Being herewasa massive waste of time for us.We’d not only dealt with stable dungeons in the past, but had personally come tothis oneand survived it.I doubted there were many working espers who could say the same.
Still, we’d gotten told to attend because they thought we needed therefresher.It was a not-so-subtle way of reminding us that our last time hadn’t gone well.
Or rather, that the Guild blamed us for the outcome.
Eyes turned our ways, the reaction more hostile than usual.Generally, we got pity or derision, but right now?
Hatred.
Anger.
Rage.
Why?Probably because the idea of going into a dungeon with a squad they saw as untrustworthy could put the entire mission in danger.It was like building a bridge—every last section had to stand, because if any fell, the whole thing would collapse.
They didn’t want us to be that weak link that took them all down.
“You’re this way,” a low-rank esper said, one of the people working the event to keep it running smoothly.They couldn’t stand in a fight for a job like this one, so instead, they took on the administrative tasks.We followed the woman to a set of chairs near the front and to the left.It was like getting sat up near the teacher’s desk at school.She left us there, and most of the spots were still open.
I can’t believe we’re back here again.
We didn’t have a choice, didn’t have a way to get out of it, but that didn’t change just how fucking much I hated it.This dungeon had almost killed us before, had ended up destroying our lives, and they expected us to face it again?
Hadn’t we paid our price?Hadn’t we done what we needed to do?
It was someone else’s turn to take over now, to throw themselves into this mess.
Despite me thinking that, however, I sure as hell didn’t want to suffer the fate of an esper who got thrown out of the Guild.
No thanks.
It meant we had to sit there and do as we were told, that we had to accept this bullshit assignment.My gaze moved over to the seat beside me, the one with Yun’s name printed on the card.
This time, we have something worth protecting…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Yun
Kaiden plopped down on the large couch and patted the seat beside him.He had that same smile, as if this were the easiest thing in the world.Then again, everything seemed to come easily to him.It was one of the things I loved about him, but it also frustrated me.
I took the seat.Kaiden was one of the few men who didn’t freak me out.Part of that was that he wasn’t an esper, but another was just him as a person.It wasn’t that I didn’t know that he was capable of violence—anyone was.It was that some part of me never believed he would use it against me.
“You’ve looked better.”
“That’s not something you’re supposed to say to a woman.”
“Well, it’s true.I mean, you never look all that rested or happy, but you look even more tired than usual.”He caught my chin and lifted my face, tilting it side to side to examine it from every angle.“Maybe this squad isn’t a good fit.”
I knocked away his hand.“It’s not like I have a lot of choices.This is my last chance before the Guild is through with me.”
“They always say things like that.They’re not about to throw away a guide.”
“They will if the guide is useless, or worse, dangerous.Of course, the idea that they might not let go of a guide even then, that’s scarier.”I thought about all the uses a guide might have beyond the expected.Little research had been done on guides, because the Guild considered them far too valuable to experiment on.If I had no choices, no use, no friends or family or anyone to miss me, the Guild could do anything they wanted to me without recourse.
A weight settled on my hand, pulling me back from those terrible thoughts.Kaiden stared at me with more caring and understanding than I would have expected.He played the part of a playboy, moving from esper to esper, from squad to squad, without ever laying down roots.He pretended that nothing mattered to him at all—well, nothing but me.It was times like these, when I glimpsed beneath that mask, that I recognized the depths of care he actually held.
“You silly little girl, do you really think I’d let anything happen to you?”And just like that, he did what he always did.He reassured me, making me feel less alone in all of this.
