Sunlight catches the droplets on her collarbone, her shoulders, her belly button.
Her freckles stand out more when she’s wet, scattered across her skin like stars I want to map.
I wonder if Art’s ever seen her like this. Unguarded andglowing. I wonder if he knows what she looks like when she’s not performing for anyone, when she’s just existing in the world like it belongs to her.
I wonder if he’d kill me for the way I’m looking at her right now.
Fuck.
“I can feel you staring,” she says without opening her eyes.
“Just making sure you don’t drown.”
One lid opens to glare at me, then closes.
We drift in silence. The waterfall roars. Birds call in the trees. Cavall snaps at a butterfly and misses.
“Can I ask you something?” she says eventually.
“Depends.”
“That kid you were training.” She rights herself, treading water. “What will happen to him?”
My stomach tightens. We haven’t talked about her sneaking down to the Lye and seeing me with Percy. I haven’t wanted to, because then I’d have to admit I saw her, and I liked knowing she was there.
“I don’t know.”
“But you admit you’ve been training him.”
“Not by choice.”
She swims closer. Her questions are specific, like she’s cross-referencing, or testing what I’ll tell her against things she already knows. I clock it, but I don’t call her on it, because I’d do the same thing in her position.
“How does the Lye work?” she asks.
“You’ve been down there.”
“Yeah, but… I mean the operation, not the place.”
The smart thing would be to shut this down. Telling hercould put her in more danger, or burden her with truths she might not really want to hear.
But she’s treading water next to me and asking questions no one else has ever cared enough to ask, and there’s something about the way she’s looking at me that makes me want to answer. Besides, no one in her life is being honest, and I can’t find it in myself to become another one who keeps her in the dark under the guise of safety.
“The Lye is pretty new. Something Freddy cooked up to try and be the god of Rosebrook Falls, I don’t know. Before then I’d get carted around.”
“To where?”
“Basements. Warehouses. Backyards. They moved us into different states, different cities, so no one could track the operation.”
“Us,” she repeats.
“I’m not the only one stuck down there. The other fighters rotate through their own locations. Percy, too.” My chest tightens. “The Lye ismyplace now. People pay to put someone in the cage, and they either tell me to lose, or tell me to make sure they don’t get back up.”
“So it’s about money.”
“Money and death, Half-Pint. The two most powerful forces in the world.”
“And the footage… You said they record it? Have you ever tried to find it? Maybe then you could be free, I’m sure I could get my father to represent you. You don’thaveto do this.”