Chapter Thirty-Nine
Yun
The marks on my neck ached, but not as badly as the span of color that rested on my back, across my shoulder blades.
It went to show that no matter how much I wanted to think Kenyon was just a healer—and an idiot—he was more than strong enough to cause me problems. That fact always humbled me, the moment when I realized that even normal men could be such a danger to me.
After dealing with espers with superhuman strength and fantastical abilities, I hated the reminder that just regular male strength could so easily overpower me.
That wasn’t what really got to me, though.
Why hadn’t I reacted?
That question plagued me, keeping me up even after I’d returned to my own bed. I’d put espers on their asses for far less, yet I hadn’t done that to him. Why not? What made him different?
Did I trust him?
That didn’t seem likely. I refused to even entertain that, because of any option, any possibility, that one seemed the most dangerous.
Me being so frightened as to not fight back, me being afraid of getting kicked out of another squad, those I could handle.
The idea that I trusted these men, however?
That would lead to a lot more pain than I could handle, which meant I outright rejected the entire theory.
However, even without an answer, I couldn’t avoid the situation, a point made clear as I walked with Ingram to one side, Shear to the other, Carter in front of us.
Kenyon trailed behind, his expression sullen since he’d spotted me walking out of the RV about ten minutes previously.
His gaze had landed on my throat, and he’d actually flinched, like a full-body rejection of the fact he’d done that.
“Where are we going?” I asked again, though didn’t expect much more of an answer. Carter had that expression he wore when he was up to no good, and I had a feeling me asking too much would only please him, as though it all fall into the game he played.
Sure enough, Carter turned and glanced over his shoulder, a suspicious hop in his step. “We’re going on an outing.”
“An outing? I thought we had to stay here for training.” Just the thought of another meeting with medical, another time where they asked me—again—how I’d guided as quickly as I had made me shudder.
“Do you really want to spend the day here?” he asked.
“Well, no, not especially.”
“Then stop complaining,” Ingram chimed in from beside me. “If you don’t want to be here anyway, why would you bitch about leaving?”
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“We’re always in trouble,” Ingram pointed out. “If they’re mad anyway, why the fuck does it matter? I mean, what are they going to do? Yell at us?” He snickered at the idea, as though he found it hilarious.
I didn’t find getting yelled at nearly as fun as he did, clearly, but he had a point.
And to be honest, I really didn’t want to be here. Going somewhere—anywhere—sounded amazing, so I stopped fighting it and followed them the rest of the short walk toward the outer edge of the compound.
It was huge, spread out over the vast desert, but lacked fences. No one in their right mind would dare attack a compound full of espers, after all, so security just wasn’t an issue. It meant there was no large fence, no guards, nothing of the sort. When we reached the parking lot, I frowned.
We’d been driven here from the airport in a transport van with other espers. We didn’t have a car.
I almost asked what we were going to do when Carter paused beside an SUV.
After a quick glance around, he struck the window with his palm, the glass shattering as though he’d hit it with a battering ram rather than his hand.
He reached in, unlocked the door, opened it, and brushed glass from the seat like it was nothing.
Ingram moved from my side and leaned into the car, crouching down beside it to look under the steering wheel.
“Wait, we can’t steal this,” I argued.
“Oh, sure we can,” Carter said. “Ingram’s done this lots of times.” He leaned against the side of the car, his arms crossed, a crooked smile like some sort of delinquent trying to impress a girl.
And me? Well, I just never could stay quiet while people were being stupid. I reached in and flipped the visor down, a set of keys falling out and striking Ingram in the back of the head.
He cursed, then sat up, rubbing the spot. “Well, fuck.”
“People are careful with keys when they’re worried about theft. In a place like this, where all the cars are owned by the Guild, expediency is more important than safety. No one wants to be searching around for whoever has the keys later.”
Ingram got up and snatched the keys from the floorboard where they’d fallen. “So you’re smarter than you look,” he said.
“That’s not a nice thing to say,” Kenyon snapped.
“You just think that because no one says it to you.” Ingram’s lips curled up on one side, the way the four interacted causing a sting in my chest.
The more I relaxed around them, the more comfortable I got, the more I recognized how close the four really were.
It made me wonder what it would feel like to have that, to feel so connected to others.
Even before everything had happened, back when I’d had a family, I doubted I’d ever felt like that.
I’d had parents, of course, as much as I tried to forget about them.
Remembering, going back to the years I’d been normal, those memories hurt.
It only reminded me of everything I’d lost, so I pretended at times that it had never happened.
Staring at them, though, listening to the way they bickered with affection layered into the words, it made it more difficult to forget my life before it had all changed.
I recalled sitting down for dinner, the way the spice of the soup floated in the air, the easy, pointless conversation.
I’d talk about my day—when I felt like it—and they’d smile and listen and ask questions.
I remembered the comforting feeling of walking past the threshold of our apartment, the way it felt like home.
The place had been small, decorated as cheaply as possible, but it had always been warm and welcoming.
We hadn’t had much, but it had still always made me feel safe.
Until it wasn’t…
The juxtaposition between the life I’d had before and the one that had come after dizzied me. It made everything feel so uncertain, unsettled, like the ground could open up and swallow me down into the depths of it.
A hand touched my arm, a similar sense of calm washing over me. I glanced to my side to find Shear there, those eerie, bright blue eyes boring into my own. Strange that his powers, which normally I hated, managed to soothe me so well here. It gave me that same feeling I’d forced myself to forget.
I even managed to sag back, my knees weakening, Shear bracing me with the hand on my arm so I didn’t end up on my ass. He didn’t bring attention to the little mishap, instead opening the back door beside us so it appeared he simply helped me into the car.
My body went along with it, not so much my brain, and before I knew it, I had Shear to one side, Carter to the other, with Ingram driving and Kenyon upfront.
Right, just stealing a car, escaping a training base full of superhumans, with a group of espers.
When had my life gotten so damn weird?