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Again and again we lined up across from one another, feeling one another out. He was good, athletic and skilled at seeing where my attacks were going to come from. I got him a few times, but he also evaded me too. Honestly, we were evenly matched, just as I’d thought from the first time we sparred in front of everyone.

I held my hand up signifying a break and then walked to the side of the mat to get a drink after we’d been going after another for twenty minutes straight. I took a water bottle and threw one at him. I didn’t even look back to make sure, but I knew he’d caught it. I heard it as he pulled the water from the nozzle into his mouth hungrily, and then the slight pop as he pushed the nozzle back down.

“You ready to talk about it yet?”

I finally turned. “Talk about what?”

“Why you’re really upset. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you were expecting something to happen at the perimeter wall last night.” His brows furrowed, a couple wavy strands of hair fell over his forehead as he regarded me.

He was handsome. There was no denying it. From how my mother described the Dumont of her younger years, he was stocky, disgustingly vain—a douche, basically. Not that Felix wasn’t a douche some of the time, but he was a good-looking one.

“Did you really want to tell me about the tracks right away?” I asked instead.

His gaze narrowed further, almost like a war of wits had just commenced. I didn’t really mean it like that. I just wanted to know.

“How come you get to ask questions and I can’t?”

“You asked a question.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I guess you have the same option then.”

He took a deep breath and another long drink from the water bottle before throwing it off to the side. “Yes.” He paused for a few moments, his body relaxing the more he resigned himself to saying what he was going to say. “Yes, I wanted to tell you right away. Your friend Alexei told you that yesterday. Why? Is it surprising?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so?” He smiled and shook his head. “Why?”

I shrugged. I really didn’t know other than I must’ve been bias against Felix. Was it that difficult to imagine I would be? His ancestor tried to take out my parents. Of course, I wouldn’t trust him right away. Felix knew it too.

“You just don’t want to say it,” he said. “You want to make everyone think that they all have a shot, but that’s not really true, is it, Izzy?”

I swallowed. “It is true.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

He turned to walk away.

My body tensed, begging me to say something. I didn’t want to leave it like that. Everyone did have a chance. Even him. Right?

“I did think something was going to happen,” I called out, the words coming out rapid-fire. Heat, anger, and embarrassment coloring them. “At the perimeter, I mean.”

He stopped. His hand came up to rub the back of his neck. Then, he turned slowly. “What did you think was going to happen?”

My heart thumped in my chest. I wasn’t ready to trust Felix fully yet. “That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that nothing happened and we’re no closer to figuring out what the hell’s going on.”

He walked up, his steps eating the distance between us. “You know something,” he growled. “You have to say what you know.”

“I don’t know anything for sure,” I said, tasting the tiniest bit of lies as I said it. I could trust my premonitions. That I knew for sure.

“I don’t believe you,” he said softly. “Trust goes both ways, you know?”

His eyes filled with disappointment, then he turned on his heels to leave again.

Goosebumps sprouted on my arms as I watched him walk away. The closer he got to the door, the more wrong it felt.

I rubbed my forehead, just hoping the feeling would pass, but it didn’t. Finally, I called out, “Felix!”