“Oh.”The stupid response had me recognizing for the first time that she was right.I’d heard exactly what this guide could do to an esper when she wanted, but I had no desire to see it firsthand.So why, when I had handled her so roughly, hadn’t she done it to me?I’d been so focused on her that I’d entirely forgotten her ability to put me flat on my ass.“Maybe you like me?”
The way she tilted her head screamed that wasn’t it, and I was dumber than she thought for suggesting it.
Which…was fair.
“I mean, not that you like me especially, more that maybe you knew I wouldn’t actually hurt you.It’s the difference between ifmydog runs up to me barking or a strange dog does.I’m not gonna worry when it’s my dog, but if it’s a random dog, well, I might not trust that it won’t bite me.”
She said nothing at first, staring back at me as though working that idea through her head.It was a time when I wished I had Shear’s ability, that I could peek inside her head and see what she thought about it.I wanted to understand her, and I knew damn well she wasn’t intending to go exposing those secret parts of her mind.
I gave her the time to consider it, though I doubted she’d quite accept it.
Sure enough, she frowned.“I don’t think that’s it.I have no reason to think you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Have I done it yet?”
“Everyone is innocent—until they aren’t.”She paused, her shoulders slumping.“Don’t misunderstand me, please.I know that you—all of you—have taken good care of me.I am appreciative of that.I know that I could have had things much worse, and that’s because of you all that I don’t.I just don’t want you thinking that means I’m going to forget everything I’ve experienced, everything I’ve learned.”
“Can’t you learn different things, though?”
She laughed, the sound quiet and full of pain.“No, I can’t.Those lessons came at too high a price for me to ever risk having to learn them again.I suffered far too much for me to toss it all away and just hope things are different, hopeyou’reall different.”
Her words stilled me, made me think about what Shear had said before.Clearly, she had a past that wasn’t good, one we didn’t know about, one we could only guess about, and the whole not knowing thing was getting to me.
“What happened?”I found myself asking even if I knew damn well she wouldn’t actually answer me.She held that secret so tight that nothing could pry it from her fingers, and even if we had our guesses, we didn’t really know.
She didn’t respond with an insult or a quick shut down—progress?—but instead stared down at her own hands as though she couldn’t see them, like she stared at something else instead.Was it her past?Whatever horrors she’d gone through, was that where her mind took her?
“I’m not gonna judge you,” I pressed when I wasn’t sure she even really heard me anymore.“No matter what else is true, we’re working together, right?That makes us a team, so I want to be able to help you, to understand you.I want to know what it is that’s made you feel this way.”
She shook her head, the motion soft and slow.“Why?What does that change?You knowing why I don’t trust espers doesn’t change that I don’t trust you.If I let you poke around in my past, how does that make anything better?Last I checked, the great Reject Squad had plenty of their own past you all don’t go around talking about, but you want me to do it?”
Did she thinkthatwas a good game to play?Too bad for her that I wasn’t nearly so sensitive.“You want to know?You think that I care about telling you?I figured you already knew—everyone else does.”
“They know the story, but the story isn’t ever the truth.”
“The truth is pretty simple.We were in The Pitt when it last opened, and we made a choice.We were told to do one thing, and we didn’t follow those orders.Was it the right choice?”I shrugged.“I don’t know, but I know it’s the choice we could live with.It was the only choice I could make and still look at myself in the mirror.So we did that, and we lost everything because of it.”
She listened to my words, not pulling away, not stopping me or calling me out on the vagueness of it.Icouldhave given her more details, but that felt like making an excuse, like trying to pretty up the truth of what happened.At the end of the day, whether or not our choice was the moral one or the right one or anything else, we’d betrayed the Guild and done as we pleased.Thatwas the reality, and I saw no good reason to dress it up, to paint ourselves as anything but the fuckups we were.
In the quiet that followed, I thought she wouldn’t respond.Or maybe she’d tell me that I was an idiot for thinking that this was a tit-for-tat sort of deal.That was fair, as she hadn’t agreed to some deal there.I couldn’t really offer and expect her to just do as I wanted because I’d shared some.
“I don’t want to go back to there,” she said, her voice so quiet I had to strain to make out the words.“Do you know why I was sneaking out?Because I had another nightmare, another time when I had to go back there and relive it all again.The absolute last thing I want to do right now is talk about it.I want a break, to get to be free from it for at least a little while.I don’t want tofeellike that same person, to be trapped all over again.”Her voice rose as she spoke, the words stronger at the end, the frustration clear enough that I didn’t need to be a mentalist to hear it.
And I understood that better than I wanted to admit.There were times after everything that had happened in The Pitt when I wanted nothing more than a day off, then to not hear about it on the news, not get spat on by others, to just forget about it.
“You have nightmares that often?”
She nodded, then tucked her hair back behind her ear so it didn’t fall into her face.“Every damn night I have them.It’s like there’s no way to escape it.And then I’m here, surrounded by espers, and the Guild needs so much, and they keep wanting to know how I can guide the way I do, and it’s just all too much.It feels like everyone is taking a piece of me, yanking them away until I have nothing left.So, I’m sorry, maybe it isn’t fair, but I just don’t want to go back to that hell for a moment longer than I have to.”
“I get it.I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push.”And, worse, I reallydidfeel bad about it.My curiosity was hardly sated, of course, but the last thing I’d wanted was to cause hermorepain.
Which, to be fair, wasexactlywhat I’d done.On purpose or not, I’d managed to throw her on the ground by her throat, terrify her, then ask her to talk about one of the most painful things she likely had ever experienced.My intent wasn’t that important when I looked at what had come from it.
She shook her head, appearing suddenly smaller and far more tired than she had before.“It’s not your fault.I know I got my nickname for a fair reason, and as much as I hate it, it fits.I shouldn’t have been sneaking out, anyway.”
“Want to take a walk?I can make sure you’re safe if you want to clear your head.”
She got to her feet, brushing the sand that had clung to her.“No, that’s okay.I think I’ll just go lie down.”She headed toward the door, not giving me nearly as large a margin as I would have expected, before pausing.“And thank you.”
