“How am I supposed to trust you? You told me to stay away from the cloaks, yet you are a cloak!”
“I meant the red cloaks,” he explained, as if I was being petulant.
“You drugged me the other night!”
“I did not drug you. I was against that.”
“Yet you let it happen.”
“I was late. I wasn’t there when it happened.” He paused, I thought I heard him exhale. “All that is in the past now. You have to trust that I have your back, forever, through everything.”
“I can’t.” I was screaming and shaking and my foot was going to freaking slide off of my inner thigh any moment. “I’m scared.”
The others laughed loudly. They were enjoying this display. I could hear them saying things about my brother and how he’d broken, and it took everything in me not to yank the stupid thing off, grab a blade, and throw it their way. Logan told them to shut the fuck up. They did, but snickered.
“Listen to me. I know you’re scared but I’m going to get you through this.” His tone was softer now. “Set your foot down. Slowly. Slide it down your leg. That’s it. Like that . . . slowly . . . and set it down right beside your other foot. Wait! Stop! You weren’t supposed to bring it forward. I didn’t tell you to bring it forward, dammit.”
I didn’t know why he was yelling at me until I felt a pinch over my right ankle. I yelped.
“I got cut,” I yelled.
“Because you didn’t follow fucking directions,” he yelled back. “I told you to trust me.”
“Trust isn’t something you give people when they ask for it. It’s something that’s earned.”
“I’m trying to earn it, but you’re being impossible.”
“Impossible? It’s about to start raining and you have me out here playing with knives!”
“Okay,” he said, and I could tell his patience was wearing thin. “Let’s finish this. You have a few steps to go. Pick up your right foot and move it two counts. Ready? One. Good. Two. Good. Drop it.”
I did with a flinch. Then, he instructed what I should do with the left, and the right again, and left, and then, nothing. I was standing there, shaking, with my arms wrapped around myself, when I felt him walk up to me. He lifted the blindfold slowly. I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes.
“I’m done?”
“You’re done.”
“I . . . I . . . ” I blinked faster, shook harder, held myself tighter.
“Hey, Mae,” he said, his voice barely a rasp over the thunder that roared from above. My heart pounded as I craned my neck to meet his gaze. He grinned then. A slow, huge grin that I’d never seen on his face before. It felt like sunshine amidst the darkness. “You fucking did it.”
I felt myself smile for half a second before I started laughing. He was watching me closely, an amused look in his eyes, despite his set jaw.
“We have more to do,” he said after a beat.
I stopped laughing. “What? Right now?”
“The night isn’t over,” Nolan called out. “Don’t get excited.”
“I seriously need to do something else?” I crossed my arms. “This wasn’t enough?” I lifted my leg to where I’d been feeling liquid crawl into my socks. “I’m bleeding.”
“You’ll live.”
“Says the guy who didn’t get cut.”
Logan’s eyebrows rose. “You wouldn’t have gotten cut if you’d followed my exact directions.”
“I would have followed directions if you’d . . . ” I struggled to find blame to pin on him.
He cocked his head, waiting, amusement touching his lips. I turned around and walked toward the others, arms still crossed. I’d do another weird mission impossible thing, but I wasn’t going to do it with him as my partner. Just as those thoughts entered my mind, the skies opened up and it started pouring down on us.
Chapter 23
“Now what?” I yelled over the rain.
“Now, we scale the falls.”
I blinked. “What?”
“There’s an old research lab behind the falls. The only way to get there these days is by scaling it.”
“I . . . I’m not even wearing shoes with grip.”
One of the guys walked up, waving a pair of shoes.
“I’ve never climbed before. How high is it?”
“Look for yourself.” Nolan walked in the direction where there was a trail, we all followed. I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the rain, and squinted. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the view in front of me. There were lights coming from below, illuminating the falls, and beside it, I could see holes on the rock wall.
“I can barely make anything out. How do you expect me to climb that?”
“We’ll provide all the equipment.”
“And the weather? It’ll be too slippery.”
“I’ve done it.” Nolan shrugged a shoulder, his chin jutted toward Logan, beside him. “He’s done it.”
“Congrats, but I’m not willing to die for this.” My eyes went back to the falls. There was no way in hell. “What is the alternative to this?”
“You sure you wanna know?” Nolan grinned. I wanted to punch him.
“Obviously.”
“It involves stealing.”
“Does it involve jail time if I get caught?”
“No.”
“So, I’ll do it.”
“Just like that?” Nolan chuckled and looked at Logan, who looked completely unamused by this entire exchange.
“You don’t want to know what you’re stealing?” Logan asked, frowning. “Or from who?”
“I definitely don’t want to scale that.” I pointed toward the fall. “So I don’t really care.”
As I followed behind them to the closest building, I realized I did care. I wanted to know at least who I was going to steal from. Maybe I could conjure something bad about them in order to avoid feeling guilty about taking whatever it was I was taking. I wrapped my arms around myself, teeth clattering as we walked through the building, in the back and out the front. It had stopped raining, but we were still soaked.
“Where are we going?” I managed to ask.
“You’re going to The Tower,” Nolan said.
“What tower?”
“The only tower you’ve heard of. I can tell by the expression on your face.” That was Nolan.
“The one you guys have not-so-secret meetings in?” I looked at the lot of them. None of them seemed to be cold and if they were, they weren’t showing it.
“We don’t have meetings in there.” Nolan chuckled.
“Wrong cloaks,” Logan added.
“The red ones meet there?” I picked up the pace until I caught up to them.
“Yes.” That was the third guy who was there, who I hadn’t been introduced to.
“If you can get in and get through without someone spotting you, there’s a painting up there,” Nolan explained.
“A famous painting,” Logan added.
“Are you familiar with Caravaggio?” the third guy asked.