Fusion by Nicole Williams Page A

brothers. I was just here to fight them.
    “Head up and ears open, huh?” I said, winking at Nathanial before turning to Joseph.
    He grinned, tapping his temple. “I’ve so got that covered‌—‌you can sleep easy at night.”
    I popped my neck from side to side. “Yeah. Well, there’s a first for everything,” I said before sliding a devious grin into position.
    Joseph’s face had just enough time to fall before I leapt in the air towards him, the butt of my left heel crashing into his chest.
    Joseph hit a solid three seconds hang time in the air, flying backwards into the growth of timbers. I held the look on his face dear to my heart.
    Nathanial’s chuckles mixed with my full bellied laughter and Joseph’s humph as he punched a meteor shaped hole into the earth.
    “You’ve gone all soft on me while I’ve been behind bars,” I hollered across the arena at Joseph as the aftershock from him smashing into the earth rippled away.
    “And this is what you call behind bars?” Nathanial, who was now reclining over a heap of broken timbers, called out. “It must be rough.” He smirked at me, where I stood flushed from the adrenaline of a good bout of fight training, sporting my standard issue designer suit, stomach stuffed with pork carnitas and dulce de leche.
    “As a matter of fact,” I said, ready to challenge him to the next brotherly duel, “it is rough. Sure I get to wrestle with my weakling, ugly, stinky brothers, but I haven’t been able to see Emma.”
    “You’ve seen plenty of her,” Nathanial said, jacking his brows to the sky, “you sick peeping Tom.”
    Something that sounded too animal to be coming from a man growled deep in my throat.
    “And who are you calling ugly?” Joseph said, wiping the dirt from his face with the back of his sleeve. He looked like he was just tumble washed with a detergent of mud and gravel.
    “You,” I said, giving him a half-hearted shove.
    “I’m next,” Nathanial said, leaping down from the tower of timbers.
    Just then, a needle of panic pricked at me. It spread quickly, tearing through every vein, muscle, and nerve of my body until I was nothing but a ball of fear-induced panic. It had nothing to do with the taller, heavier, and older brother marching at me with fists at the ready either.
    One word‌—‌one name‌—‌ran on a loop through my mind. One name that the panic clung too.
    Emma.
    Without one word of explanation, I was in her dorm room. It was empty.
    The panic beat inside me like a set of drums, bringing to life a dose of adrenaline that demanded to be put to use before I exploded into a ball of energy.
    Before I made a conscious decision, I was inside Stanford’s library. It was Thursday night and that meant she was just finishing up with a study group. I ran down the aisles of books, glancing down each one in passing, hoping with everything I had I’d find her perusing the rows of books. I wove through bodies, earning a curious stare from everyone that I passed, the rapping of my shoes echoing through the silence.
    I didn’t care.
    I didn’t care that someone might recognize me‌—‌of course everyone and their stiff-lipped parents knew of the former Stanford student who’d gone to jail for nearly murdering the golden boy. How a guy like Ty Steele could earn the reputation as a golden boy was more proof in the overflowing file that mankind was screwed.
    I certainly didn’t care that the beyond senior citizen librarian was squishing her face up at me as I screeched to a stop outside the room Emma’s study group met. I didn’t care about anything but finding Emma.
    A few lingering bodies were shuffling books and laptops into book bags, but she wasn’t amongst them.
    “Damn it,” I cursed, slapping the wall beside me, which earned me a sharp shushing noise from Mrs. My-Bones-Should-Be-Dust.
    Spinning on my heel, I shoved through the library doors. It was dark and late, but several bodies were still gliding through the