Chapter Eleven #2
Yun said nothing back, just stared at me with her cute little mouth agape. It brought back a few of those little fantasies I’d just indulged in. Fuck knew an open mouth featured in plenty of them, though hers was so small I wondered what good it could be.
“Stop it,” she snapped. She went on when I looked into her eyes. “I’m not stupid, you know? Especially when guiding like this—I can tell what you’re thinking.”
“You’re not guiding yet.”
“Yeah, I am.”
I frowned and looked down to spot the maroon mist swirling from my palms up to hers, the sensation so comfortable that I had nearly missed it.
Guiding had always been a necessity to me—unpleasant at the best of times and painful at worst. I’d resisted it, hating the feeling, putting it off because of that clawing discomfort.
This was different, though. It was so easy that I hadn’t even felt it. Now that I focused, though, now that I paid attention, I could study it.
The corruption slipped out of me so easily that it made me shiver. Normally, that twisted energy clawed on the way out, left gouges inside me, fighting to stay put. This was entirely different, however. It flowed out of me without struggle.
It stunned me into silence as my mind tried to make sense of it, of how this was possible. I’d been guided for years, rare though it might have been, and never once had it ever felt like this.
“What are you?” I asked when I couldn’t come up with anything.
“A guide.”
I shook my head. “I’m serious. What are you? How are you different?”
“Different?” The flow of corruption slowed, her gaze darting side to side, avoiding mine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her expression said she knew exactly what I was talking about. No one got this uncomfortable if they were truly clueless over an accusation—they got evasive when they didn’t want to get caught, when they felt cornered.
Which meant she had something to hide, something to protect.
What was it?
I got off the chair, leaning forward without making contact. The action drew her backward, until she stretched out on the bed, trying to avoid me, leaving her beneath me. It again reminded me of the fantasies I’d had while getting off earlier.
Still, I made no contact. I didn’t touch her, bracing my weight instead against the bed, staring down into her face.
She was pretty, but that didn’t mean much.
Other than her skills as an S-Rank guide, she didn’t appear to have anything special about her.
Her history showed a pretty normal lower-class upbringing until the age of fifteen, when she got caught up in The Pitt appearance.
She’d ended up among the casualties left behind in San Diego, the ones who’d had to scramble and fight to make it in the fucked-up wreckage—in her case, without parents.
She was located six months later, at sixteen, after an apparent attack in the ruins that used to be San Diego. The hospital identified her as a guide and handed her over to the Guild.
After that, she underwent training and moved from squad to squad, earning herself her nickname until she landed with us.
None of that told me anything useful, though. Judging from her reaction to us—and to others before—something dark rested at the center of all that fear and trauma.
What was it?
Was it connected to why her guiding felt so different?
So fucking good…
She didn’t look like some little broken puppy beneath me, though. She didn’t shiver and shake and cry. If she’d done that, maybe it would have snapped me free of this need to find answers.
Instead, she bared her teeth like a wild animal. “Get off me.”
“Then explain what’s different about you. Come on, Blizzard, you’re here with us because we’re your last shot, so why don’t you be honest and just let me in on it?”
“The only thing I’ll let you in on is how I got my name. If you don’t get off me in the next five seconds, you’ll get to experience it firsthand, and trust me, you don’t want that.” The threat rolled off her tongue, a warning there that said she wasn’t kidding.
I could see a bluff a mile out, but this girl wasn’t bluffing.
Did I want to let her try that? Part of me wondered if it wouldn’t be fun. Fuck, if she could scramble my brains like that, maybe I’d just thank her for it.
At least until I spotted a crease there in her cheek. It was subtle, so shallow, I didn’t know if I’d notice it any other time, but right now? From this distance?
Fear. Not of me, not exactly. Was it fear of having to follow through?
Fuck, the girl was a bleeding heart, wasn’t she? Even when she’d strike to protect herself, she’d suffer for it later.
That got me moving, pushing off the bed and off her.
I glanced behind me at the mirror hung on the back of the closed bedroom door.
It hadn’t been that long, really, but the black veins had lessened.
They hadn’t disappeared entirely, though that was hardly surprising.
Even Yun wasn’t a miracle worker. There was a limit to what could be done in a matter of a few minutes, especially without any physical contact for the guiding.
Still, the fact that even that small amount of time had given me this much relief was a fucking mystery to me.
I turned toward her, eyeing her, desperate for some understanding of how this could be, of what was different, of how this could be the way it was.
She wasn’t lying flat anymore, having gotten up and scooted away on the bed until she could stand on the other side. Her eyes were wide now, frantic, darting about as though she needed an escape.
That shook me free of the insanity that had held me. It brought me back to this moment, to the fact that she stood there, frightened, after I’d assured her that she would be safe here.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, relishing the lightness of her guiding.
Right. Be grateful.
There was time to discover her secret, to work out what she hid, to explain why I reacted the way I did, to find out what had happened to her before.
At least, there would be time to learn if she didn’t take off now, if I didn’t lose her to this insanity in my head, to the desires raging inside me that I struggled to contain for the first time.
So I pulled tight the control I’d fought for, then smiled at her. “Sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve had guiding—too long, clearly. You’ve got to be tired. You should go to sleep.”
She didn’t move, her body pinned there in the corner, as far away from me as she could get, as though she didn’t trust my words.
Smart girl. She shouldn’t trust me. She shouldn’t trust anyone.
Instead of trying to convince her of anything, I went another route. “I’m going to go brush my teeth, then get some sleep. Goodnight, Yun.” Her name hung on my lips, sweeter than it had any right to be.
I used names like a weapon, willing to wield them in whatever way I needed to get what I wanted. That was how it had always worked. Why then was it that hers threatened to manipulate me, to bring me to my knees instead?
When I turned my back, the door opened then slammed shut. The quick steps of someone running told me she’d fled.
Once in the bathroom, I groaned and rubbed my face, trying to get a grip and failing miserably.
I glanced down at my front, then sighed.
Well, looks like I can try that cold shower now…