Fury and Flame | 3

2 | 9

R I L E Y

A week had passed since we got to Jaxon's home. I'd opted to spend most of it in the room he'd offered me rather than spend the long days with my unfamiliar teammates. And in those seven days, not much had happened. There had been no more altercations between Jaxon and his father. In fact, I hadn't seen much of Jaxon or Kane. According to Arlo, he heard them building something through all hours of the night. As for the assassin—Delphinium—I hadn't seen much of her either.

It was strange to live this way. One day, I was a normal child at the orphanage, slated to live a painfully boring life full of any university I could afford, marrying any man who could manage to tie me down and hopefully dying surrounded by family. There wasn't much more for me to do, it seemed.

      But now, I was on the run with no memory of who I used to be and no idea what was really happening here. My pride had stopped me from asking exactly what we were running from—I didn't want to look like a fool—but my annoyance with being kept in the dark was beginning to win out.

      The terrorist-boy—whose name I'd gathered was Benton—watched me intently, like he was trying to figure me out. "What?" I asked, meeting his gaze with my chin held high. He was good-looking, that was for sure, even with one side of his face carved with gruesome scars. I didn't have to ask to see that he and Kane were related.

      "All of your memory really is gone. You're very different now," was all he said. Was that amusement in his tone?

     "What makes you say that?" He hadn't been with the other six when I'd been introduced to them. That meant he wasn't on the team. So how did he know me?

      "For one, if you remembered anything from the past months, you'd try to poison my food."

     "Would you deserve it if I did?"

     He shrugged. "Depends on how you look at it."

     "Forget Jaxon, he's the team asshole," Arlo said to Finn just loudly that both Benny and I were able to hear.

     "Look who's talking," Benton shot back smoothly, eyes still fixed on me.

     My eyes narrowed. "What did you do to me?"

     He turned to the other two boys, leaning back to cross his leg over the other. "One of you tell her everything. It's such a good story."

     After giving Benton a pointed look, Finn started at the beginning: when we'd been formed into a team by Damien Hunt. He moved on to tell us of the downfall of Adiago Hundsen, a crime lord that Jake Evans was seeking to destroy and whom Benny used to work with. After that, they discovered the same organization that trained Delphinium to be an assassin was rising again to take control over a 'chaotic' world. Everything they'd—we'd—done after was to stop their rise. But the tide turned when Delphinium was taken back and restored to her old place. She and Benton had apparently only just returned to their normal selves and the latter was clearly taking the change much better out of the two.

"You forced me to spy in my own team for information?" I asked Benton incredulously when Finn was done with the long story. "Bastard."

"Didn't you hear the story? I was being controlled by Imperium's leader, Orion. And I prefer to be an asshole."

Deciding he'd be no help, I turned to Finn. "What are we doing to stop Imperium if we're here? Shouldn't we be tearing them apart for what they've done?"

"Yes," he answered solemnly. "We should. But their influence is growing even larger. And now that we've separated from the ONNT, it would be a suicide mission to fight them alone. There are forces put in place to retaliate against Imperium. And once we get back on our feet here, we'll join the effort."