“I’m okay,” he mumbles.
“You’re okay, my ass.”
“You sick, West?” Sydney strokes his forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”
He catches her hand, lowers it. “Said I’m okay. What are you guys doing?”
“Discussing what’s in Kash’s journal,” Syd mutters. “You’re deflecting.”
“I don’t wanna fucking talk about myself,” West says with such a sharp edge to his voice it stops me cold, when all I want is push him to tell us what is wrong. “Tell me what you found.”
Fucking hell, something spooked him real good. West doesn’t rattle easily. The only people with the power to get him in a fit were his granddad and his sister, but with them gone…
What isn’t he telling us?
“Here,” Sydney says, glancing at me, a worried glint in her eyes, then back at the journal, “Kash wrote that his dad told him his uncle was behind the killing of his mom and sister, and left him a compass. Or so we think. The word is in Russian.”
“Show me.”
She passes him the journal and he stares at the text, his face still white, his mouth pale. I’d bet my balls he isn’t even seeing the words in front of him.
I pull the journal over and lay it open on my knee. “And where is the compass? Never saw anything like that on Kash or in his room. We searched from side to side. We’d have seen a goddamn compass lying around, right?”
“And what use would it be to us anyway?” West mutters, a flicker of interest entering his expression.
“No fucking clue.”
“Wait.” Syd drapes herself over West’s legs and grabs the journal. “My dad gave me a compass on a paper.”
I scowl down at the text. “So?”
“What if…” She scoots back to her place, taking the journal with her. “What if it’s not a real compass, but one on paper?”
“As if, drawn on paper?” West says and hell.
“You serious?” I put my arm around West and lean over, trying to see the journal. “Give it back here.”
She squeaks as we play tug war—until West’s hand falls heavily on top of the journal.
“Stop. You’re gonna tear it.” We both let go and lean in as he opens it again on his lap. “A compass on paper. Maybe it’s inside this journal?”
That makes sense. “Drawn on a separate piece of paper.”
“That his dad gave him.”
“But why the hell does this matter?” I grumble.
Undeterred, Sydney turns the pages. That girl never gives up, I swear.
Fuck, I love her.
Sydney is still turning pages, muttering something about cryptic men, and West is observing her with a fond smile on his face, some color returning to his cheeks, and all I can think of is that I fucking love them both, and Kash… if that motherfucker hadn’t vanished into thin air, I’d love him, too.
Jesus, I’m so fucked. What do I do if they ever leave me? I’d just… dissolve into nothing. How do you deal with the feeling you can’t function as a single entity anymore, that you’re part of a whole, and you need that whole to live?
I need Sydney’s laughter, West’s faint smiles, Kash’s quiet strength. And Kash’s panic attacks, West’s OCD, Sydney’s tears because it’s their other side, the side that makes them real.
That makes them a match for me.