The esper had died, of course, racked in pain and having been forced to endure for hours longer than he should have.
I learned my lesson then—not everyone could be saved.Since then, I’d realized the fact that for some people, a quick death was better, that for some, when saving and fixing wasn’t possible, all a person could do was ease the pain best they could, to make them comfortable until they passed.
And looking at Yun, no matter how much I hated it, I wondered if I wasn’t watching such a case right now.
Chapter Nine
Ingram
I fucking hate these pricks.
No doubt that showed on my face as I stared at the other squad, their matching little outfits making me want to throw up on the spot.What the fuck?Were they cheerleaders or espers?
“The Guild said to bring your entire team,” Hester, the head of the other squad, complained like a little bitch.
The show of weakness made me want to poke at it, to dig into it, to make use of it.
I leashed those desires, however, reminding myself that they weren’t an enemy.
For a person to be an enemy, I had to give a fuck about them, had to fear them.These assholes were entirely inconsequential to me.
“We’ve recently gotten a new guide.I didn’t want to stress her out by bringing her here to what was just a meet and greet.”Carter’s tone didn’t apologize, just stating the fact as though we were already besties with them.
Hester huffed, as though put out by this.
He wasn’t, of course.We weren’t doing shit here.Just meeting each other?
Bullshit.
The fact was that squads worked best on their own.We trained with the others in our squad—we didn’t need those sorts of groups.Didn’t need to practice together like some grand dance recital.
It was nothing but a publicity stunt, a game to try to humanize the espers to make them easily digestible for the public.
Fucking bullshit.
We weren’t human, and pretending we were just for a bigger paycheck was self-serving and stupid.I could have been doing actually useful things today instead of wasting time with this nonsense.
But Carter had told me to come, so I’d come.
Not because I feared him—even if I did a little.He’d earned my loyalty, though, and as fucking annoying as he was, he rarely led us wrong.
“We have another meeting next week,” Hester said, his tone tight.“I expect to see your entire squad there.It’s especially important to have healers and guides there, as they’re most useful to other squads.”
And just like that, the sensation of shadows crawling along my skin took over.I closed my eyes, trying to leash it, because I didn’t need to fucking lose my shit here.
However, the idea of them acting like our guide and our healer were some sort of fucking free use public toilet system pissed me the fuck off.
Fuck that.
I didn’t mind ending anyone who thought to lay a damn hand on anything that was mine, and those two sure as fuck counted.
Kenyon could handle his own, but he’d healed me enough times that I didn’t want to just allow some asshole to think he got access to that.
A sharp look from Shear warned that he sensed my reaction, that he knew damned well I wanted to take a piece of each of these fuckers.
I rolled my eyes and leaned back farther in the seat.I could have worked hard to pull the shadows back, but why?
Let ’em fucking see it.Let ’em know exactly what would happen if they overstepped the boundaries.
