Fury and Flame | 3

3 | 5

D E L P H I N I U M

  
      I leaned against the wall in Jake's room, watching the world outside turn golden with the sunset. My grandmother's house was on an incline, so it had a beautiful view of both the green landscaping surrounding the house and the city in the distance. Even farther, the ocean was barely visible, glistening gold under the sun.

      There was something I wanted to know, but I didn't know how to ask. I wasn't sure if Jake would even tell me or just shut down even further.

      But I was curious and didn't want to give in to my own darker thoughts, so I asked, "Did you really go to prison?"

      "Yes." There was no hesitation, no shame. He didn't even look up from whatever he was working on—the details of which he refused to tell anyone.

      A thousand more questions swelled up. "Why? How?"

      "You've always asked me why I hate Hundsen so much." He paused to lean over and write a note. "Connect the dots, Tesla."

      "He sold you out?" I asked, mind reeling from this new realization. "He's the reason you went there?"

      "Yes. He set an ambush for me after weeks of turning the Club against me. Law enforcement had been searching for me for years, so he gave them exactly what they wanted without giving himself away."

      "And you...didn't anticipate this?" That was extremely uncharacteristic of him, even if he had been younger then. "You lost against him?"

      Then he did look up at me with a glare. "Don't be ridiculous, of course not. I let myself be taken away and locked up; I was protected from him while in there. It was a place to lie low while gathering my resources. And I had time to devise a plan to take everything from him without interference." I wasn't surprised. Only he would choose to go to prison. And as a place to lie low, no less.

      "That's where you met Jaxon? And you escaped after?"

      "I met Jaxon and realized his hidden power. We broke out and went on the run until Jaxon made a mistake that got us caught by the ONNT. And the rest is history."

      I remembered how Jake and Jaxon had seemed to have some strange iciness between them when I first met them. I wanted to ask what Jaxon did to cost them their freedom but refrained. He'd never asked me about my past, had simply accepted me the way I was. I'd return the favor.

      "At first, I was wary of your connection with him," I said openly, thinking of how far we'd come from then. "I thought you were an even bigger threat to me together."

      "I thought you were paranoid and suspicious at first." He shot me a flat glance. "I was right." And now I was right back where I started.

      "I thought you were a cold asshole at first." The teasing retort surprisingly sharp, vastly different from the shaking fear I'd been so accustomed to. "I was right as well."

      He gave no reply, but I saw how the end of his mouth pulled into the ghost of a smirk as he concentrated on his work.

      The room settled into comfortable silence and I turned back to look out the window. But I could feel myself falling back into my own dark pattern of thinking. I'd been able to distract myself from it for small amounts of time, but it was always there sitting in the back of my mind. It always returned to me. Or I always returned to it.

     I was sitting in the bottom of a well and there was no speck of light at the top. There was no end in sight.

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