Severo eyed the press with narrowed eyes. They were swarming the bottom of the steps like cockroaches.
“You don’t need to say anything to them,” Severo whispered to Seri. “They got their slab of flesh already.”
More like a full feast of flesh. A fake marriage, kidnapping, and a forced pregnancy by one of the richest men on Earth…what more could they need?
“What if they twist things?” Seri looked up at him nervously, chewing on his thumbnail.
Severo just barely held back his grimace at the state of Seri’s face. Nothing was swollen, yet there were bruises in various stages of healing all over. Multiple on his chin, cheeks, near his eyes… not to mention his arms, and what he could see of his legs. Though some may be from the building collapsing on him.
“They will twist things no matter what we say,” Severo informed him gravely.
And they would…it’s how the bastards worked.
“I…need to at least try to give my side…I’m tired of no one hearing me.”
Best policy was to tell them nothing, but…if Seri felt the need to do this, he wouldn’t stop him. “Then tell them what you want.”
He pressed his communicator in his ear and said, “Start trying to clear out the press.”
Seri frowned.
“They will get worse the more you talk, believe me. It’s best we start trying to control them now, rather than after.”
Seri nodded and cleared his throat as they reached the bottom of the steps. The Nymph’s eyes widened a bit, which looked painful with how discolored they were at the moment. He imagined for someone not used to all this, it was a bit shocking. Severo, however, had dealt with the press many times before throughout his life, simply for who his parents were, and later on because of his high profile cases. They were unashamedly horrible, and a pain in the ass.
Seri cleared his throat again, and began to tell how they met, about the bogus murder charges, etc. Severo stopped him as he reached the part about the van crashing into them. The press didn’t need to know how or where or who helped them.
Severo took over from there. “I took him into hiding then. That is all we can tell you for now.”
As he expected, the press became even more rowdy, and his fellow agents began to forcefully remove them in earnest. This made room for Severo to escape with Seri to the ambulance that had pulled up soon after the police had.
He eyed Cyrus standing there by the emergency vehicle.
“Seri… This is Cyrus,” Severo grunted, unable to keep the anger out of his voice at the sight of the man. And Seri noticed. The Nymph glanced up at him with a frown, a touch of confusion in his eyes.
It had been days…but he was still angry. He wasn’t sure what he could do to change that. And the longer Severo had sat and thought about it, he wasn’t sure there was a way to go back to how things were before. Severo didn’t know if he even wanted to. He wasn’t sure this job was what he wanted anymore. Though that was less about Cyrus, and more about Seri and Skya.
Cyrus nodded in Seri’s direction. The move somehow made Severo want to punch him. Couldn’t he be even a little bit curious about the man Severo loved? Were they not friends? Perhaps…not…
“I know you need to get him checked, but at least try to get back to Headquarters as fast as you can. Killian may go insane if you leave him with that baby any longer than you have to.”
Severo grunted in response, pushing past the man without a word, and stepping into the ambulance.
Seri staredup at Severo as he laid him out on the gurney, flinching as straps automatically came around him to buckle him in. “Oh, that’s not fun.”
Was this how Skya felt when her seat automatically wrapped around her?
Severo gave him a weak smile. “I promise, just a quick check up and then we can go get Skya.”
He flinched again when the doors slammed closed. A few seconds later, the vehicle started. Severo opened the sliding window up front and said, “Go to the Cryptid Bureau hospital.”
“Uh…I’m…”
“That wasn’t a request,” Severo said stiffly. Seri couldn’t see his expression, but judging by the tone of his voice, he was sure it wasn’t friendly,
“Yes, sir,” the man yelped.
When the vehicle levitated up, Severo closed the window.
