Page 58 of Villain
It kind of sucked admitting, even to himself, that Yejun wouldn’t like it if he had any more than West would. For as long as he could remember, it’d been the three of them against the universe. Change was a necessary and unavoidable part of life, but he’d always believed they were unshakable.
Had he been wrong?
“Would the two of you stop looking like jilted lovers?” Lake shook his head. “Like I could replace you idiots even if I wanted to.”
“So you wanted to?” West grunted, but it was obvious this time he was one hundred percent joking.
“Can we just get down to business?”
“Is that what you came here for?” Yejun asked. “Business?”
“Yeah, like how much of Nix’s we can get into.” West shrugged when that earned him a dark look from Lake. “What? That’s what this is really, right? Ground rules now that the game has been set. Well,” he rolled his wrist in the air, “don’t keep us waiting, your majesty.”
“We share him,” Lake didn’t waste any more time denying it, “but no one else gets to touch him.”
“That goes without saying.” None of them were big on sharing, West least of all. “Someone else so much as glances at what’s mine once and I’ll break their face.”
“Descriptive,” Yejun said.
“How long they look and where at will determine which part of their face I destroy.”
“You’re an aggressive asshole, but at least you’re a fair aggressive asshole.”
“I do mean no one else,” Lake reiterated, like they really were the idiots he’d claimed and weren’t following. “Not another Enigma or Essential. Not even an Order member.”
“Fuck no,” Yejun agreed. “Nix is our sacrifice.”
Lake nodded, relieved that they were all on the same page. It was obvious this had been hanging over his head for a while, possibly even before he’d made the suggestion to the two of them. Since he’d been back, he’d been playing on the app more and more. Yejun wasn’t sure if West had noticed, but he certainly had.
It all made sense once he’d found out about Nix when they’d walked into him on campus that first day. Before, the app had been a means to an end for Lake. He’d only created it to guarantee their spots, and once that was confirmed, he’d all but handed off the responsibility of running it to him and West. As far as Yejun knew, Lake had only used the app once, maybe twice, to hook up, and even then, that’d mostly been to test it out after they’d entered college. He’d only been trying to decide if they needed to upgrade it.
They’d been freshmen at the time, but Lake had already been looking ahead. Already plotting what they could do come senior year to prove themselves further. They’d had no way of knowing that eventually he’d be shipped off planet, or that he’d be called back after the unexpected deaths of the Emperor and her Royal Consort.
Even though it’d brought him several steps closer to the throne, the whole ordeal had left Lake unsettled. He didn’t like working with unknown factors, preferred seeing all of the pieces in advance so he could sort through them and line them up to his liking.
Poor Firebird. Had no clue what he’d gotten himself into.
Ultimately, the real reason Yejun was going along with this was because he understood Lake needed an outlet. West was more than capable of finding this hacker on his own—even if it wasn’t until the last minute. Until he did, though, there wasn’t really anything for Lake or Yejun to do.
Neither of them could work with computers the same way West and Nix could. When they first told him about Nix manipulating his way up the tiers, Yejun didn’t understand how—and he still didn’t. Something about codes and doors and…Ugh. He was getting a headache just thinking about it.
“He’ll be useful,” Lake promised.
“He’s got the right look,” Yejun agreed. “If our hacker really is watching us the way we assume, he’ll take the bait. Nix seems timid and out of place with us. The hacker will think we’re blackmailing him into it or something and try to get to him that way.”
“The only worry I have,” West said, “is that he’ll see through us. Nixie does look too naïve to play with us, and this guy we’re after is smart. He might put two and two together and realize the blackmail is actually bait.”
“That’s why you’re still going to try and hunt him down through other avenues,” Lake reminded. “We aren’t stopping the search. If Nix does help us lure him out? Great. If he doesn’t? At least we’ve got our sacrifice already sorted.”
Yejun wasn’t so certain. “Are you sure you can do it?”
Lake frowned.
“Sacrifice him,” he elaborated. “Are you sure you’ll be able to when the time comes?”
“Of course he can do it,” West jumped to his defense, but then set a hard stare on Lake, “Right?”
“Of course.” Lake’s expression never changed, but the air around them seemed to grow heavy and thicken.