26. Aemon
26
E verything hurts—my head, face, stomach, even my big toe. I feel like a thoroughly tenderized piece of beef, but I’m alive.
I think.
Katya .
I spring up, then curse myself for moving too quickly when my head starts pounding and my stomach roils. I hold still and breathe until the nausea passes. Once I’m fairly certain I won’t throw up, I open one eye, and when that doesn’t result in knife-like pain shooting through my skull, I open the other. Katya’s laid out on the floor in front of me. I might have thought she was asleep if it weren’t for the blood dampening the hair above her temple. Glancing around, I realize we’re in some sort of cell. The walls and floor are stone, but smooth as though the space had been cut out of the rock. On one end, iron bars look out into another cell—that one empty—carved out of the same stone. We’ve obviously been taken prisoner, but my head is too fuzzy to recall exactly who it was that attacked us.
Fighting the dizziness that accompanies every damn move I make, I crawl to her, careful to avoid the bits of gravel littering the stone floor. My knees are one of the few parts of my body that don’t hurt right now, and I’d like to keep it that way. Katya’s forearm and wrist are swollen and the spot on her head is definitely blood, but she appears unscathed otherwise.
“Katya,” I whisper, shaking her gently.
Her eyes flutter open. “Aemon?”
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Hey there, witchling. You’re looking rough.”
She starts to sit up, then yelps when she tries to use her injured hand.
“Shh.” I slip my arm under her shoulders and help her the rest of the way. “I’ve got you.” She scoots back to lean against the wall, cradling her arm to her chest.
She has that sleepy, glassy-eyed look of someone just waking up, but I suspect her dazed expression has more to do with that hit she took.
“You alright?” I ask.
She swallows hard. “I think so. Where are we?” she asks, her head rolling against the stone as she takes in our surroundings.
“I was hoping you could help me with that. Do you remember what the people who attacked us looked like?”
“They were—” She reaches up to touch her temple and winces. Her fingers come away coated in blood, and she winces again, then rubs them clean on her skirt. “They wore black—all over—I couldn’t see their faces. ”
Fuck. That does not sound good. “Did you see their eyes? What color were they?”
She straightens and blinks a few times, like she’s trying to clear her head. “They were… pink?” She says it as though it’s a question, which is understandable because pink eyes are definitely not the norm. At least not where we come from.
“Fuck.” I drop my head back against the wall. “Are you sure?”
Meeting my gaze, she says, “I think so. They were terrifying. Do you know who they—” She doesn’t finish that thought. Instead, she draws back, eyes bugging out of her head like she’d seen a ghost. But it isn’t a ghost she’s looking at. It’s me. “Aemon, your ears?”
Oh no. I grab both ears, feeling for the point that should be there, but they’re both round. “Dammit.” I quickly stretch them into points and Katya gasps. I grab her by the shoulders and duck my head so I’m filling her field of vision. “Listen to me. You cannot tell anyone about this. This is very important. If they find out—”
She shrugs my hands off, and I let her, backing up a little to give her space. “Katya—”
“What are you?”
It’s a fair question, if not one I really want to have to answer at the moment. “I’ll explain it all to you later, I promise, but—”
“No,” she says, cutting me off. “You’ll explain it to me now. I think I deserve that, at least.”
I glance over my shoulder at the bars. There’s no one in the cell across from us, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people in that hallway or in other cells. Index finger pressed to my lips, I wave for her to lean closer, then cup her ear and whisper, “I am a human shifter. I disguise myself as fae when I’m at court.”
“Why? ”
I sigh. “There’s too much to explain, and this is not a good place to do it. Just promise me you won’t tell them.”
“Who?”
“The blood fae.”
If I thought her eyes were big before, that’s nothing compared to the way they are now. “We’ve been imprisoned by the blood fae?”
“Yeah.” I rub the soreness from my eyes and watch as phantom spots of light burst beneath my lids before dropping my hand back into my lap. “Hopefully, they weren’t paying too close of attention when they captured us.”
“But I thought—” She stretches her neck to peek over my shoulder, then scoots close enough for our knees to touch and lowers her voice. “I thought shifters turned into animals.”
“Most do.” I take her hand in mine, relief washing over me when she doesn’t pull them away. “My ability is unusual. I can change my appearance to pretty much any human or fae form. That’s why the late king brought me to court when I was a boy.”
She slips her hand free and my stomach drops. “So, you are a spy.”
“Sometimes.” Among other things. “I can usually hold my form even in sleep, but being knocked out...” I trail off, kneading the back of my neck to stem off the ever-increasing ache in my skull. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
“Why?”
Startled, I drop my hand and meet her eyes. She’s got her nose up and chin jutted out the way she does when she’s being stupidly defiant. “What?” I ask, hoping I heard her wrong.
“Why should I help you? You were bringing me back to the palace to be killed. ”
I take a deep breath and unclench my jaw. This is not helping my head. “I told you I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“Why should I trust you? You have to know my stepfather didn’t kill the queen. He is a spineless, overindulged male who I doubt has ever used a knife to cook for himself, let alone stab someone, yet you accused him of murder.”
“You really want to get into this now?” I rub circles on my temples. Fuck my head. “We found the murder weapon in his room, Katya.”
“Oh, and evidence can’t be planted,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Your men beat him half to death without so much as questioning him. They arrest me for no good reason, then try to torture me for information I undoubtedly do not have. And now we’ve been captured by the blood fae.”
“Hey, that’s not my fault.”
“It’s entirely your fault,” she says, too loudly. “I’d be home by now if it weren’t for you.”
“You’d be dead if it weren’t for me.”
She scoffs. “Riiight. My hero.” She holds out her hands and claps them in my face. “Bravo. And who exactly is going to save you now? Hmmm? ’Cause I’ve got to say, from my vantage point, this isn’t looking too good.”
My blood is boiling, the pain in my head sharpening with every second that passes. Damn woman. Can’t she see that everything I’ve done has been for her? I went against my king’s orders, for gods’ sakes. I’ll be lucky if Troi doesn’t hang me when I return, and this is the thanks I get. “You know what, you’re right. I should have kept my ass at the palace and let Troi send Fredrick and his minions after you, like he wanted. Then, when they captured you, because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out you were going home—they would take turns raping and torturing you. Then they’d rape you some more because it’s not like you need fingers or toes or even a tongue to fuck.” She blinks at me and swallows. I’m scaring the shit out of her, and I know it, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “I’m sure Fredrick would take great pleasure in making you scream after the way you humiliated him. Maybe, if you’re lucky, he’ll kill you by accident because, gods know, he won’t stop.”
She crosses her arms. “How altruistic of you.”
I whirl on her, then clutch my skull as the blood in my head whooshes about like a bloated tick. “You still don’t get it, do you? Sometimes there are no good choices, Katya. Sometimes all you can do is pick the lesser of two evils. So, yes. I was taking you back. At least then I could beg Troi to release you to my care because if they caught you, you wouldn’t be coming back at all. So, get off my ass.”
I turn back around—slowly this time—and lean against the wall. It’s nice and cool against my hot skin. I shut my eyes and tip my head back. Katya’s blessedly silent for about three seconds, then…
“What do you mean, he’d release me to your care?”
Of course, that would be the part she’d latch onto. “I told him I’d be personally responsible for you.”
“That isn’t what you said. You said—”
“I know what I said.”
“Then answer the question.”
I sigh. We’re in a bloody prison, beat half to shit, and she wants to start picking apart my words. “I told him that we might be able to use whatever mental powers you have to our advantage. That I’d keep an eye on you.”
“And if I didn’t perform to his expectations, what then?”
I glance at her, then back at my hands, where I pretend to scrape a spot of dirt off my filthy trousers with my fingernail. “I don’t know.” That’s not the truth. I know exactly what I was going to do. I was going to offer to marry her. At the time, it made so much sense. She was an object then, something beautiful and alluring that I wanted to possess, but now… What kind of asshole proposes under threat of death?
She shakes her head and rubs her temples. “Well, at least you’ve thought it through.”
“Look, I know you’re upset—”
Her head snaps up, eyes narrowed on me. “Upset doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling.”
“—but if you want to get out of this place, you’re going to need my help, and you know it.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “I got out of the palace. What makes you think I can’t do the same thing here?”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. Pain shoots through my temple, but it’s worth it to see the irritated expression on her face. “Maybe if you knew how you did it the first time, witchling, but we both know you don’t.”
Brows pinched, she asks, “And how do you know I don’t?”
“Because you would have used it already to get away from me or them.” I gesture to the hallway outside our cell. “Unless you just really enjoy my company, which I do admit, I am quite lovable, but I seriously doubt you were lulled into this prison by the blood fae’s many charms. More likely they caught you and knocked you out, which means whatever you did that day in the interrogation room to escape is as much a mystery to you as it is me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Katya’s lips tighten into a thin white line, but she doesn’t refute it because she can’t. “So, what’s your plan then, lieutenant?”
“I’m working on it.”
“How about this plan: I turn you in to the blood fae and they are so grateful they set me free?” She cocks her head and gives me a fuck you smile.
“Fine. Go ahead. You do whatever you want. But if you think the blood fae are just going to let you go, then you’re not nearly as intelligent as I gave you credit for.”
She huffs and turns her back to me. Real mature.
“What? You’ve got nothing else to say? There have got to be at least a few more things you can blame me for. Let’s see…” I tap my lip. “Was breakfast not to your liking?”
The sound of a door screeching open then shut reverberates off the stone walls. Katya spins back around, her eyes meeting mine before turning to see what was about to come down that hallway. A metal latch clicks into place, and several sets of footsteps tap against the stone floor, the sound growing louder as they approach our cell. Two males are speaking to each other, but it’s in a language I’ve never heard before. I glance over at Katya, who has her head quirked as if she’s trying to make out what they’re saying. Don’t tell me she speaks blood fae too. “Don’t let them know you can understand,” I whisper.
Her eyes lock on mine. She nods.
Just then, three blood fae males step in front of the cell and turn to study us through the bars. Katya lets out a soft gasp behind me, and I can understand why. With their pale skin, white hair and pink to icy blue eyes, they’re like something out of one of those scary stories adults tell kids before bed to scare the shit out of them.
“We were wondering when you’d finally wake up,” the male at the head of the group says in Ferinees. He’s obviously the leader, his scarlet robes a stark contrast to the other males’ black uniforms. He wraps his hands around the bars, flaunting red-lacquered fingernails that are so long, they’re beginning to curl at the ends. How he can do anything with those talons on his fingers, I have no idea. How does he hold a fork? Oh gods, how does he wipe himself? Even worse is the cylinder of lacy metal he wears over his index finger. It looks something like a cross between a ring and a fountain pen and culminates into a sharp, knife-like point at the end. Let’s hope he doesn’t hold his dick with that thing because that’s a catastrophe just waiting to happen.
The leader leans heavily on a black cane. An injury? The males behind him appear to be guards or soldiers of some kind. They both wear the same black pants and wrapped jacket with their long, white hair pulled into a tight knot on the back of their heads. Their only ornamentation is a tiny bottle dangling from a string around their necks, a six-shooter on one hip and on the other, a curved blade that reminds me of the scythes I’ve seen farmers use to harvest crops.
“What’s your name?” I ask, my tone as authoritative as I can muster, given the pounding in my skull.
The leader smirks. “Slaves don’t ask questions. They do what they’re told.”
Slaves? Did he just call us slaves ?
A soldier with bright pink eyes moves to the cell door and draws his pistol. I’m about to leap on top of Katya when he shoves the gun through the food slot and clangs it against the metal like a bell—cause that’s what my head needed right now, a bell.
“Hands in the pass through,” the leader says, but neither Katya nor I move.
Eyes on me, the fae leader gestures toward the guard. “You’ve been given an order, slave. I suggest you follow it.”
“There’s been a mistake,” I say, one hand on the wall for support as I attempt to stand. The room spins, and I think I’m just going to tip over and crash right back onto the floor. Then a smooth, warm hand wraps around my arm, grounding me.
“I’ve got you,” Katya says, repeating my words from earlier.
“Thank you.”
“You can thank me by getting us out of here,” she whispers.
We walk together to the bars, and I shove my hands through the opening. “I’m Lieutenant Aemon Cregg, head of Prince Troi’s personal guard,” I say as they secure cuffs over my wrists. A soldier with wary blue eyes slides the key into the lock, and the cell door opens with the shrill grinding of rusted metal on metal.
“Aemon Cregg?” The red-robed one taps his foot, eyes rolled back like he’s trying to look into his own brain. “Never heard of you.” He steps aside, and the blue-eyed soldier leads me out of the cell.
Katya lets out a sharp yelp behind me. I plant my feet and twist around to look at her. The pink-eyed soldier is holding her injured arm between his hands. She clenches her jaw and squeezes her eyes shut in obvious pain .
“Hey.” I jerk against the male handling me, ready to rip his buddy’s head from his shoulders, except the room starts spinning again, and I’m forced to grip the soldier’s arm and take a moment to breathe or risk passing out.
A smile curls Katya’s lips, and she opens her eyes. “Thank you,” she says, wiggling her fingers. The fury coiling in my chest unfurls.
A soldier-healer, that’s new.
The pink-eyed male leads Katya out of the cell, then steps up to me. He pops the cork from the tiny bottle around his neck and takes a sip of what looks suspiciously like blood. Then he raises his hands. I try to jerk away, but the other guard has my arms pinned to my chest. I stomp, hoping to crush some toes, but it’s no use. I’m just too damn weak right now. The pink-eyed fae lays his palms on either side of my head. They’re so frigid, I don’t immediately notice the way my skin tingles until the sensation burrows deeper and begins to spread. Ice-cold relief floods my skull, washing away the pain and dizziness before traveling south through my neck and chest and extremities, erasing my nausea and every bump and bruise on my body.
The guard steps back, leaving me a little dazed but feeling better than I have in days. I give him a curt nod of thanks, then turn back to their leader. “I need to speak to King Khalmos.”
And he laughs. He fucking laughs, the bastard. “King Khalmos hasn’t got time for slaves.”
“Listen,” I begin, still fighting against the gods damned asshole behind me. “I have a unit of Bellatorae stationed in Cozak that is expecting me to arrive this evening.” This is a blatant lie, but it’s the best I can come up with quickly. “If I don’t show, they’re going to send people out looking for me, so unless you want to start a fucking war, I suggest you let me talk to your king.”
That sounded convincing, right?
The male narrows his eyes at me. “I will speak to his majesty. Now, come along.” He turns for the exit and waves for the rest of us to follow. I briefly contemplate telling him to go fuck himself when the blue-eyed soldier shoves me hard from behind. I jab him in the ribs with my elbow, and the soldier lets out an “Oomph.”
I’m not going to lie, that felt good.
Katya and the healer guard pull up next to me. He shouts something I don’t understand, then points. “All you had to do was ask,” I say, giving him a shit-eating smile and, ignoring the male doubled over behind me, I start walking.
We’re led through another door and down a hallway, the walls and floors all smooth gray stone, just like in the cell. We reach a second set of doors, each carved with the symbol of the blood court—a coiled serpent ensnared by a tangled black vine with bright-red flowers, its thorns tearing at the snake’s flesh. Katya is pushed through first, her gasp of shock registering just as I run into her back.
“What—” I don’t finish what I’m about to say. I’m too busy gaping at what can only be described as a massive cavern containing an underground city.
Buildings, that appear to have been carved from the charcoal-gray stone, rise three and four stories into the air where they meet a crystalline ceiling. The crystals emit a soft yellow light that illuminates the entire cavern and the multitude of blood fae moving about as if this were any other city and not something plucked straight from a dream. More crystals jut up through the floor in colorful bunches, some reaching far above my head and others so small they remind me of little flower gardens. Oh, but there are real flowers too, magnificent scarlet-red flowers as big as my hand, growing from inky-black vines covered in wicked-looking thorns. They climb the walls and dangle like curtains from the multitude of bridges, their clean, sweet scent hanging in the air like a freshly sprayed perfume. In the center of it all, a river gurgles by dotted with long, narrow boats ferrying people to who knows where.
One of the soldiers says something I can’t understand then shoves me, and by default, Katya, forward. We follow a winding path past shops and under the multitude of bridges that seem as though they grew straight out of the stalagmites and stalactites. The bridges crisscross the river at various heights, some twisting serpentine paths while others rise and fall at inclines so steep, I’m surprised the many fae crossing them don’t all slip into giant heaps at either end. It’s all so organic, yet not at the same time.
Much of what we see is similar to what you might have expected back home: merchants selling fabrics, ceramics and food, but there are little differences. Furnishings are more ornate, with intricate scenes or figures carved into marble or granite instead of wood. The fabrics are light and sort of iridescent, and instead of chicken or beef hanging in the butcher’s windows, there are giant lizards and snakes as thick as my bicep and little insects on skewers.
Gods, please tell me we aren’t going to have to eat those.
We’re taken down a short staircase to a dock where a boat waits without a pilot.
A scuffle breaks out behind us, and Katya and I both spin around to catch sight of a female blood fae racing through the street, something brown pressed to her chest. Two black-clad soldiers—sans the veils and head wraps—race after her. There’s no way she’s getting away. She’s stick thin, her cheeks sunken, eyes crazed, with white hair sticking up in uneven clumps like somebody took a hacksaw to it. One soldier raises his hand and a ball of light surges from his palm, hitting the female in the back and knocking her to the ground. The males are on her before she can even push to her knees. They lift her in the air, legs kicking. A sac of some sort of grain or rice is ripped out of her arms, and the contents scatter across the stone floor and into the water. The guards don’t even seem to care about the mess as they drag her away. They simply leave it where it fell.
And the watching mob descends on it like flies.
“Get in,” the red-robed fae says, limping up behind us. Gods. I was so engrossed with what I was seeing, I forgot he was there. I step down into the tiny boat. It wobbles beneath me, and I probably let out a dozen different curses before I find my balance. One of the soldiers, the one with pink eyes, actually helps Katya inside, which I should be relieved about, but it mostly just pisses me off. We take our seats while the others climb aboard. Glancing over the edge of the boat, I see little glowing balls of blue and purple light sweeping through the water. It only takes me a moment to realize they’re fish.
One of the guards grabs a long rod latched to the backside of the boat, and pushes off the river floor to gets us moving. We’re ferried past more ornate buildings and crystal gardens, beneath canopies of scarlet flowers and through a series of caves where the passageways narrow so much, I could almost touch the walls on either side. It’s dank and claustrophobic, but luckily only lasts a few minutes before we’re spit back out into a larger cave system. It’s hard to tell what’s natural and what’s been hollowed out for this waterway since everything is covered in moss and stalactites. The river splits, and we turn down an offshoot that leads into another open cavern. There aren’t as many crystals here to light the area. Instead, a tall steel wall hung with torches and topped with a lattice covered in the same thorny vines and red flowers stretches from one end of the cavern to the other, cutting across the river. A guard flanks the river on each side, but it’s the male on the right who approaches our boat.
The guard says something in what I assume is ümbrian, and the red-robed fae reaches into one of his long sleeves, pulls out a folded sheet of paper and hands it over to him. I crane my neck, trying to get a look at the writing, but my angle is all wrong. Scanning the paper, the guard nods, steps back and pulls a lever jutting out of the wall. There are a number of loud clicks and a groan. Then, what I thought was a solid metal wall splits down the middle, and the panels slide into narrow slots carved into an outcropping of stone on either side. We pass through the entrance and into a tiny cove enclosed in stone, except for an opening I may have to walk through sideways in order to fit. The air here is different, caustic and thick with smoke. I can only imagine what it will be like when we reach the camp.
The soldiers secure us to a decrepit dock, and the red-robed fae jabs me, then Katya in the back with his cane. “Go on,” he says in a biting tone. I take Katya’s arm to help her onto the dock, but she wrenches it free from my grip. So she’s still mad at me. Fine. She gets up onto the dock by herself, and I wait a few seconds for her to step off before I follow. The rotted wood groans under my weight, and I scramble onto the dirt before the whole thing falls apart, and I’m stuck trying to swim with my hands shackled. The blue-eyed soldier doesn’t even bother with the dock. He simply leaps from the boat straight onto the ground.
“Gabin will lead you to the mines,” the red-robed fae continues. “You don’t work, you don’t get fed, so I suggest you get started immediately.” He says something to the soldier steering the boat and they start back for the gate, leaving us staring after them, our hands still chained in front of us.
The soldier, Gabin, points toward the opening in the rock and grunts something I’m not sure I’d understand even if I spoke the language, but his meaning is plain enough.
I hold out a hand to Gabin as if to say, “lead on,” but he shakes his head and points again. “I guess we’re going first.” Letting out a long sigh, I head for the opening, not waiting to see if anybody’s following me. If Katya doesn’t want my help, then she can do it alone. And good luck to her. I’m tired of trying to convince her I’m not a horrible person, or at least that I’m not going to be horrible to her. Have I done some truly awful things? Absolutely, but at least I have the good grace to hate myself for them.
Stepping through the opening, I find myself in a small clearing where I get my first glimpse of the slave camp. I knew it was bad from the reports Troi received, but seeing it in person, it’s so much worse than I imagined. Long swaths of shitty fabric stretch across the rocky stone floor, with metal rings—I’m guessing are for chaining slaves—set about a meter apart at the end of the makeshift beds. In the middle of the clearing sits a long marble slab that looks suspiciously like a sacrificial altar. Then, beyond that, fire rings filled with charred sticks—not logs, sticks—lie cold and dormant and empty, beneath a chimney-like funnel in the ceiling .
Katya stands beside me, taking in the general destitution. “Where is everyone?”
“At the mines—ouch,” I say as the soldier-asshole jabs me in the ribs. He returns my glare and points toward a path that travels past the fire rings. I’d love to spew profanities at him right now, but I keep my temper in check. I have a feeling I’m going to need to do that a lot from now on. I’m a good fighter, but there’s only so much I can do with my hands chained. I start down the path, and Katya has to walk at double her normal speed to keep up with my long strides.
“What mines?”
“What mines do you think?” I throw back at her. I refuse to let her play dumb. She knows exactly what I’m talking about, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
“Sythra?”
“There you go.”
“You’re joking,” she says, even though I can tell from her dead serious expression she believes me.
“I joke about a lot of things, Katya. This is not one of them.”
“But…” She glances around. What she’s looking for, I have no idea. “I don’t understand; there must be hundreds of people living here. How could they kidnap so many fae and nobody notice?”
“Because it isn’t kidnapped fae working these mines, at least not the majority. It’s humans, and nobody gives half a damn what happens to humans.”
She draws back in shock. Then glances over her shoulder at the guard following us and lowers her voice. “But you’re human. How could you just sit back and let this happen? ”
I stop in my tracks. “You know what, Katya.” She’s ahead of me by a few steps, so she turns around to face me. “Fuck you.” Her mouth drops open in shock. “That’s right. Fuck you and your judgmental bullshit. You have no idea what it’s like to be saddled up with that sadistic bastard day in and day out, and the queen was no better. She just made other people do her dirty work for her—namely me,” I say, emphasizing the last word with a slap to my chest. “I have lived in that fucking palace for twenty years and every day I struggle to keep Troi in check. To do the little things I can to keep him from destroying everyone and everything around him.”
Gabin shoves me, and I stumble forward. I spin on the soldier. “Do that again, asshole, and I’ll beat you into a bloody pulp with my hands chained.” The bastard may not speak my language, but he understands just fine, so of course, he sneers and shoves me again. My fingers are itching with the need to punch something, and this asshole is starting to look real good, but Katya grabs me by the elbow and jerks me forward.
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
I tear my arm from her grip. “Don’t pretend like you care.” I turn around and stomp down the trail before soldier-guy Gabin can push me again. I’m all riled up and jittery. Back home, I’d have sparred, done pull-ups or gone for a run, but I can’t do shit right now, and it’s making me a little crazy. Katya’s feet crunch in the dirt as she jogs toward me. Part of me wants to tell her off again and not have to deal with her anymore, but the larger part of me, that moron who can’t keep away from her, just wants to pull her into a dark space and fuck the sass right out of her .
Great. Perfect. Now I’m getting hard. Good timing, there. I drop my head back and groan. Katya moves into place beside me, but I don’t acknowledge it. She keeps turning her head and looking at me, like she’s waiting for me to say something, but I’m done talking. If she wants to talk, then she’s going to have to do it for a change, and only if she apologizes, which is obviously never going to happen.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Wait, what? I peek at her out of the corner of my eye just to make sure she isn’t some apparition with Katya’s voice, but nope. It’s her.
“I know you try to help. Elsbeth said as much herself. I’m just upset by… well… pretty much everything and I was taking it out on you.”
I have literally no idea how to deal with this change of heart, so I just nod to acknowledge that I heard her and slow down a little so she doesn’t have to run to keep up.