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Still in a crouch, Loren sidled out from under the Pale Man, careful not to let her head touch his hands.

As she fled, she looked back. Only once, when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

The Pale Man still hadn’t moved, as if only his clock had stopped while the rest of the world went on moving.

23

They were out of the House on the Pier and halfway across the driveway when Max grabbed Darien by the arm, breaking through his concentration, just like a new Surge was attempting to do. His brain was swelling in his skull, and his skin was beginning to get that crawling feeling that made him want to claw it off.

“Are you out of your damn mind?” Max hissed in his face. “You just offered Channary the same thing you offered Malakai!”

“I’m aware of that. And keep your voice down, would you?” Darien shrugged him off and kept walking.

Max followed on his heels. “They could talk, Darien. Sooner or later, one of them is going to spill the beans, and then what? What do you plan on doing when it’s not just the MPU, Payne, and the Huntsmen that want your head, but also Delaney and Graves?”

“That won’t happen.”

There was true fear in Max’s next words, a sound Darien seldom heard. “You’re not thinking straight.”

Darien whirled to face him, nearly causing his best friend to slam into him. “I’ve never thought straighter than I am now. You need to trust me on this, Maximus.”

Max’s jaw worked as he searched for the right words. “What’s the real plan? And don’t fucking water it down for me.”

“Exactly what I just said in that room.”

“And you really want out of Darkslaying?”

“Yes. No.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, rings digging into the bridge of his nose. “Maybe,” he sighed.

“And who would you give the power to if you left it behind?”

“Malakai,” he admitted.

Max’s face sank, his eyes turning hard and cold as glass. “So that wasn’t a lie.”

“No, that part was very true.” But he didn’t expect Max to understand, not yet. He didn’t expect any of them to. None of them had seen this coming, not even himself.

“Why him?” Max breathed. “What about us?”

“I told you not to worry, Maximus. And besides, that’s a long way off. So quit thinking about it, will you? Quit thinking about it and just fucking trust me. Because I’ve got a lot on my plate right now and I could really use my best friend behind me instead of throwing questions at me a mile a minute.”

Silence. Max watched him as trees creaked and water broke against the coast, his expression conflicted. A brackish breeze stirred their hair and whipped at their clothes. Darien breathed it in, willing it to ground him. Moisture glutted his lungs and chilled him to his core, but it was a welcome feeling in the heat of the impending Surge.

Finally, Max nodded. “Okay.”

“We good?”

He nodded again, though a muscle feathered in his jaw. “Yeah. Yeah, I trust you.”

They clasped hands. “Good.” Darien yanked him into a half-hug, clapping him on the back. When he let go, he kept a hand on Max’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. “I care about you and the others more than I could ever express. Trust—that’s all I’m asking for.”

Max searched his face. It killed Darien to see the reluctance lingering there, no matter how subtle. “I trust you.”

The hollow clack of heels on cobblestones had them both turning toward the house.

Valary was strutting toward them, her thick hair blowing behind her like a flame in the wind. Her face was scarlet, her features contorted with rage. Channary had already stripped her of her pelt; the absence of the wolf fur made her body look tinier than usual, the skin of her bare arms and shoulders covered in tiny bumps from the chill in the air.

Shit. Darien had hoped to be far away from this place before this happened. The sight of her was enough to make the threat of his Surge increase tenfold, colors shimmering at the edges of his vision.