Chapter Thirteen
Carter
My eyes didn’t burn—a strange feeling, and one I hadn’t experienced in so long, I barely recognized it.
After I’d helped Yun clean up then dress, I hadn’t bothered to hide the true color of my eyes.
Even with guiding, it didn’t change the edge I still sat on, as though I’d been so far gone for so long that I couldn’t fully go back to normal anymore.
Even at the best of times, even right after guiding, my eyes still held the same purple. Usually I kept it hidden, using up extra energy to ensure that no one could see it.
Something about my time with Yun had me unwilling to do it, though.
Kenyon had taken a longer look at me than usual but said nothing. Same with Ingram and Shear. They all knew me well enough to know I wasn’t on the edge of corruption, at least no more than at any other time.
I had a feeling they all knew how much I’d hidden before—we spent too much time together for them to have missed it.
Instead, the sidelong looks had more to do with the fact that I’d stopped hiding it all, and the reason was very obviously the guide walking beside Shear up ahead.
The portal spread out so far, reaching up toward the sky, with more buildings appearing the closer we got. We’d run into more monsters, but they were all individual, just stragglers as we’d passed through the space. They hadn’t swarmed like they had earlier, making the trip rather uneventful.
“What do you want to do when we get back?” Kenyon asked, Yun standing between him and Shear.
“A bath.” Yun said it with a level of passion that nearly made me jealous, like she could already see the bubbles and hot water.
Which, to be fair, I didn’t mind seeing her all soaped up one bit.
“I agree,” I said. “I want to see her in a bath.”
Yun offered me a half-hearted glare over her shoulder, but one that lacked any real annoyance. I winked in response.
“I want fried chicken,” Kenyon said. “Like, a whole pile of it, with mashed potatoes and gravy.”
“This is why we say you’re fat,” I said.
“Do you know how much we’ve walked! I’ve earned some fried chicken,” Kenyon complained.
“I’m going to get my turn with Yun,” Ingram said, offering her one hell of a long look, turning around so he walked backward.
“Don’t you think about anything else?” Yun asked.
“Sure! I think about your back, about your front, about your tits, your ass, your—”
“I get it,” she interrupted, but that flush on her cheeks was a damn pretty look. It said she didn’t mind his words all that much. She turned to look the other way, at Shear. “And you?”
“A nap,” he said.
She hesitated for a moment, as though realizing that he likely hadn’t gotten much sleep since he’d been watching over her. She made a soft sound that could have been, oh, but I couldn’t fully catch it.
Shear shook his head, a quick denial. “I don’t mean like that. I can’t rest out here, so I will look forward to our bed, to hearing the ocean, to being back where we belong.”
That must have been the exact right answer because her expression softened. It was as though she’d just realized that despite all of Shear’s lack of external personality signs, he actually had a heart. He craved his home—no, not just his, but all of ours.
She took her bottom lip between her teeth, a little more pep in her step as she went on.
Personally, so long as she wasn’t wearing pants, I didn’t much care where she was. I’d take the base, the house, a dungeon, the middle of a crowded stadium—I wasn’t picky.
“So we get her through the portal,” Ingram said, “then we come back here to finish up, yeah?”
“Not much of a choice. We’re assigned to The Pitt, so we’re going to need to stay put. We’ll get her set up in a trailer outside the portal first, though. I want her surrounded by guards before we even think about leaving her be.” Even that didn’t fully relax me, of course.
I’d have been happier to just fuck off from this place, to head back with her, to make damn sure she was safe no matter what.
However, since that just wasn’t possible, I had to do what was needed.
“We’re going after Corsa, right?” Shear asked in my head.
“Obviously. Yun doesn’t need to know, though. She’ll just worry.”
Shear cast me a look that said he agreed but didn’t like it.
Sure, the Guild might want to kill us, and we needed to track down and deal with a corrupted mentalist, and the dungeon itself might just take us out, but…
The list had gone on so long I failed to recall where I’d been going with the entire line of thought.
The point was that while I would have preferred to stay with Yun, to avoid all this mess, that just wasn’t possible. Corsa had tormented Yun, and in doing so had forfeited any right he had to living.
Plus, he’d proven he wasn’t done with her yet. If we didn’t solve the issue, there was a damn good chance that he’d try again.
Yun would never feel safe so long as the asshole still breathed, and I intended to ensure she felt plenty safe. We had no choice but to take her home, then venture back in here.
By the time we got her clear, we’d have at least another five hours or so before the dungeon started to close again. Was that enough time?
I didn’t know, but it had to be. Besides, I had a feeling that Corsa would find us.
The fact he hadn’t made a move yet surprised me.
The monsters that followed us, the ones that watched from the distance…
I could smell the stink of corruption on them.
It meant he knew where we were, but he hadn’t tried to attack us, hadn’t tried to take her back yet.
I couldn’t work out the reasoning behind it, and that bothered me more than anything else. If I didn’t understand why he did something, how could I possibly counter his moves? How could I stay one step ahead if I didn’t know what his plan was?
It bothered me, but I knew when in doubt, when a lack of information made it impossible to predict, the best option was to move forward, to gather more knowledge. Eventually he would show himself, and when he did, we’d know how to deal with him.
At least, I had to hope for that much.
We crossed a narrow street. The asphalt cracked beneath my feet, weeds sprouting out between them. Something quiet about this place kept me on edge, as though I waited, though for what I didn’t know.
Or so I thought, until I felt a tingling in the back of my neck, a soft, early warning signal telling me of trouble. I expected monsters, to find something large and snarling and very much not human to leap from a building at us.
Instead, when I twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding a figure, I cursed.
The body caught themselves, their feet sliding against the asphalt until they crouched down, ten feet from us.
The uniform, the quick movement, the lack of purple eyes.
Fuck. That was an esper, a member of the Guild, and a glance around said they weren’t alone.
It seemed the Guild hadn’t forgotten about us, hadn’t seen fit to leave us be. Instead, they wanted us dead.
Get used to disappointment.