Following our run in with Austin and his bitchy girlfriend over lunch, both Lucy and I managed to successfully duck Caleb for a couple of days. We needed the space. Although it was his brother who was at fault, it just seemed easier to avoid both of them. We went to lunch in town and switched up our after school study location. By Wednesday, I was actually getting a bit sick of it and kind of missed my sexy new friend, but I wasn’t willing to forgive and forget with Austin so easily.

Between Lucy and me, we had spent hours poring over the memo which was my first ever lead on finding out what made me unique. To my crushing disappointment though, it seemed like one giant dead end, and Lucy, for all her computer genius, could find nothing further for us to pursue.

“I think I have one more avenue to try,” she announced while we walked down the hill into town. We hadn’t even been talking about the disappointing lack of clues, but she was unnaturally attuned to my thoughts, as always.

“Oh? Do tell,” I prompted, eager for any suggestions.

She nodded, chewing her lip, “I’m sending it off to some dark net friends.” My step faltered at her statement. She had made some waves in the “dark net,” the illegal underworld of the internet, with her hacking skills, and several organizations had been trying to recruit her lately. The fact that she was asking for their help was huge, but I knew better than to try and talk her out of it. She reacted really badly to me wrapping her in cotton wool—her words not mine.

“Okay… let me know how it goes?” I frowned, trying to convey my concern, and she just smiled and shrugged. I guessed that was that.

Just then, a sleek, silver car pulled up alongside us, and the passenger window rolled down.

“Hi, Kit!” The driver called out, and I bent to see who it was, as I didn’t recognize the car.

“Uh, hi… Mr. Gregoric?” I frowned in confusion and glanced at Lucy to see she was equally confused, with raised brows.

“Did you girls need a lift somewhere?” He smiled in what was probably intended as a friendly way, but I could swear his teeth were looking awfully sharp again. The effect it had made me feel a bit too much like Little Red Riding Hood for comfort.

“Uh… no. No, we’re fine. It’s a nice day for a walk,” I politely declined, biting back my instinct to educate him on how wildly inappropriate it was for a male teacher to be offering lifts to female students.

“Are you sure? I’m heading to town anyway, and you wouldn’t want to be late back to class after lunch!” He delivered the words with a laugh, but it just served to send an uneasy spike through my gut.

“We’re sure, Mr. Gregoric!” Lucy chimed in, “Have a nice day!” Grasping my elbow, she started walking again, and his car idled for a minute before taking off once more.

“So weird,” I muttered to Luce.

“Totally agree,” she responded.

Lucy and I had eaten at the diner three days in a row, so we decided to head to the other end of town for pizza at the little Italian restaurant owned by the least Italian people I’d ever met.

“Hey, Kit!” Hearing a masculine voice call my name as we wandered down Main Street surprised me. Pivoting, I found tall, dark, and dangerous from the gym jogging toward me. As it had when I first met him, my heart rate spiked sharply, and my palms broke out in nervous sweat.

“Hey, Conor. What’s up?” Hopefully my joking insinuation that he was Conor McGregor, current UFC champion of the world, would ease some of my own discomfort at his presence.

“Cute. But Conor McGregor is a lightweight.” He grinned, but the smile did nothing to soften his features. His gaze held mine for a beat, then he nodded to Lucy and extended a hand. “Hi. I’m Cole.”

Lucy took the offered hand, giving me a sly smile, then turned back to Cole. “Lovely to meet you… Cole, was it?” He nodded. “I can’t believe Kit hasn’t mentioned you to me. Where did you two meet?”

“At the gym, Sunday morning.” He absentmindedly cracked his knuckles, and I saw a web of old scars across the backs of them. Made sense—Rusty had said he was semi-pro in the fighting scene—but I thought they used gloves to protect their hands. A shiver ran down my spine as I watched his hands flex.

“Well, nice seeing you,” I told him with a polite smile. “We were just on our way to lunch so…” I tapped Lucy on the elbow to encourage her to say good bye, but she was still staring up at Hercules.

“Yes, we’re getting pizza. Would you like to join us?” She beamed up at Cole, and I stifled a groan. Fucking hell, Lucy. What are you playing at?

“Lucy, I’m sure Conor has better things to do than eat with us kids.” I answered before he could, giving her a glare to try and shut her up.

Rather than take a hint, Cole focused on Lucy. “I could eat.”

A small, surprised squeak escaped my throat at his response. The man was dressed for a workout but wasn’t actually sweating, which suggested he had to have been on his way in to, not out of, the gym. Holy shit, he makes gym gear look good though.

His tattoos were nothing short of beautiful, not to mention the body beneath them. Dragging my attention back to his face, my breath caught. Under his intense inspection, I began to understand how small animals felt when confronted by a hungry wolf.

Clearing my throat uncomfortably, something I seemed to be doing a lot of recently, I spun on my heel and led the way to the restaurant.

Throughout lunch, Lucy maintained an unrelenting level of chatter. Cole stoically fielded her inquiries with one-word answers, which left me plenty of time to watch him from the corner of my eye. The raised lines of several thick scars were hidden beneath the bright colors of his tattoos. What had happened there?

Toward the end of our pizzas, someone loomed into my line of sight at the corner of our table. I glanced up, expecting to see a waiter clearing plates, then let out a loud gasp, drawing Lucy’s attention.

“Holy shit,” she exclaimed. “Si?”

The young man standing at my elbow was lanky in a malnourished way, with sallow skin and limp, dark red hair, but he was still unmistakably our former friend Simon. Shock held me rigid. Neither Lucy nor I had seen or heard anything of him in five years. Our whole world had changed in a matter of hours in one single night. Yet his presence… it filled me with unrelenting guilt. Clearly, he hadn’t fared as well as we had in the aftermath.

“Did you need something?” Cole demanded with an edge to his voice, which thankfully gave me a minute to gather my wits again.

Simon ignored his question but flicked a small smile to Lucy and murmured, “Hey Luce, nice hair.” Then stared at me with his mud-brown eyes. “Kit. Hey. Can I speak with you? Outside?”

Still speechless, I nodded and followed him out to the sidewalk.

“Si, what... how... where...?” Okay, so my voice was back, but it didn’t mean I was coherent.

He smiled at my babbling then hugged me tightly. Really tightly.

“Jesus, Kit. You have no idea how good it is to see you!” He was still hugging me, and it was becoming a little awkward. I was pretty sure he’d just smelled my hair, too. Who does that?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling out of his embrace as politely as I could manage. “How did you find us? Lucy looked for you a few years ago but couldn’t find anything on where you’d ended up after everything...”

He ignored my question and gave me a weird, lopsided smile. “You look real good. Guess you pulled up pretty well after we all split up, huh? And you managed to stick with Little Lucy. Good for you guys. You always were like sisters...”

“What are you doing here, Si?” I asked again gently. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t happy to see him; I was. But it was very out of the blue, and he seemed super cagey about something. He continued to stare at me, then eventually looked at what I wore. I sincerely hoped I just imagined that lecherous glint as he took in my school uniform.

“I wanted to warn you about something,” he started, making eye contact again and beginning to freak me out with how rarely he blinked. “But you look like you might need to be back at school soon? So maybe we can meet up later when you have more time?”

I nodded cautiously. “Maybe Pete’s Place around eight? It’s up the street. I just have to be back to school by curfew at ten.”

For a moment, his smile lit his sallow expression and reminded me of the caring little boy I used to know. He hugged me again, a little longer than comfortable, before disappearing down the street.

Confused as hell, I headed back inside to rejoin Cole and Lucy.

“Kit…” Lucy started, then trailed off as though at a loss for words, her mouth hanging open and a frown pulling at her pixie-like face.

“I don’t even know.” I shook my head then rubbed my eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted with the weight of everything on my mind. “It was weird. He wants to tell me something important, apparently.”

“So, why didn’t he?” Cole frowned as he cracked his knuckles, which seemed like an unconscious habit of his.

“No idea. He made some lame excuse about not having time. He wants to meet up later instead, so I guess I will find out then?” I bit into one of my remaining slices of pizza but found it stone cold. So disappointing; cold pizza sucks.

“Kit, this seems like really weird timing. Given… you know…” Lucy was wide-eyed and a little pale. She was referring to the timing of Simon suddenly turning up so soon after we stole the memo that might explain my existence; it couldn’t be a coincidence. My heart sank a little at the panic on her face. I needed to stop putting her in these situations. This whole game, being The Fox, it was my messed up way of dealing with my traumatic childhood, and I should never have dragged her into it. When it had all started though, after chewing my way through seven therapists in six months, I just didn’t want to be alone with my issues. So we had created The Fox.

“Where are you going to meet him?” Cole asked me with narrowed eyes, and I hesitated a moment before replying. His knuckles were still clenched, and from the set of his jaw, I wouldn’t put it past him to show up to try and keep me safe. Overprotective alpha male.

“Doesn’t matter.” I dismissed his question, then responded to Lucy. “I agree; the timing is way too coincidental. I’ll meet him and find out what’s going on tonight.”

My best friend knew me well enough not to try and tell me not to go, so instead she just said, “Be careful, will you? You’re too bloody reckless.”

I grinned at her with affection. “Always.” Cole just scowled at me from across the table. He clearly wanted to push the issue further, but I avoided eye contact.

“Lucy, we should get going, we have biology next, and I heard a rumor this morning that there might be a pop quiz.”