Chapter Thirteen
Carter
“I might be a combat esper, but I really hate being covered in blood.” I flicked my hands out, a spray of purple monster blood and chunks of flesh leaving like a dog shaking water from its fur. Where they landed, I didn’t know and didn’t much care.
“You’re always complaining,” Kenyon said, but stayed far enough back to avoid the mess.
“You say that because you’re standing back there.” Pettiness filled me, and I reached out, patting him on the cheek, leaving a purple handprint on his skin.
He groaned and wiped it with his forearm, though it left a streak of mess in its wake. Monster blood tended to be thicker, coagulating far faster than human blood. “And they say I’m immature.”
“No, we say you’re dumb.” Ingram appeared out of nowhere, as he often did.
We’d cleared the small dungeon, the thing so lowly ranked that they hadn’t bothered to send anyone else.
It hadn’t been a challenge, but the monsters inside this one had popped like ticks, spraying shit everywhere when killed.
Which was probably the exact reason they’d sent us, like some punishment for not letting Yun go.
Too bad they didn’t realize just how far we’d go for that girl. What was a little blood and death to espers like us?
Instead of heading to the trailer—I didn’t want Yun seeing us like this—we climbed into the large passenger van driven by some underling headed for one of the communal shower trailers. They had better plumbing to deal with the mess that happened after a fight like this.
And if we made a mess of the van, well, that seemed like karma.
“Yun good?” I asked Shear.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “She’s in the trailer.”
“That’s it? No other details?”
“If she’s getting herself off, I want to know,” Ingram chimed in.
Shear cast him a bored look, then ignored his comment entirely. “I’m trying not to pry deeply into her mind. I can only say that she isn’t any more upset or on edge than usual.”
“Aren’t you being considerate,” I said, unsure why Shear would give a damn about that.
In my experience, he avoided minds only because he didn’t give a damn. If he had reason to dive into someone’s gray matter, he’d do it without hesitation or guilt.
“She doesn’t like it. If we want to keep her around, we have to consider that. Besides…”
“Besides what?” I pressed when he didn’t go on.
“Given her reaction to me, I suspect that the corrupted who forced her to guide him was a mentalist. It explains why she dislikes that connection with me, why she said she’d never let a mentalist into her mind again. I find the idea of her viewing me the same way…distasteful.”
I stared at him, his words so strange to me that I struggled to make sense of them.
I’d thought, for a while, that Obsidian had removed every emotion from Shear.
Or maybe it was better to say he’d been fucked up since birth, and Obsidian had been the final nail in that coffin.
To hear him say these things now suggested that wasn’t entirely true, that maybe there was still something that resembled a person inside there.
To think that one little guide would bring that out in him?
It nearly made me chuckle, if I didn’t worry what it could mean. I went back to the test, to what Shear had done, what shouldn’t have been possible even for him. That sort of power could prove devastating if not controlled, and he’d proven himself out of control at that point.
I kept my smile in place, my mind firmly locked to him. I didn’t need him to hear any of the thoughts I had, the concerns, the questions. It was better for him not to know I was watching him, just in case.
The van pulled to a stop outside one of the shower trailers. “It’s been cleared out for the next hour, so you’ll have the place to yourself,” the driver said.
Which was strange…
Why would they do that? Espers weren’t overly concerned about seeing others naked or covered in blood.
Maybe they were trying to butter us up, to show that they would take good care of us if only we did what they wanted?
And they think some private showers are gonna mean shit?
Still, no reason to throw out the effort they’d made. “Thanks,” I said as I slid out of the van, the others following me.
The shower was nearly worth giving in to their demands, damn it. The water was hot, and the trailer was nicer than the ones usually hauled up to a dungeon with just a row of shower heads.
Instead, it had individual stalls, and the water came out so hot that my skin turned red from it—just right for getting monster gore out of every last crevice. The best part, though?
There, at the end of the trailer, was a huge hot tub, raised up on the sides and easily able to fit eight or nine people. Steam escaped the top like fog.
“We’ve got time,” Kenyon said. “I mean, how often do we get to do this? Plus, hot water like this is good for muscle recovery.”
Even as he spoke, Ingram was already almost cannon balling into the thing, the flash of ink and piercings making it easy to tell who it was.
Shear sighed, but followed suit.
Within a few minutes, we were all seated in the water, and yeah, this was heaven.
“We’re getting one of these back home,” Ingram said, his arms stretched out over the back of the hot tub.
“We deserve it,” Kenyon said. “And we could probably write it off on our taxes as a work expense.”
“If we get audited, I’m blaming you,” I said.
The conversation drifted off, the atmosphere amazingly relaxing. “You know, this isn’t that bad,” Ingram said.
“What? The hot tub?”
He turned his head to give me a half-hearted glare.
“Well, obviously, but more than that. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I left a dungeon and still felt this good.
Seems like it’d be nice to go back to our place and have Yun there.
Maybe have her in the hot tub waiting for us?
” His smirk suggested his own mind went a lot farther down that path than he did out loud.
Which felt like a gift from our resident pervert.
The weird shit he came up with knew no bounds, and he had no idea how to stop. Sure, sometimes it was entertaining, but the last thing I needed was any further temptation when it came to Yun.
The door of the trailer opened, causing us all to turn our heads that direction. Maybe we were running out of time on our turn?
Except when the person walked in, I finally understood the game they were playing.
A woman stepped in, the gentle pull of guiding escaping her, telling me what she was—and a high rank, judging by the way the corruption slipped from me.
She wore a silk robe, and her hair was braided back to stay out of her face.
The shoulder of her robe slipped down, exposing nothing but skin, suggesting she was naked beneath.
It seemed the Guild was willing to play dirty…