by S. K Munt
‘Potential?’ Finn guessed, and Paige laughed.
‘Exactly.’ Paige rolled back over onto her side and grinned at Finn, so her wide smile gleamed in the fuzzy darkness. ‘Which is why I’m glad he took an interest in you- because you’re kind of the same.’
‘You think?’ Finn asked, rolling onto her own back now. Honestly, she’d identified a lot more with Reeve’s story than she had with Bailey’s, because she could think of a lot of occasions when she’d been reprimanded for being too honest, too chatty or too dramatic. She didn’t want to live in a shell- she’d just been scared into retreating into one by her peers!
‘I do…’ Paige yawned the words. ‘Only you’ve got more spark to you- a lot more energy and I reckon that will help bring him out of his shell, the same way Reeve’s spark does.’
‘I hear what you’re saying…’ Finn smiled in the darkness, liking the idea of being the saviour instead of the one who needed rescuing for once. But thinking about who she was had gotten made her contemplate who she wanted to be, so she turned her face in the darkness then and said: ‘Hey... Paige, can I ask: What is it you want to do with your life? You said before that it’s already laid out for you…and I get that you have this incredible skill now... but how exactly are you going to turn being an Enmity into a living without moving to Laidlaw?’
‘I’ll show you in the morning…’ Paige slurred, and Finn smiled and rolled onto her stomach, hugging a pillow to herself and biting her lip, thinking that only a good friend could help you turn a night that you never wanted to end, into a morning full of revelations that couldn’t come fast enough!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Paige stood staring at the dilapidated pump shed while Finn, Bailey and Reeve looked on expectantly from the fence-line thirty metres away. She didn’t raise her arms the way Finn had expected she would, and she didn’t shoot fire out of her eyes either- she just stood and scowled, balling her fists at her side while her eyes- which were almost always dancing with merriment- slitted like daggers.
‘What’s she doing?’ Finn asked Bailey, supporting her weight on the fencepost as she leaned over. ‘Imagining it pissed her off?’
Reeve snorted. ‘Ha. Maybe we could spray-paint a ‘Yo mama,’ joke on the side of it to help out, eh?’
‘Count me out. After all, her mama would whoop us both if we tried...’ Bailey turned his smile Finn’s way. ‘But I’m not actually clear on her process, Finn. I’ve only ever seen her do this once or twice before. But I think she’s like, mentally unfastening the screws now or something… right Reeve?’
‘Yep. At first, she just made stuff fall over by focusing her angry energy on the whole structure in general,’ Reeve crossed his arms so he could rest them against his chest. ‘But she’s been trying to exercise more control lately, and honestly, spends a lot more time studying how stuff goes together than she does trying to rip it apart.’
‘Gotcha,’ Finn said, nodding and shifting her weight, aware that one of her butt cheeks had gone numb from how long she’d been perched on the gate. ‘That’s what Miriam does now, only she studies how things go together so she can more expertly put them together.’
‘So you guys don’t end up with another port-a-loo incident?’
‘What port-a-loo incident?’ Bailey asked as Finn frowned.
‘The incident they had when the Manifest who built their castle did so without planning out where things like wiring and plumbing went first…’ Reeve chuckled as Bailey shook his head. ‘Leaving his royal highness to have to resort to using a port-a-loo for the next three months, until he could locate a plumber and a leccy to fix everything.’
Finn side-eyed Reeve, because it wasn’t the first somewhat barbed thing he’d had to say about mainlanders that morning. Not just him but Cal, Liz, Hadley and Paige too, who’d all found an angle to pick the kingdom apart from over breakfast. Finn hadn’t been able to say that they were wrong as far as the politics stuff was concerned, because they belonged to another community, so naturally how the kingdom affected them mattered more to them than how it benefitted the loyalists within it... but it had still made her uncomfortable to have to sit there and listen to it, feeling like she ought to pick a side while not actually knowing what side she was on because technically, she had to live both lives: as an Outskirter and as a loyalist.
It had been interesting, however, to hear Hadley rip into the Hive, saying that they were all actually pretty ordinary, and that it was their loyalty to one another and the way they strutted about with their arms linked that made people think that they were collectively some sort of teenage dream when in actuality, there was no way they would have been as impressive as they were collectively, as individuals- at least not in the way Miriam was. Finn didn’t know if that was true or not, and she didn’t begrudge Hadley her opinion because by the sounds of it, they’d all found a way to make her life hell at some point... but at the end of the day, Finn supposed that it was their loyalty to one another that she was most desperate to be a part of, and would have just as easily wanted in with a clique of different women, so long as they all had one another’s backs the way the Hive girls did. Problem was though, she’d yet to find a better alternative and was starting to wonder if she ever would.
‘There was a bit of attitude buried in there somewhere, wasn’t there?’ Finn finally asked Reeve, thinking of the way he and Cal had griped about Laidlaw’s trade policies, while Hadley had griped about the Hive, and Paige had griped about the contracts the Enigmas were made to sign. Usually, she shied away from discussing that sort of thing, given how much trouble you could get into for doing it in Laidlaw but now that they were in free territory, she couldn’t help but ask directly: ‘Is it possible that you’re one of the many Shardians who have an issue with the king and his betrothed?’
‘Maybe…’ Reeve hedged.
‘Shardians?’ Bailey laughed. ‘I like that. I’ve always been too pale to pull off ‘Islander’ with any dignity...’
‘It’s yours,’ Finn said benevolently to Bailey, before turning back to Reeve and asking: ‘So what’s the issue? Do you just dislike Amory because he made himself a king? Or do you have an issue with Miriam too?’
Reeve turned to Finn and pressed his hand to his heart. ‘You think I’d mock the Wiley girl that you’ve always admired so? Never!’ He waved his hand dismissively as Finn relaxed a little, kind of pleased that he recalled that part of the conversation they’d had too because she actually thought about that moment a lot- that moment as they’d sat there, on the lip of the quarry, gazing out at Amory Laidlaw’s construction site and debating what its purpose was. Little had they known though, what it would actually become- or that they’d still be standing there two years later, debating it yet again! ‘No, I don’t hate the king or his future queen. He just makes some bonehead calls sometimes, and I think letting his girlfriend build him a castle with powers that he didn’t yet understand was one of ‘em. I mean, didn’t it almost kill her?’
‘True,’ Finn said, thinking of the book she’d been reading all week, and how one of the characters had said: ‘The most expensive part of building is the mistakes…’ while remembering how out of it Miriam had been over the course of the three days that she’d been building that castle, and of how awful she’d looked after. She glanced back Paige’s way then, suddenly full of concern. ‘On that note: does that shed actually need destroying? Because if it doesn’t, I’d prefer she saved her strength for-’
‘It’s fine Finn,’ Bailey said, turning to rest his elbows on her knees so he could smile a comforting smile up at her. ‘She’s not gonna kill herself impressing you.’
‘So long as she doesn’t go too nuts, that is…’ Reeve drawled.
‘What’s too nuts?’ Finn joked, wiping her hair out of her eyes. She hadn’t washed it the night before, so it was still rippled, but she’d run a comb through it so now it was ridiculously fluffy.
‘Oh, you know Paige…’ Reeve winked back at her over his sho
ulder, and she grit her teeth before congratulating herself for not allowing his sexy wink to knock her off of the fence and onto her ass. ‘You won’t notice she’s about to cross a line until she’s over it!’
‘That’s our girl,’ Bailey chuckled, turning and reclining back between Finn’s legs in a smooth move that turned their separate stances into a pseudo embrace.
Just breathe! Finn told herself, draping her arms loosely over Bailey’s shoulders but wincing a little when he cupped her knee with his left hand and began to gently stroke the inside of it with his thumb You’re doing great- even if Reeve is making NOT fantasising about him instead of the one that brought you even more impossible today...!
They were standing out in a large, depressed valley, which was partially shaded by a solitary peak on the far side of the island that was more ‘tower’ shaped than mountain shaped, which gave it a distinctive silhouette and explained why the island had been named the way it had. That sharp peak, which was riddled with caves and hide-y-holes, was all that was left of the now dormant volcano that had apparently formed the Shard Island group millions of years before, so the coastline was rocky and lethal-looking, with beaches covered in pumice stone and fine black sand that gave it a brooding look.
The peak itself was bald- stripped of any kind of vegetation- but the island beneath it was lush and forested, and the dams and paddocks that the Hayes family relied upon were all set into strangely shaped depressions that were broken up by patches of Norfolk pine forests which stretched high up into the sky. But even from three paddocks away, on the flatter end of the island, Finn could see Reeve’s family home jutting off the mountainside, which appeared to be suspended over the water in some places and seemingly built into the rocky base of the mountain in others, looking like something that would have once been photographed for architectural digest back when there’d been a market for such things. It was modern-looking, yes, which probably took the edge off living out in the wild like that, but it had been built with an even mix of dark timber and glass, so it blended so seamlessly into the wilderness around it that when the light shifted, it kind of disappeared from sight.
But what was most impressive about the estate was the fact that apparently, Reeve’s dad had basically built the whole thing with his family’s help- not just the house either, but the deep, tiled swimming pool behind it, the stables and Paige’s place! And apparently, Reeve had done a fair share of the work too, which basically made the other guys she’d met before- who struggled with setting out their math work, or were picking up litter for a living because they’d stolen from other people’s crab pots- seem like toddlers in comparison.
But as picturesque as everything was, nothing about the island was as visually striking as Reeve was, as he stood there in faded, ripped jeans and a long sleeve white tee with the sleeves bunched up, which showed how strong and sun-kissed his arms were, and how urban his taste in clothes were, while his dusty work-boots and perfectly tilted cowboy hat proved that he was also right at home on the farm. No, he wasn’t as tall as Bailey was and no, he wasn’t anywhere near as bulky or cut as Finn had noticed that the older Pilkes boys had been, and yet he carried himself more like a grown man than a fourteen-year-old, which was an attractive contrast against his happy-go-lucky nature. He wasn’t as pale as she remembered him being as a small child anymore, and his complexion wasn’t as clear as Bailey’s was, but he was speckled with enough pale ginger freckles to make his olive-green eyes pop, while also being golden enough for him to pass as a blonde or a brunet from a distance, depending on the amount of light that hit him at the time. And that was what Finn was most in awe of; how much of a chameleon he was. Like he had three different personalities, and three different looks to go with it: Sexy, silly and today… casual-cool.
Bailey looked good in the daylight too, and even though he was still wearing the same clothes as he had been wearing the night before, Finn had a feeling that if he’d been able to select an outfit from his own closet that morning, then he probably would have picked one similar to what Reeve was wearing anyway, because they were still wearing so many accessories that matched now. Like their bulky digital watches, which had been so trendy pre-Strike that Finn knew of plenty of people who still wore them, despite the fact that the EMP had rendered them all worthless. Bailey’s and Reeve’s watches still worked though, and Bailey’s hoody looked brand-spanking new which made her wonder… where were they getting their stuff from? And was Bailey aware that there were Outlaws out there that would have stabbed him for his ADIDAS hoody the night before?
Their similarities went beyond clothing and accessories though, as both had longish, darkish hair with undercuts that they wore pulled back under their hats in low, short ponytails, and they both had one pierced ear each too, which told Finn that they probably would have ended up getting matching tattoos one day as well, because that was just the kind of friends they were- the kind that had been friends for so long that they’d become two halves of a whole.
‘Oh…!’ Finn exclaimed then, shaken from her thoughts by the sight of a white horse that was heading their way. ‘Horsie!’
‘Have you ever ridden one before?’ Bailey asked, shifting so she could stretch out and stroke the horse’s velveteen snout.
‘Just last night actually…’ Finn said, petting the horse tenderly. ‘But that wasn’t so much a ride as it was a trot.’ She leaned in and inhaled deeply. ‘Not that I mind- I’m happy just to smell them.’
‘One of us can take you out for a ride once Paige is done if you’d like…’ Reeve said, and Finn straightened, excited and glanced at Bailey, thinking of how exciting it would be to go on a horseback ride with a gorgeous guy on an island.
‘Really?’
‘Your wish is my command, princess,’ Bailey said. ‘But you-’
A screeching noise ripped through the air then, causing both Finn and the horse to flinch, though Bailey and Reeve simply turned to look Paige’s way, completely unperturbed as a sheet of iron bent against its fastenings of the rusted old shed and curled away before toppling onto the ground with a crash that echoed through the valley.
‘Wow!’ Finn breathed, regaining her composure as another bit of roofing curled and pulled away from the shed’s ridgepole before falling away as well. Then, the entire ridgepole lifted up, hovered there for a moment, and then began to spin, before shooting into the forest behind it. ‘That’s suave as! She’s peeling it like a celery stalk!’
‘Yes, but it’s all a bit too controlled for my liking...’ Reeve muttered, before cupping his mouth and calling out: ‘I see what you’re doing Paige, and it’s not cool!’ But Paige didn’t even glance their way, which prompted Finn to ask:
‘Why? What’s she doing that I don’t see?’
‘She’s showing off,’ Bailey said grimly, stepping back a little and shielding his eyes as suddenly, the three closed walls of the shed exploded outward, as though something had detonated from the inside. ‘Oi!’ Bailey called as he steadied Finn and then began to stalk Paige’s way, showing more assertiveness than he had yet. ‘Cut it out, Paige! She’s already impressed- there’s no need for theatrics!’
Finn began to grow concerned- mostly because this was the first time she’d seen either boy looking concerned yet. She hopped down off the fence pole and stepped closer to Reeve, but not so close that she’d be in the danger zone. ‘Hey… what’s the problem? It’s not like she’s taking apart the mountain-’
‘It’s not really the size of the project that’s the issue,’ Reeve said, folding his arms again and watching keenly as Bailey went off after Paige, still calling out warnings. ‘It’s the intricacy of it. The more thought that goes into every move she’s making, the more it drains her. Like… see how she just ripped that ridgepole out and spun it?’ Finn nodded. ‘Well that took a lot of focus. Like, when you try to go cross-eyed, you know? You have to think and strain so hard on it that you end up getting a headache- and that’s what Paige is gonna give herself, if she keeps
concentrating so hard on what she’s doing. Only in her case, it’ll be a migraine. And we know that because we’ve seen it happen way too many times before already.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Finn asked, suddenly fearful. ‘That she might give herself like, a stroke or an aneurism someday?’
‘That’s what we’re afraid of,’ Reeve said soberly. ‘We don’t know if that’s possible of course, because so far, the Enigmas have had the sense to back off when they feel a headache coming on… but Hayes’ aren’t really renowned for holding back, and Paige is determined to be the strongest Enmity around; to make Amory want her services so bad that he’ll be willing to grant her- and everyone out here on the Shards- anything we could ever wish for in exchange for her services.’ He turned and tucked a flapping lock of her hair behind her ear, making her shiver again. ‘Not to mention, a lot less looking down his nose at us...’
Finn frowned, wondering if Reeve had been lying when he’d said that he didn’t hate the king, because she’d already picked up on more than a little animosity. ‘How would that even be possible though? I mean, I get that Enmity’s are handy to have around when it comes to quarries and forests and stuff...but they’ll never be as useful as say, a Manifest is, will they?’
‘Well... she actually wants to learn to pick apart ships and other vehicles from a safe distance,’ Reeve said, and Finn’s eyebrows lifted. ‘As far as she’s concerned, that’s the smartest thing for her to learn to do, especially now that there are so many more pirates getting about, and she’s not exactly wrong. But without knowing what her exact limitations are, and what the consequences might be of-’ he groaned then and began to jog. ‘And there she goes!’
