Nick shied away from her.
“You no trust me?” Her tone was offended.
“No disrespect meant to you, ma’am, but I don’t even know your name.”
Her face went completely stoic. “I am Rosa and I keep Mr.
Kyrian’s house for him. Now would you like me to put your bag away while you’re here?”
He felt foolish for not letting her have it. It just wasn’t in him to let anyone take anything from him without a fight no matter how worthless it was. It was the same reason he hadn’t wanted Brynna touching it earlier. “I guess.” He shrugged it off.
She umphed as he surrendered the ful weight of it.
“Goodness, you’re much stronger than you appear. How you carry this without being hunchback?”
Nick shrugged. “It’s what I have to have for school.” She gestured at the mahogany staircase that curved up to the second floor. “Third door on the right. No need to knock.
He wil hear you coming.”
Yeah, okay, that was creepy too.
Nick headed up, taking his time to scan every inch of the impeccable palace. The banister had what he was pretty sure were gold medal ions in the center of the black iron railing and the polished floors were some kind of something real y expensive—like marble or tile or … whatever. Part of him wanted to run back to the street.
I so don’t belong here.
He felt like a fraud or unworthy. Until he realized what real y made him so uncomfortable.
There was no daylight. …
Every window in the house was covered with shutters and heavy drapes. Every single one. Not so much as a tendril of sunlight came in. How weird was that? His mother was always yel ing at him for burning electricity in the daytime.
Stop shaming the daylight, boy. Turn out the lights. Have you any idea how much money you’re wasting?
Pushing it out of his mind, he reached the door Rosa had mentioned and opened it.
Kyrian sat in front of a computer with a headset covering one ear. “Talon, I hear what you’re saying. I’m just not listening to it. Look, the kid’s here. I’l talk to you later.” He hung up the phone and pul ed the headset off before placing it on his desk.
“Talon?” Nick asked.
Kyrian smiled without showing his teeth—another peculiar habit Nick had noticed about him even back when he’d come to the hospital. “A friend I’m sure you’l eventual y meet.” He inclined his head toward Nick’s sling. “How are you feeling?”
“Cranky. Pain meds wore off and it hurts like a mother.” Kyrian ignored his curt tone and semi-profanity. “Heard you had some problems at your school today.”
“I didn’t have no problems at school ’cause they wouldn’t let me on campus. Makes it a great day if you ask me.” Kyrian rol ed his eyes, but didn’t comment on Nick’s irritable tone. “Have you cal ed your mom?”
“No. Why?”
“Don’t you think she might have heard about the attacks at school and been worried?”
“I don’t see how.”
“Nick … She’s your mother. She’s going to be worried.
Honestly, you have no idea how much your parents love you until something happens to you—then it’s too late.” There was a note in Kyrian’s voice that Nick couldn’t quite define.
Something like buried pain from a bitter memory that stil bothered him. …
But that didn’t matter. Nick wasn’t being stupid or disrespectful. “I know she’d be worried if she knew about it but I know she hasn’t heard anything. We don’t have TV or anything. Heck, we don’t even have a phone. You have to cal Menyara and she takes messages to us.”
The shock on Kyrian’s face set his temper on fire.
“We don’t need your pity,” Nick growled. “We get along just fine without it and them other things too. You don’t need electronic crap to live. You know, people lived for thousands of years without it. There’s a big difference between stuff you want and stuff you need.”
Kyrian held his hands up in surrender. “Settle down, Nick. I don’t feel sorry for you. I didn’t have any of that when I was a kid either and believe me, I know how people used to live.” Nick looked around the expensive furnishings that belied those words. It was hard to imagine Kyrian having ever done without anything. “You’ve come a long way, huh?”
“In some ways …”
“And in others?”
Kyrian shrugged. “Let me put it to you this way … money doesn’t solve your problems. It just brings new ones to your door.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I hope you never know the betrayals I’ve had. My father once told me that no friend would ever be loyal to me because of what I had and who I was.”
Nick’s dad had told him basical y the same thing. Trust no one at his back, ’cause al people did was betray. And that they usual y laughed while they did it.
But he didn’t want to be so jaded. “Was he right?”
“Absolutely not. There was one friend I had who was loyal.