Chapter Two
Carter
Getting dragged into a meeting the moment we got back to base wasn’t a good sign. Sure, they’d contacted us after dealing with the corrupted and the whole mess left behind, but this was the real higher-ups, the assholes actually in charge.
These sorts of people didn’t go to the problems, they had the problems brought to them.
A cup of coffee sat on the conference table in front of the spot obviously meant for me, with some fucker in a suit sitting beside the empty place.
They hadn’t dragged me into a huge room, making this whole plan was nothing more than an attempt to make me feel comfortable, like we were best buddies.
Too late to play that game.
I knew better than most exactly what the Guild was, what they did, and just how quickly they’d throw me the fuck out if they wanted. If I didn’t do their bidding, if I stepped out of line, they’d toss me to the wolves without a second thought.
Still, no reason to tip my hand and let them in on exactly how much I knew.
“Carter,” the man said, smiling as though happy to meet me. “Sorry to call this meeting so soon after your return.”
And there was another sign that this man wanted something.
Normally, leaving a base like this without permission—and stealing a car—would warrant some yelling, if not an attempt at punishment.
Not that the Guild could do that much to a squad like ours.
What were they going to threaten us with?
Four S-Rank espers could make a decent living all on our own with private contracts, and we could be a far larger thorn in their sides than we’d been so far.
So the fact that they were glossing over that whole ordeal and treating it like a sanctioned trip meant they wanted something.
“Not a problem.” I used my best smile in return, playing my part, like the stupid patsy they could manipulate.
A few in the Guild knew the truth about me, what I was really like, but I doubted this asshole was one. If he were, he wouldn’t be trying to play me right now.
“My name is Admiral Postin,” the man said, telling me something important.
He wasn’t Guild. He wasn’t an esper. No, he was military, setting him outside of the Guild and, as an admiral, likely above it.
I rarely took things as good or bad. They were always far more complicated than that, so I judged them all as opportunities. What could I do with this? How did it change the game? How could I use it for my own benefit? That was all that mattered.
In this case, it meant the military was getting involved in Guild business. A new player meant new options, new paths forward, though it was far too early to determine where that might lead.
I didn’t speak up, giving him the chance to speak first. He took the bait. “I read over what happened at the hotel. That had to have been scary.”
Scary? For people like us, it was just another day. Sure, I didn’t usually almost get killed, but still, danger was hardly new. Whether it was corrupted or monsters or other espers, death was never that far away.
“All part of the job,” I said instead of giving in at all. “Did they figure out who he was?” While they’d cleaned up the mess on the spot, no one had given us any real information.
The memory of the corrupted had stuck with me, like a glimpse into the future that I was headed toward—probably faster than any of the others in our squad.
“He was an S-Rank esper who had hidden his status. He worked some manual labor jobs but stayed out of the sights of anyone who could have noticed him. Not many espers, especially of that rank, can stay underground so long, but he’s a good example of why we try not to let it happen. Isolation isn’t good for espers.”
He thought isolation was the problem? The idea had me struggling not to laugh in his face.
Sure, that guy was angry because he couldn’t live a normal life, and yeah, he was probably isolated, but the reason was that if he’d outed himself, he’d have ended up in the Guild’s crosshairs.
Espers had two options when they presented—hand their lives over to the Guild or hide what they were.
The Guild blaming the esper was like a hunter saying that a deer’s biggest problem was the stress from hiding while entirely ignoring that the hunter forced them to hide. They focused on the reaction and not the thing caused the problem in the first place—or their responsibility for it.
Of course, when a deer went, they only took themselves.
When an esper went, they could take a hell of a lot of others with them.
“Don’t worry. We’re looking into who could have helped him hide. We take this sort of thing very seriously.” Postin offered a reassuring smile, as though I were worried about that in the future.
I didn’t give a fuck if an esper stayed off the Guild’s radar. Let them carve out whatever little piece of hell they wanted—the same end was coming for us all no matter what.
“Now, about your guide.”
And that had me sitting up a little taller in my seat, unable to hide the reaction.
Sure, I’d known this would be about Yun.
The Guild—and the military—already knew all about Reject Squad.
They’d have no good reason to call me into this little meeting just to talk about history that didn’t matter. Yun, though?
She was new, and there were more than enough eyes on her.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I understand that she’s new to your squad, right?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s my understanding that it takes a while for guides and espers to get comfortable with each other and bond.”
“It can, or if the compatibility is right, it can happen pretty fast.”
Postin sat back in his seat, speaking without looking at any notes, any files.
It went to show that he was rather comfortable with the topic.
He was playing the game, trying to say he already knew all about this without stepping on any toes.
He walked the line between arrogance and knowledge.
“And how was it that you connected with Ms. Moore in the first place?”
No doubt that was in the file… “The Guild assigned her. We needed a guide, she needed a squad, I guess they figured that made sense.”
“So you’re not particularly attached to her?” A lift in his voice suggested that was exactly what he’d hoped for.
I’d already had this conversation with the Guild, of course, when they’d sent out reps to speak to us just after the whole fucking mess at the hotel.
I’d made it perfectly clear that they weren’t taking her, at least not right then.
I wasn’t sure what they saw when they’d looked at me, but they hadn’t pushed it at all.
That whole S-Rank thing probably had them thinking twice.
“I don’t know if I’d say that.”
“You’ve cycled through a number of guides over the years. They rarely make it more than a few months.” Ouch, that was a hard jab. “My understanding is that you’ve had trouble finding someone long term.”
I pinned him with a smile to hide my actual feelings about that.
I was used to mockery, and it rarely bothered me anymore, but somehow this man who thought himself so important, looking down on me, riled my darker urges.
I wanted to prove to him that all the power he thought he held meant nothing when faced with an esper.
But I knew better than to let that desire free. “What can I say? It’s hard to find someone who fits well. We’re a rather eclectic group of misfits, after all.”
“Ms. Moore also has a history of trouble when it comes to squads. She has been displaced a number of times already, typically at the behest of the squad. It’s difficult to think that this partnership would continue beyond a few months.
It might not be either of your faults, but that doesn’t change where it seems like this will end up. ”
“Listen, I’m not exactly known for being brilliant here, so do you want to just get to your point?” I stared down at my nails as though pondering a manicure as I asked, allowing the tiniest bit of my annoyance to slip past my perfectly curated mask.
“Constantly changing guides isn’t good for espers. They respond best when paired with someone long term, right? Well, we have some options for you. We have a number of S-Rank guides who will be happy to be permanently added to your squad.”
That offer had my eyebrow lifting. We’d gotten S-Rank guides because they worked best for us, but they’d always been tossed our way as punishment or just as a temporary assignment until they could get away. Here Postin was offering up some poor S-Rank as sacrifice?
And how the hell did that work? Did they blackmail them? Offer to pay them enough that they didn’t give a fuck who they worked with? It seemed impossible to have that much sway over a guide, but the way he spoke suggested he knew exactly what he was saying and had full confidence in it.
“How would we know that would work out? I mean, it’s easy to say that it would be for good, but what if in a couple months we end up in the exact same position?
I mean, so far Ms. Moore seems pretty damn compatible.
Seems like it’d be a pretty stupid thing to give her up without any sort of assurances that this other theoretical guide would work out. ”
Postin rested his elbow on the table, the action pulling at his suit, showing how well fitted the thing was.
“I can assure you that these guides are nothing like you’re used to.
They have been educated on their place within the system, and they will adjust to any esper or group they are assigned to. ”
The words made discomfort bubble inside my stomach.
There had been discussions for years about how to better make use of guides, how to train them, how to teach them.
A push toward finding them as young as possible had helped the Guild take in teens, even children, to try to brainwash them earlier and earlier, to make them more pliable.
The way Postin spoke said the military had done that exact thing, had succeeded where the Guild still struggled.
And I found the entire idea repugnant. I knew better than most just how important guides were, and the idea of harming them for any reason made me ill.
“That seems like a pipedream,” I pushed. “And I don’t see any reason I’d let go of a perfectly good guide for some promise I’ve never actually seen before. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have places to go.” I didn’t wait for his permission before getting to my feet, the coffee untouched.
“You know you won’t be able to keep her forever, right?” Postin had dropped his game, his nice guy act. He wanted to show his teeth, to make me understand that I didn’t have the upper hand here—he did. “Between us and the Guild, there’s no way that the four of you can keep her.”
“Last I checked, there’s no legal way to break a contract between guides and espers unless someone in the contract does it. In short? You’re shit out of luck. Until she or us decide we’re over it, there isn’t a damn thing any of you can do.”
“Nothing legal, sure, but I think we both know that legal is hardly the only option. Think long and hard about this, because there are some fights that just aren’t worth having. As a combat specialist, you should understand that concept.”
I turned and set my hand on the back of his chair and leaned in, far closer than I needed to, so he could see right into my eyes. I loosened my grip on the power that rushed through me, that filled me, and the sparks of pain as the corrupted energy turned my eyes that sickly purple.
He tried to lean back, but there was nowhere to go. If I wanted to tear his head from his body and use it to bowl down the hallway, there wasn’t a damn thing he—or anyone else around—could do to stop me.
“I’m gonna go ahead and say, if you want to make that fucking mistake, just try me.”