Page 180 of Scarlet Wars
My brain…blanked. Absolutely blanked.
My mouth fell open before sound finally scraped out.
James scoffed. “She kills over fifty humans and theyliftthe warrant? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why?” I croaked.
Rachel threw her hands up, pacing two quick steps before stopping again. “Hell if I know! I just heard it from Vincent, my Leader. But it’s real. They dropped the charges against you! The presidential warrant is gone.”
Our First Offensive pressed a hand to her chest, trying to regulate her heartbeat. “I figured you’d want to know immediately.”
I nodded slowly, still stunned, the information ricocheting around my skull like it was made of rubber instead of reality.
“Thanks,” I managed, though it came out thin and far away.
Rachel stepped forward and wrapped her fingers around my arm, giving it a firm squeeze, the closest thing to solid ground in the moment. Then she backed toward the hall, already beginning to turn.
“I have to go, inform the team, and, gods, figure out what the hell this means for…well, everyone.”
And just like that, she was gone again, disappearing down the corridor with the same force she’d arrived.
James let out a long, low breath. “Well. That’s…big.”
My brow furrowed. “What the hell does that mean? Is the war with humans over now?”
James shrugged, rubbing a thumb across the inside of his palm like he was thinking through a dozen political maps at once. “It is between US humans and Canadian magi. Don’t know about the rest of the world, though. And the US is still bubbled in…”
A hollow tightness pressed against my ribs, like the news had landed somewhere too deep to reach, too big to process now. Not now. Not before the next conversation I had to survive.
I turned toward the door after I gave James a small awkward wave, and I left to go find my brother.
My conversationwith James had gone better than I’d expected, but I was impossibly nervous for the next scheduled talk.
I took a sip of the Scotch in front of me, staring through the window of the bar I had invited Sean to.
It burned going down. The Scotch, not the bar.
Three minutes after I’d arrived, Sean slid onto the stool beside me like someone approaching a sleeping animal. Cautious. Careful not to spook me.
We sat in silence for a second or ten.
Sean kept stealing glances at me, like he was still trying to decide whether I was going to throw my drink in his face or not. I didn’t. Part of me thought about it, though.
“I’ve been tryin’ to figure out what to say to ye,” he said finally. “Have this whole speech planned. Rehearsed it in the mirror like aneejit.”
I raised an eyebrow, swirling my glass. “I can’t wait to hear it.”
Sean exhaled, and it sounded like it cost him something. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry,mo dheirfiúr. For what happened at Coastal. For lyin’ about it. For what I did to ye. For yer scars. I was so scared of a future I had no control over, and I didn’t even think twice to protect ye. I was a coward when I shouldn’t have been, and there are not enough words in any language to apologize for it.”
I stared down at the amber liquid in my glass. It shimmered a little in the low light.
“You are my best friend,” I said. My voice didn’t shake, but it felt like it should’ve. “I have trusted you from day one, and I have told you things I’d never told anyone. But…” I stopped myself. Swallowed hard. “You are also the reason I couldn’t look into a mirror for months. And then you let me believe it was all Caden’s fault. All this time!”
Sean’s face twisted like I’d hit him.
“I know,” he whispered, all rough. “I know. And I don’t expect ye to forgive me. But ye should know, I love ye more than anyone. I just…” He exhaled, a tired, broken sound. “Yer my person, Em. Ye have been from the moment we met. Even when I didn’t deserve ye.”
I looked at him then, the lines around his eyes, the way his shoulders hunched in on themselves. “When we first met,” I said slowly, “you acted like my friend. What was that about? Guilt?”
