Page 115 of Remnants: Disruption
I move forward and feel like my body is being squeezed through a tube. Not exactly painful, but weird. And I hear Azazel huff another monotonous laugh.
“You move like shadow itself. Fascinating.”
The entire manifestation feels natural. Which is odd given I didn’t know I could do this five minutes ago. And, just as instinctively, I release my hold on it.
Unfortunately, I don’t nail the landing, managing instead to fall flat on my face. Sand enters my nose and mouth, leaving me sputtering as Azazel crosses the space to stand over me.
“You will want to work on that part,” they say helpfully.
“Fuck,” I grunt, spitting out another mouthful.
Azazel freezes as footsteps crunch along the sand behind us. I roll onto my stomach in time to see familiar boots that trail into a familiar cloak.
“Hiraeth,” Bloody Mary’s face is hauntingly beautiful as I stare up at her.
She looks as haughty and annoyed as she had the last time I’d seen her.
“Yes?” I ask, not getting up from the ground.
“Kneel,” Azazel hisses from behind me, but I ignore the mage.
“May I have the room, Red Mage?” Mary asks and Azazel almost sprints out of the colosseum.
“You’re interrupting my training time,” I mock, rolling onto my back and sitting up. She watches me situate myself before leveling an annoyed look at me. “And you look pissed again. Come to accuse me of something new?”
“Detective De Luca’s funeral is today, and I wanted to invite you along with me.”
Azazel douses both of us with a magic that provides a veiled disguise for anyone not looking too closely. I almost ask what the fuck thismagiceven is, because neither person had yet to actually explain themselves. But my mind is already going at a million miles a minute.
I hadn’t even let myself think about Percy’s death. It was—is still too much.
Trish and Marla had tried to get me to open up about it, but after the third or fourth redirect, they’d also let me stew in it.
But, for some reason, Mary actually seems remarkably understanding. Her disguise, if you squint, makes her look like some blonde movie actress. Which is annoying because she still looks really damned good like that, too.
I don’t bother to ask what I look like.
“Will you be okay?” Mary asks as we ride the elevator to the surface.
I glance at her before returning my gaze to the closed doors.
“Do you care?” I know the answer is petty, but I’m still annoyed. And pissed that I’d let myself feel something for this woman who, for all I know, only sees me as a weapon of war.
“Deeply,” she says, but doesn’t look back at me.
“No,” I huff, looking down at my feet. “I haven’t been okay in a long, long time. Which I’m sure you all knew.”
I shoot a glance at her.
“We have only been keeping an eye on you for the last few months. And only since September have I, and I alone, been watching you.”
I let that sink in and wait for the rise of panic or fury.
Except nothing but a soft warmth grows in my chest. Because it means someone had been there during the worst moments. And during the times where it’d mattered.
Fucking sap—it’s not like she’d intervened save for those few moments. Not like she’d made her presence known. And she hadn’t taken me in like Trish and Marla had.
Not that she even knows about them.
