Nova (The Renegades Book 2)

At Sea

I slammed my laptop shut. Another hour and we’d be out of internet range. I wouldn’t have to worry about how to reply to Dad’s emails, because it wouldn’t be an option.

I thought I was protecting you. You shattered me.

I knew when he took the money that he’d never be good enough for you. Fair point, but would Dad have ever grown to like Landon if he’d turned it down? I’d never know.

I love you. You manipulated me.

You’re the most important person in my life. Shit, he didn’t even have Mom anymore, and that wasn’t his fault.

I never should have interfered. But you did, and now I’m broken.

Please forgive me. Maybe one day. Just not now.

Now I was back aboard the Athena.

Two weeks and three days and two hours. That was how long it had been since I’d set eyes on Landon. I was exceptionally proud of those two hours since we’d been back on board. I’d barred him from our room, which I knew could only last temporarily with all the Renegades running around.

“See Leah yet?” Penna asked, flipping through my adoption file and glancing at her laptop screen.

“No, she flew back with Wilder,” I said, fidgeting with my highlighter. I hadn’t talked to my best friend since that night in Tahoe, which was killing me. “See any of the others yet?”

Penna shook her head and chewed on her pen for a moment. “Nope. I needed the time away, and they understood that.”

“As evidenced by the ten bajillion missed calls.”

“Hey, I didn’t see you answering any of Leah’s once she got to Aspen.”

“I didn’t want to talk about Landon,” I said with a shrug. Or hear his voice in the background, or chance that he’d use Leah’s phone to call me.

“I didn’t want to talk about stunts or the documentary.”

Touché. I knew that Penna missed her Renegade family. Her self-imposed exile was taking a toll on her, but just like talking about Landon was off-limits for me, her distance from her team was where she drew the line.

There was a knock at the door, and I looked over from where Penna and I sat at the dining room table.

“I’ll get it.” Hugo sighed, having just restocked our coffee machine. “Hey, man,” he said after he opened it. “Uh, any change on the status of letting Landon in?” he asked carefully.

Penna raised her eyebrows at me in question.

“Nope,” I answered. “Not since he asked an hour ago.”

“Are you sure?” Penna asked, looking up from her notes.

“Yes!” I snapped. “There will always be an excuse. Always some reason. I was stupid for listening in the first place.”

She gave me that look—the one that told me she thought I was being a moron—but I didn’t care. I was in self-preservation mode, and if that meant I looked like an idiot to everyone because I wouldn’t give him a chance to talk himself out of another bullshit lie, then fine. At least I was still breathing, still functioning.

“Sorry, dude,” Hugo said, then shut the door. “Are you ever going to—?”

“Don’t fucking start with me, Hugo.” I waved a finger in his direction.

“Fine, but tomorrow’s class is hands-on, so you can’t get out of seeing him.”

I shrugged. “Then at least I have today.”

That was my motto since he’d crashed my world. I would handle everything one moment at a time. I could get through the next four days with Landon. Then we’d be in Hong Kong, and then I’d be leaving for Korea, and he’d be on his way to Nepal for a week. One whole week without trying to dodge him or constantly having to talk myself into staying put.

The problem with loving Landon was that it didn’t stop just because I realized he’d never really loved me—that I’d always been a tool for him. No, I was that sad, sorry girl I always swore I would never be, itching to see him, desperate to hear his voice.

I wasn’t avoiding him because I was pissed…well, partly. The main reason I couldn’t see him was because I was terrified that I would melt with his first excuse and I’d find myself right back where I started—madly in love with the guy who only used me.

I was a lot of things, but a masochist wasn’t on that list.

The sliding door opened, and my heart stuttered until I saw that it was Leah. Her hair was a little windblown and her cheeks pink beside a wide smile. For the slightest second I resented that she was so fucking happy, but then I shoved those evil little feelings far away. Out of all of us, Leah deserved a happy ending the most.

“There you are!” she said, running over to hug me.

“I missed you,” I said as I squeezed her extra tight, wishing I didn’t always have to share her with the enemy camp.

“Well, you wouldn’t have if you would have picked up the phone any time in the last few days.” She took the chair next to me and leaned back, folding her arms across her chest.

“Yeah, well…” I struggled for a moment and finally shook my head. “You know what, I don’t have a good excuse. I just didn’t want to hear his voice, or his excuses.”

“Speaking of which, you don’t have the whole story. You need to talk to Landon.”

“Good luck on that,” Penna muttered while typing something.

“Not interested,” I said.

“He didn’t know that they were renegotiating the Gremlin contract. Nick was handling it all, and Zoe told him that you weren’t together, so Nick never thought it would be a conflict of interest.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, and if you believe that, I have a gorgeous bridge to sell you.”

“I’m serious, Rachel. Landon is devastated.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said sarcastically. “Landon is a master of lies when he needs to be.”

“Paxton even told me—”

“Wilder lied to even get us on this ship, Leah. He’s not at the top of my trustworthy list, either.” My hand tightened around my highlighter, and I flipped the page of the textbook I was currently studying.

“Okay, well, he even called your dad.”

My attention darted toward her. “Wilder?”

“Landon,” she said with an exasperated hand flail.

“Oh, yeah? Did they discuss how much I was worth this time? I mean, I loved him more, so I should be worth more, right?”

“Holy shit, it’s like trying to talk to a brick wall,” Leah muttered.

I slammed my hands on the tabletop. “Landon lies! When will you realize that? That’s all he’s ever done to me. Lie and leave. It’s what he’s good at. I know you love Wilder, but you’ve known him for all of five months. I’ve known them for years.”

“That’s not entirely fair—” Penna interjected.

“He turned down the Gremlin offer!” Leah shouted.

A tiny kernel of hope flickered in my stomach. I squashed it mercilessly. “Right. If he actually did that, I’m sure he’s just holding out for more money.”

“Can’t you believe me?” she asked.

“You, I will always believe. But no, I don’t believe anything he says.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both. If I even open myself to the possibility, give him any benefit of the doubt…” I shook my head. “Look, I’m holding myself together by a thread. It’s killing me to know that he’s just down the damned hallway. Hell, I can’t even sleep without him creeping into my dreams, and I can feel the madness, the heartbreak, the utter destruction hovering, waiting for me to break down and let it in. All I have is this tiny thread, and I’m not giving him the scissors. Or you—as much as I love you.”

Her eyes and posture softened. “We can’t talk about this, can we?”

“No,” I said quietly, knowing I was drawing a line in our friendship that had never been there before.

She dropped her gaze to her lap, her eyes darting back and forth, which I knew meant she was weighing her options. Leah was nothing if not logical. Finally she looked up and forced a smile, but it was sad. “Okay. If that’s what you need.”

“It is.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “Talk to your parents lately?” She forced out in an obvious change of subject.

Tension drained from my shoulders, but guilt quickly took its place. I hated shutting her out. She didn’t deserve it.

“I saw my mom right before I flew out. It was…” Sad. Horrible. Frustrating. “…heartbreaking.” She’d begged me to understand, but I couldn’t. All I saw when I thought about either of them were a pair of liars. “Dad has sent a bunch of emails apologizing, but I can’t get past my anger long enough to write him back. I understand his reasons—getting me back to Dartmouth and away from a guy he thought would break my heart—but all he did was break it that much faster.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I’m so angry at them both, which is kind of ironic since I was adopted to save them from divorce the first time they thought about filing. Man, everything is just shit right now. Is there anything happy to talk about?”

“Maybe,” Penna said, resting her air-casted leg on the chair in front of her. She’d lost the cast over Christmas break, but when the doc told her she should be okay to walk on it, she didn’t believe him. She’d requested additional support, hence the air cast.

I hadn’t said a single word to her about it. If she wanted to hide behind her injury, then who the hell was I to stop her? I’d blatantly hidden behind her all Christmas, knowing that her house was the one place they’d never look for me.

Funny how the one Renegade who had hated me ended up being my saving grace when shit went south.

“Please, fill my heart with sunshine,” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“Good. I think I may have found something. But don’t get excited until I check it out. We don’t exactly have a lot to go on.”

By not a lot, she meant next to nothing. The only papers Dad had given me were the ones from the court at my adoption. The ones that didn’t mention my name at birth, just that my birth mother’s name was Seo-yun Jhang, which turned out to be one of the most popular names in Korea.

Not so helpful.

But it did have the one thing I needed: the name of her birthplace.

“Do you think you found it?” I asked.

She grimaced. “There’s an orphanage there that did a heavy number of adoptions back when you were placed, but there’s no guaranteeing that’s it. It would be like assuming you lived your whole life in L.A., when in fact you live in New Hampshire most of the year while you go to Dartmouth.”

“Right,” I said, dropping my head into my hands.

“I’m not saying it’s not possible,” Penna reassured me.

I sighed. “It’s a long shot, but I have to take it. It’s the closest I’ll ever be, and even if it’s not where I was adopted from, then…”

“Then what?” Leah asked, squeezing my hand. “Will you feel like you did everything? Because that’s what this is for, you feeling whole. Not the result.”

I nodded. “I think so?”

She looked at me, watching for whatever sign she always used to see right through me. “Okay. Then I’ll go with you.”

“No. You have the Great Wall thing,” I protested.

She shrugged. “Pax is always going to be jumping off something, revving some engine, or generally trying to get himself killed. You’ll only have this happen to you once.”

“Hell, maybe I’ll go, too,” Penna muttered.

“You’re supposed to go with Landon,” I countered.

“I thought you didn’t care,” Penna said, looking at me from over her laptop.

I played with the pen on the table in front of me. “I don’t want him to die. I want him to get his ridgeline. It’s complicated.”

“Love is weird,” Penna said, her fingers furious on her keyboard.

“It generally sucks,” I said.

“I’ve never been in love, so I’m not really qualified here,” Penna said with a shrug.

“Never?” Leah questioned, her eyebrows nearly to her hairline.

“Nope. Never really had the opportunity,” Penna clarified.

“Bullshit.” I laughed. “I’ve never seen a woman who is surrounded by more beautiful men or more uninhibited opportunities to hook up with them.”

She closed the laptop and leveled me with a single glance. “First, I worked my ass off to get where I am. I’m at the top of a men-only division, and I’m respected for my abilities and not just my ass. There’s zero chance I’m going to give it up to any Renegade, or anyone who could open his mouth on the circuit and ruin my badassery. None.”

“And second?” Leah asked, her eyes wide.

Penna sighed. “I’ve never met someone willing to fight past the anti-testosterone barrier Pax and Landon have around me. The guys are all too busy trying to impress them or beat them. That isn’t exactly conducive to relationships.”

“I’d never really thought about it that way,” I told her. “I’m so sorry. As much as I hate what he’s done to me, as much as it hurts, I wouldn’t change it.”

Penna gave me sad smile. “That’s because you still love him.”

“I do.” There was no point lying to her or myself. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever give him the chance to do it again. This time is worse than the first, which is something I didn’t think I was capable of surviving. And the funny thing is that it doesn’t hurt. I’m just…numb. It’s like I’m in shock, and my body isn’t willing to admit that it’s somehow breathing without a heartbeat. If I just keep moving then it will be okay, but eventually the rest of me is going to catch on.”

“I know the evidence is damning, but the whole thing with sponsorships is so complicated—” Penna stopped midsentence when my glare cut her off. “Got it.”

“Let’s talk about something else, anything else,” I suggested. It didn’t matter how much I loved these girls—I wasn’t up for spilling my guts any more than I already had.

“Want to pick out a new teapot in Hong Kong?” Leah offered.

“Those are for when we get through the shit in our lives. Not while we’re in the middle of it.”

She squeezed my hand. “I have the utmost faith that you will.”

I was glad one of us did.

…

“Rachel.” Landon sighed my name like he’d seen a ghost or something.

“Don’t,” I said as I slid into my seat in Civ.

“Please,” he begged quietly.

Be strong. I looked over at him and did my best to mask any physical reaction I had to seeing him. He’d lost a little weight, but nothing to be concerned about. After all, his first priority was his sport, not my broken heart. But his eyes, those gorgeous hazel orbs that I had lost myself in too many times, were haunted. They reflected every ounce of pain I hadn’t let myself feel.

“I’m stuck here in this class with you for the next month, and there’s nothing I can do about that. But the least you can do is not make it hard on me to pull good grades. If you want to talk to me, fine, we’ll talk later. But please don’t make me feel like I have to skip class and avoid you. That’s not fair, considering I did nothing wrong.”

His shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Messina took the podium and began our lecture, saving me from the potential disaster of communicating any more with Landon. Maybe he had it right the first time—it was easier to walk away when you didn’t have to see the person every day.

One by one we stood, presenting our small papers comparing and contrasting two of the cultures we’d been studying. I took copious notes, doing my best to concentrate anywhere but on Landon sitting next to me. On his eyes that watched every time I flipped the page in my notebook. On his hands that flexed on the desk like he had to keep himself from reaching for me.

Good job not noticing.

I presented and managed to keep my eyes locked on our professor, who sat in the back of the room. That effort alone deserved an A. When Landon spoke, I focused on my notepad and definitely did not listen to his comparison involving the Dani tribe and their courting rituals.

I did not think about the way I’d started to feel like he was my forever.

I did not remember his hands on my body.

Slamming my notebook closed, I got the hell out of there as soon as she dismissed class.

“Rachel!” Landon called down the hallway.

“You okay?” Hugo asked.

“I’m fine,” I assured him as I stopped. “Go ahead.”

He looked skeptical but left me in the hallway like I’d asked. Students walked around me, all headed to their various classes as I stood like a rock in a rushing stream, blocking the flow.

“Hey, can we talk?” Landon asked.

“Sure.” I hardened every single defense I could muster against him and followed him into an empty classroom. He shut the door behind us, and I held my books in front of me like they could shield my heart from whatever he was going to throw at me next.

He put his on the desk. Probably because he knows he has nothing to fear from me.

I’d never been the one to dish out the deathblows in our relationship.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

He leaned back against the desk closest to the door. “Talk to me.”

“Okay, well, how is the Nepal trip coming? Do you have it all mapped out? Weather check? I’ve heard it’s snow season, so I’m a little skeptical, but hey, it’s your dream, so I’m all for it.”

“Seriously? You want to talk about Nepal?”

“I don’t really want to talk. But you do, so I’m obliging you. Talk away.”

“Look. I didn’t know about the sponsorship deals. As far as I knew, we’d already killed the Gremlin contract, but Nick didn’t know. He was the one negotiating on our behalf. I would never agree to take any amount of sponsorship money to keep me away from you—”

“But you did,” I interrupted softly. My voice was flat, the byproduct of the blessed numbness that still gripped my heart. “That’s exactly what you agreed to the first time we tried this.”

His eyes closed in pain, like I’d just wounded him. “I know. You have no idea how sorry I am—how much I regret that decision.”

“I don’t.”

“You what?” He leaned forward.

“You leaving me like that led me to Leah, which in turn led her to Wilder. I can’t regret any role I had in that, no matter how badly it hurt. I can’t regret seeing your true colors.”

“Rachel.”

“I only regret that I didn’t pay close enough attention, that I let my guard down again when I already knew what you were. Everything that happened the first time—that’s on you. And we’ve been through it so many times that I’m just sick of thinking about it. The fact that you did it for money…” I shrugged. “I could have gotten over it if you’d just told me.”

“I was so scared of losing you.” His voice strained, emotion bleeding from him in a way I couldn’t let myself feel.

“Ironic, since you lost me by not telling me,” I replied.

“Did I? Did I lose you?”

“You sold me to my father, Landon.” The reality of it struck me as I said it, and I felt the first crack in the ice around my heart. Keep it together.

“Not this time. I didn’t. The first time I fucked up, but I didn’t make the same mistake. I promise. You have to believe me.” He stood and crossed the distance between us. I flinched when he took my face between his palms but didn’t protest.

That simple contact broke through my numbness, and as though someone had melted the ice with a flamethrower, my heart burned, and it hurt.

My eyes fluttered shut against the onslaught of agony, my body reaching for his, unable to recognize that he was the cause of the pain.

“Rachel, please. I know this is bad, but we are so good together. Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it—you’re my infinity, my always. Tell me what I have to say to make this right. Tell me what to—”

“There’s nothing,” I said quietly, opening my eyes to see his locked on me. “Maybe that’s why this hurts so damn much now, seeing you and knowing that we’ll never be us again. I love you. I think there’s a huge possibility that I will always love you. And that doesn’t make me feel good. I don’t feel cherished, or respected, or loved. I feel stupid. You make me feel small and insignificant, and that’s not something I’m okay with.”

“No. God, no,” he said, shaking his head. “You are—”

“Stop,” I begged in a harsh whisper as my eyes prickled. “Just stop. I can’t hear another word out of your beautiful mouth. Or maybe I can. Maybe the problem is that I can stand here and talk to you because I’ve already come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter what you want to tell me. There’s nothing you can say that will ever make me trust you again.”

He sucked in his breath, his eyes watering just like mine were.

“So let’s just agree to stop this. Stop hurting each other. Because there can always be love—it’s foolishly blind—but one thing I’ve learned from my parents is that relationships can’t exist without trust.”

I stepped out of his hands, the separation feeling more than physical.

“I love you,” he argued.

I smiled sadly as a single tear escaped down my cheek. “That’s what makes this so much harder, Casanova. I almost believe you.”

For the first time since I’d met him, he let me walk away without a fight.