How Things Changed Forever.. PART - II

CH 38: Getting out of Hand...

Kai sat in the quiet of his apartment, one hand resting on his phone, the other curled into a fist against his knee. His screen displayed a familiar app—one he checked far too often these days.

Dots blinked steadily on the map, marking each of his friends—Ray, Max, Tyson, Mariah, Cassie, Hillary. A habit. A precaution. A necessity.

Because as much as they joked, as much as they lived their normal, carefree lives, he knew better.

Kai had recently given Cassie and Hillary bracelets with built-in GPS trackers. Had previously made sure the others had watches or keychains laced with the same security. After the shootout, he'd started taking these things more seriously than ever before.

Because it wasn't paranoia if the threat was real.

He exhaled, eyes narrowing as he focused on Hillary's dot. Still at the Swim Centre. Then at Cassie's. She had just gotten home. Kai frowned as he checked the time.

8:07 PM.

That didn't sit right.

Their swim practice ended at seven. Even if Hillary took her time changing or chatting, she should've left by now.

He told himself she probably forgot her bracelet there. Cassie had done it last week—taken the bracelet off with the rest of her jewellry before swimming and left it behind without thinking.

He had rushed there the moment he saw her dot at the swim centre past eight, expecting something terrible, only to find it lying on a bench, untouched. The relief had hit him like a punch, sharp and frustrating.

Max had been just as careless. He'd left his watch in a taxi once, and Kai had panicked that he'd been abducted and had tracked it all the way to the outskirts of the city! Another dead end. Another unnecessary panic.

And Tyson—Tyson was the worst of them all.

Kai had no choice but to put a tracker on his house keys, because the idiot wore no accessories regularly. On top of that, he was constantly misplacing them. The number of times Kai had gotten an alert from Tyson's keys ending up in random places— the park, the bridge, the beach, the ramen shop down his street—was absolutely infuriating.

Kai huffed internally. At this point, he was seriously considering making Tyson swallow a tracker just so he wouldn't have to deal with this carelessness anymore.

He knew he should tell them. Tracking them without consent was a violation of trust and privacy. He knew all that. He knew he should just be honest instead of constantly running damage control behind the scenes.

The boys... they now understood the threat, at least to an extent. On the other hand, Hillary had experienced the worse of it. She'd chosen to put some distance between them for the very same reason, and he supported her decision. Anyone who was trying to target them would not think of getting to Hillary now. She was nothing more than someone who attended the same school as them.

She wouldn't have even been on his tracker list if his grandfather's butler hadn't made a passing comment on her safety to test his nerves at the Halloween party. He hated how much of an impression the girl had made on his grandfather's butler in literal minutes that he bothered to remember her by name.

But how was he supposed to explain all this mess to Cassie? How was he supposed to tell Tyson he couldn't just wake up in the middle of the night and just walk to the park for practice? How was he supposed to tell Max that he couldn't just gallivant to the abandoned amusement park to spend time with Mariam late in the evenings?

How was he supposed to tell them that he was terrified of something happening to them? That every second they were out of his sight, he worried?

Cassie was new to all of this, and was already wary of how deep she was getting involved with him. She knew of his family's shady reputation and still chose to give him a chance. Not the short, casual kind of relationships he'd had with numerous girls like Laura until then, but something more genuine. It was still new, but he didn't want to mess with that.