Page 80 of Nyx
“Mm-hmm,” he hums as he kisses me again, like he can’t help himself. “It means he likes to make a lot of noise, but he isn’t that dangerous.”
“I’ll show you dangerous,” Ronan mutters, but Reyes only huffs another quiet laugh as he tucks me into his side. He cracks open the book and reads, tracing his finger along the page so I can follow, even though it’s nothing more than scribbles to me. The thoughtfulness of the action momentarily distracts me from everything else, but soon, I’m drawn into the story. My eyes close and I lose myself in the calm tones of his voice.
The ride is quiet. The hum of the wheels is relaxing, and when it’s paired with the sun’s heat on my skin, it makes me drowsy. Ronan even turns the fan on instead of rolling down the windows, allowing Reyes to keep reading without the wind blowing his pages.
We stop to stretch and eat at midday, and when the van door opens, I hesitate. The foreign sights and soundsof a world beyond the village become menacing without the window as a shield, and anxiety forms a ball in my stomach. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves, but when Reyes comes back and holds my hand, I find the strength to step out onto the dirt.
My toes curl inside my shoes. Stupid, restrictive things. They only add to my discomfort, but I didn’t argue when Reyes said it would be safer to wear them. We eat and stretch our legs, and Ronan seems to be in no hurry as he leans on a rock.
I raise my eyebrow at him. “You are… what is the word?”
“Annoying?” Reyes offers, and Ronan scoffs.
“Bossy?” Xeni guesses from where he stands in the shade, bouncing on his toes.
“Slow.” I cross my arms with a scowl. “On purpose.”
“Procrastinating,” Ronan says, then sighs and rolls his eyes up into his head. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Why?”
“I was hoping you’ll change your mind and we could turn around before we run into trouble. This group has a knack for finding it, you know.”
“You can go back,” I argue, and he hikes that brow again. “Drive away like a turkey.”
“Chicken,” Reyes whispers in my ear, but I only shrug.
“Turkey, chicken—doesn’t matter. I need to do this.”
Ronan chews on the side of his lip and glances at Reyes as he slips an arm around my shoulders. “He has his own voice, Ronan. I won’t speak over it.”
“Gods fucking damn you both,” Ronan growls, jabbing a finger in Reyes’s direction. “Can I just say I fuckinghatehow good for him you are.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” Reyes says in a dry tone. “Several times.”
“Ugh, the support and consent and, and…devotion.It’s all just so fucking annoying.”
“Sounds awful,” Reyes agrees, fighting back a grin.
“It’shorrible,” Ronan groans. “All I want to do is find fresh reasons to hate you, and then you do… this! And make me grow some…” He trails off, scrunching his face in disgust.
“Go on,” Reyes coaxes, and Ronan’s eyes could be lethal with the way they glare.
“Respect,” he spits, then shakes his head like he’s trying to rattle the memory away.
Reyes snorts an abrupt, breathy laugh. “Oh, it is so awful you had to say that. You poor thing.”
“It is the worst,” Ronan agrees before huffing another dramatic sigh. “We’ll get there a few hours before dark if we keep this pace. I want to scout ahead and make sure there are no signs of life before we go barging in. If there is any sign of military activity, we leave.Anysign. I will not negotiate on this.”
“That’s fair,” I say, and a slight tremble tilts my words. The possibility of running into soldiers disrupts the nerves in my stomach again. What would I even do if we saw them? How would I react? The thought plagues me as we climb back into the van, and all four of us are more unsettled than we were earlier.
“You said Nyx was the only one able to affect the rifts?” Reyes asks Xeni, who nods.
“That I’m aware of, yes. There are thousands of files, and I’ve only read a small portion of them. It’s possible there are more. Leadership wouldn’t have told us of any breakthroughs… they wouldn’t have shared that with any of us. That knowledge would’ve been left to the scientists that discovered it, with the kind of threats that would keep them quiet.” He doesn’t have to expand on that for us to understand. Death threats, to the scientists and their families, or promises of worse.
“But with Nyx, they never saw it for themselves? Only heard about it from the humans?”
“Yes,” Xeni says with another nod. “It could’ve been a trick of the light, or his magic manifesting in strange ways. Maybe it was nothing at all, or a ploy for the humans to gain favor when they handed him over. There’s really no way of knowing for sure.”
