced on the edge of a shelf, five or six feet up, his arms stretched overhead, his body—arms, legs, core—making an X.
“You are incredibly well-balanced,” Gigi blurted out.
“I get that a lot,” Brady said solemnly. It took Gigi a second to figure out he was joking.
“Really,” Brady murmured, “I’ve just spent a lot of time in the stacks at the university library.”
“Climbing the shelves?” Gigi said, grinning. “Do they teach that in cultural anthropology PhD programs?”
“Possibly not.” Amusement played around the edges of Brady’s very scholarly lips.
Gigi couldn’t help studying him, lips and all.Grad school isn’t where you learned balance.
“Training,” she said, keeping her voice too quiet for Knox to overhear. “All kinds. That was what you said earlier, when we were talking about Knox’s A-plus in parkour—but it wasn’t just Knox, was it?” Gigi thought about the way that Brady had held his own in that fight. “Training… with Severin?” That was a leap, but Gigi excelled at leaping first and looking later. For good measure, she leapt again. “And Calla.”
In the worn photograph that Brady had kept in his pocket, the girl with the mismatched eyes had been holding a longbow.
Brady blinked and looked at Gigi like she’d slowly started turning into a moose, which was actually a pretty common response to Gigi leaping first and looking later.
“Brady?” Gigi wondered if she’d pushed too hard.
“You know that kid that Knox beat up on my behalf?” Brady hopped down from the shelf. “He had brothers. One day, all four of them jumped Knox and me in the woods.”
“You weresix.” Gigi was horrified. Her voice was still hushed, and so was his.
“Six and a half by that time,” Brady replied. “Knox was ten. And Severin was sixty-two—former black ops, very into survival. He lived off the grid out in the bayou. I never knew why he was in the woods that day, but he was.” Brady paused. “Severin saw what was happening, and he put a stop to it. And then he spent the nextdecade teaching Knox and me how to do the same. Put a stop to things—and people—that needed stopping.Survive.”
“And Calla?” Gigi said.
“Calla…” Brady lingered on the name. “She was Severin’s great-niece. His family disowned him decades ago, but Calla tracked Severin down when she was twelve. After that, she was always sneaking out to the bayou to train with Knox and me.” Brady’s Adam’s apple moved up, then down. “No one could shoot a longbow like Calla.”
Gigi thought again about that photograph. She placed a light, hesitant hand on Brady’s shoulder. “What happened to her?”
