There are also photographers waiting outside the revolving door, prepping their cameras. One of them is Miss Bailey from the fake pre-trial interview, who still looks pissy as she taps her foot and glowers at the door.
Oh, great. More pictures.
I’m starting to understand why Everett hates being on camera.
“It’s time for the world to get their due from you,telum,” Tattoo Face grunts.
He grips my shoulder too tightly and walks through the revolving doors, shoving me into the stormy daylight for my fake trial. The ghosts follow.
I’m immediately blinded by the flashes of cameras. They’re so intense and so frequent that I turn my face away. They don’t like that, though.
“Over here! Look over here,telum!”
“Maven Oakley! Eyes open, sweetheart! Look here!”
“Smile, Maven!”
Smile? At a fake trial? Whoever suggested that is fucking delusional. And whoever just called mesweetheartis about to have a broken nose.
Tattoo Face gets annoyed that I’m turning my face away from the photographers. He takes my chin in his hand, forcing my head to face the blinding flashes.
Immediately, my lungs deflate, and I can’t pull in air. The rough, bare skin of his fingers drags across my jaw, squeezing and raw and absolutely fuckingunbearable. Sweat beads onmy forehead as my limbs lock. Panic pounds through my skull, reminding me of the countless times my body reacted this way in the citadel during my conditioning.
The scent of moldering corpses.Half-rotted Undead clawing at my skin.
Maggots.
So many maggots, trying to burrow under my skin as I screamed and clawed at the doors.
Gods, I’m starting to hyperventilate. I’m about to vomit in front of twenty cameras.
The camera flashes have slowed as they complain about me freezing up like this. Amid my haphephobic breakdown, the same blue-haired female ghost appears beside us. She glares at the legacy touching me, passes directly through me, and?—
Tattoo Face screams, staggering back andfinallyfucking releasing me.
The crowds of onlookers gasp.
Someone shouts, “What was that? Did you see that?”
The photographers step away, but they’re already snapping more pictures. I glance over my shoulder to see that the asshole who just had his hand on my face is now gripping his neck, choking and spasming on the ground until his eyes roll back into his head and foam drips from his mouth. He goes still.
“Get a healer!” someone shouts.
The photographers are still having a heyday as he’s carried away. Two more legacy security members are immediately at my sides, gripping my straitjacketed arms and shoving me forward so I’ll have to walk through the gawking elites. Most of them, including the judge and jury, are now watching me in disgusted terror as ifIdid that.
Did I?
It was the ghost, but it took passing through me for her to interact with the living. She targeted him for what he was doingto me. Are my demigoddess abilities more ghost-oriented than I realized?
Still reeling from the lingering horror of that touch, I’m forced to walk forward. Someone is wheeling a red-blinking camera several feet in front of me, showing all of this to anyone still out there.
I wonder if Kenzie is watching. Or Lillian.
The elite legacies I pass leer and gawk at me. Some take pictures on their phones, laughing and whispering to each other. Others chatter at full volume, wide-eyed as they see thetelumreduced to this fucking morose parade. Many more of them flip me off, spit on me when they get the chance, and shout over the clamor of the crows.
“Serves you right!”
“Suck my dick, you fucking demon!” another shouts.
