Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ingram
I didn’t have a car, but I could easily steal one. There were plenty of trucks and SUVs in the parking lot, and we’d already grabbed one here and there when we’d needed to.
Hell, even a sedan would work if I broke the asshole in half and shoved him in.
“You won’t kill me.” Kaidan didn’t bother to turn toward me, his words proving that he’d noticed me despite the fact I’d slid through shadows and tried to stay out of sight.
Few people could sense me, so it irked that out of anyone, this fucker could manage it. Still, I gave up the pretenses and stepped from the shadows. “I could, though. Your neck snaps as easily as anyone else’s.”
A threat like that usually caused some panic, but Kaidan didn’t seem bothered at all. “Yun would have your ass if you hurt me.”
“Who says she’d find out?”
“She’d know I was missing. That wouldn’t settle well with her.” He didn’t cross his arms, didn’t appear on edge at all. Instead, he stretched his legs out on the bench, soaking up the sun like he were at the beach instead of a Guide-run base preparing for a massive, dangerous battle.
It again reminded me that this man was not one to fuck with, at least not for normal people.
Of course, I’d never been normal.
“So?”
“So you won’t want her sad, so you’re not about to off her good friend and mentor.”
“Most people wouldn’t be so sure.”
“I’m not most people. You’re here to threaten me so just get to it already, won’t you? You’re ruining my sunbathing.”
The way he brought up the whole threatening thing made me not want to do it anymore.
I’d always been contrary, even back as a kid when people would tell me to do damn near anything, and even if I’d planned to before that moment, I’d then refused.
I’d screwed myself over time and time again like that, but it had never really mattered.
The idea of anyone else controlling my actions had never sat right with me.
“I just don’t love the influence you seem to have over Yun.”
“Good thing what you love doesn’t make it on my list of things to worry about.” He tipped his head back, a smile there that suggested he enjoyed the heat and the light.
“Seems like every fucking time she hangs out with you, she comes back confused or angry or fucking hurt. What the hell are you spouting off that does that?”
He shrugged, the action highlighting that he was far from the normal thin guide I’d grown used to. There were male guides, though there were fewer of them. They often seemed smaller, sweeter, playing the game of damsel just like the female guides. They all acted like sirens rather than brutes.
Not Kaidan, though, and that threw me off all the more.
He was large—not as big as Kenyon, but with a build similar to Carter.
He didn’t move around like some waif, not sweetly flirtatious, nothing like that.
Instead, he seemed entirely comfortable with just about anything.
He didn’t step lightly around espers and didn’t try to tempt them, either.
It was strange, since a guide’s position came largely from the espers around them, which meant they were consistently trying to climb the status structure.
Yun didn’t do it, but it was because of her trauma, because of fear.
Kaidan showed very much that he wasn’t afraid of anything, and he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him.
“I tell her the truth.”
“And what truth is that?”
“What happened at The Pitt, for example, Reject Squad.” He drew out the name, making his fucking point perfectly clear.
So much for thinking that Yun hadn’t gotten a full story time of at least one version of what had dragged us out of the spotlight.
I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t a shock.
She hadn’t brought it up or anything, but I hadn’t really thought it would never reach her.
Eventually, someone would talk about it, would out us for what had happened.
“So you thought you needed to go fucking gossiping?”
“She’s my friend. She deserves to know what she’s getting into before she ends up in too deep. She needs to understand what you’re really like, and no one else is looking out for her.”
“We’re looking out for her, now.”
“Are you, though? You’re looking out for yourself, for what you want. She’s a talented, high-ranking guide, after all, and you’re a squad who isn’t often given the best. If you could get her on your side, if you could trick her into falling for you and lock her down, it would benefit you.”
“It’d benefit her, too. She’d have a safe place, protection.” I wasn’t stupid enough to say some bullshit like love. “She wouldn’t get tossed around anymore.”
Kaidan sat up, finally turning to stare at me as though he’d decided I had become worth his time—or perhaps he’d realized I wouldn’t leave right away so he might as well deal with me.
“If she bonds with you, she’s trapped. Your past becomes her past. You think that hasn’t already started?
Do you have any idea how many espers and guides whisper about her?
About Reject Squad’s broken whore?” He spat the name out, and only the distaste his tone held kept me from popping him in the mouth for daring to utter something like that about Yun.
“She’s got enough hate, enough problems in her life without having to shoulder yours, too. ”
“If anyone says shit about her, we’ll deal with it,” I said, hating that I knew that wouldn’t do much. It would ensure they didn’t say shit within earshot of us, but it wouldn’t actually fix her reputation, wouldn’t resolve the problem.
“And why would I ever think that you could do that? You forget, I was there at The Pitt. I saw you all go in, and I saw you come back out sans one. I heard the radio calls where you all went rogue, where you decided that saving civilians wasn’t important enough.
Fuck civilians though, right? Plenty of espers will choose their own skin over that.
The fact that you left one of your own squad behind, though?
” He shook his head. “You’re here because you don’t want me interfering, right?
You want me to shut up and let Yun dig herself deeper, let her fall into your trap.
The problem is that I’ve seen what you do to those you’re supposed to protect, and I’ve got to say, I’m not that impressed.
Yun is my dearest friend, and I won’t see her get slaughtered just because you value your own skin more than anything else. ”
“That wouldn’t happen.”
“Wouldn’t it? You think I don’t have enough ears out there to know about the hotel? She faced a corrupted to save your ass, and where were you?”
Nearly dead. The answer meant I hadn’t actually hung her out to dry, but the point remained the same. I hadn’t been able to protect her, and instead, Yun had stepped up and risked herself to save us. She’d put herself in danger, faced one of her biggest fears, and for what?
It hit me for the first time just how deeply invested Yun truly was. I’d known it, of course, but the truth made me uneasy.
“Exactly. Yun’s a good person, way too damn good for any of you. She’ll keep putting herself in danger to protect those she cares about, and for some god-awful reason, that now includes you all. You can see why I’m not thrilled about it.”
I drew my hands into fists, hating how little I could say back to any of this. I’d thought I’d walk up, threaten him a little, make him see reason, and leave. Instead? I might just have moved to Team Kaidan all of a sudden.
He kept going, as though he knew I had nothing to say back.
“But Yun does what she wants—always has. I know there isn’t a damn thing I could do or say to change her mind—trust me, if there was, the girl would be states away from you all right now.
So I’m not going to interfere, I’m not going to try to keep her away from you—there’s no point.
However, I’m also not going to help you.
I’m going to stay right here, watching, waiting to pick up the pieces when you all break her heart. ”
“That won’t happen,” I said.
“Sure. Just know that I might be a guide, but if you hurt her, if anything happens to her, I don’t care how powerful you are. I’ll make you pay.” He stared at me with eyes so steady that I believed him.
After a moment, he rested back again, not saying another word, dismissing me with that motion. He was making a point that he didn’t give a damn what I had to say, that he found me irrelevant to him.
It had me walking away on my own, doubts swirling through my head.
What if everything he said was right?