Page 27 of Remnants: Disruption
I glance at Percy, whose hands are loosely gripping her steering wheel. She looks at ease. At peace, even—like she hasn’t just broken my heart.
Which is insane, because I’ve never let onto my feelings. I’ve never been brave enough to cross that line. Even before the shadows had gotten louder, I couldn’t ever find the gall to risk what tentative relationship we’d built.
She’ll never know, now. Her friendship will just have to be enough.
“Arya?” Percy’s soft voice cuts through my rambling thoughts. She looks over at me with an expectant look, like she’s said my name a few times already.
“Sorry,” I say, shaking the metaphorical—and literal—demons from my mind. “What did you say?”
“I asked you how the rest of your evening went,” though her eyes return to the road, I can feel her looking at me in her periphery.
“Fine,” I lie, looking down at the hands that just held a knife to my throat.
After I’d derealized in the shower, it had taken everything in me to not just cancel on Percy. Maybe I should have, in hindsight.
“Just fine?” her eyes finally meet mine as we pull up to a parking lot in lower New Chicago.
“It’s been a fairly rough week for me,” I say, hoping the semi-truth is enough to get her off my back.
She doesn’t look away as she turns off the vehicle. The ringing in my ears doesn’t abate, though. And the shadow lurkingbehind Percy’s head reminds me to turn my attention back to the brightly lit shopfront.
“Why can’t you look at me?” she asks, voice soft—almost as soft as it had been with the man.
I look down at the sleek metal floor between my legs. The lurking dead leers back at me, daring me to spill my guts.
Stupid fucking dead.
“I can,” I say, glaring at the specter between my knees. “There’s just a spirit, or something, behind you.”
The scream Percy lets out as she turns to stare out her window might have been funny in any other circumstance.
“Where?” she asks breathlessly. “Jesus Christ, Arya, where?”
“Chill,” I say, giving her a weak grin as I finally face her. “You won’t be able to see them.”
I had only been able to hear them for the longest time. This last week, though, things had gotten worse.
Way worse.
“You—” Percy’s expression is a mask of confusion. “You can see spirits?”
“Used to just hear them,” I say, looking back at the restaurant, appetite still splattered against my kitchen sink. “Last few years I started hearing them in the shadows.”
Percy says nothing, taking full advantage of my show of vulnerability.
“The last few days?” I scoff. “I have to light up my entire apartment at night.”
I hear Percy take a sharp inhale, but I put up a hand to curb whatever insipid offer of condolence she might try.
“I don’t want your pity,” I sigh out, unbuckling. My hand finds the door handle. “You asked. I answered.”
“Why is it only now that I’m finding out about this?” her tone sounds closer to annoyed now. I quirk an eyebrow at her.
“You said it before.” I shrug. “I have my secrets. You have yours.”
I hear the bite in my tone and berate myself as I watch her face fall.
“I was going to tell you about him,” she says softly, her eyes not leaving mine. “We were busy, though. And you’re, clearly, going through something much more serious than my boyfriend.”
