“He had set himself up near the heart. Have you ever seen the heart of a stable dungeon?”
“No. Because they can’t be destroyed, we’ve never bothered with getting to them. In stable dungeons, we focus on saving civilians and clearing monsters.”
“They look the same as regular hearts, but they shimmer, like you can see the corruption swirling through them. He’d taken me there, made me stare at the heart, told me that it was the source of power, that it was the connection, that someday he’d figure out how to harness it. Well, one day—night, I don’t even know—I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew I couldn’t. Each time I had to guide him, it felt like another piece of me was pulled out, like he removed fingernails each time, like if I stayed there any longer there wouldn’t be anything of me left. I didn’t think much of it through, just figured that dead was better than this. So I snuck away while he slept. He woke up as I stared at the heart, and I think he knew what I planned. He told me that he’d make me pay for it, that he’d never let me go, but that all just made it easier. I reached out and grabbed the heart.”
The fear I’d had about what might have occurred was justified. Everyone knew what happened if someone who wasn’t a strong esper, of at least the same rank, touched a heart.
It made me think about Ingram, about the esper who had tried to close the dungeon a few days before. He hadn’t survived it.
“You knew…?”
She nodded. “I knew what would happen, and I was fine with it. I was looking forward to it, actually. It would end everything that I went through, the pain, the fear, the uncertainty. I didn’t have hope that things would ever get better—why would I? My parents were gone, and everyone else who survived the closing had died. I was alone in a place I didn’t belong, and I knew that if I somehow made it to the next time the portal opened, I wouldn’t bemeanymore. I’d be a shell by then, and I refused to let thathappen. So when the pain echoed through me when I touched the heart, I welcomed it.” She had a strange dreaminess, one that terrified me.
It felt like a glimpse of the hopelessness she had, and it made me realize that the feeling hadn’t ever truly left her. She still had it, and the knowledge made me want to keep her in my sights at all times.
“How I got back exactly, I don’t know. I can’t explain it. There was this pain, and he was there, reaching for me, then everything faded around me. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital with Kaidan there. They told me that I was found in the San Diego ruins, that two monsters were near me, both dead, so they assumed I’d been attacked by them in a breakthrough portal. They’d tested me while I was out, realized I was an S-Rank guide, then called the Guild—thus Kaidan.”
That helped to explain her close friendship with Kaidan, given he’d been there from the start for her. I still didn’t care for him, didn’t like that connection, but at least I understood where it had come from.
It also made everything clearer. Her reaction to touch, her dislike of espers, her hatred of mentalists. Anyone would feel the same, at least if they could actually survive what she had.
I had a feeling few could.
The thing that pulled at me, though, the part that I couldn’t push aside. “How are you going to handle The Pitt again?”
She shrugged, though the nonchalant gesture did little to hide her fears. “I don’t know, but I can promise you one thing. No matter what happens, I willneverend up trapped in there again.”
The certainty of her statement, the way she said it as though she was ready to give up on life if even the chance of that occurred, had me swallowing hard, because that was exactly what I feared.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Yun
The sun was high, and while sweat beaded on my forehead, while it ran down my back and caused my shirt to cling to my skin, none of it bothered me. In fact, I found it almost charming, like the heat felt nice instead of a bothersome thing to endure.
In fact,everythingseemed brighter.
The reason was clear enough—my conversation with Shear the night before.
I’d let it all out I finally felt far enough from it to actually tell the story.
Kaidan knew, from panic attacks where I’d blurted out facts, but they’d been mixed up, broken, confused. This time I’d been able to get through it all at once, to explain it in order.
I’d had ten years to think about it, to consider it all, to go over every detail in my head, between the nightmares and the flashbacks. I wouldn’t say I had a better handle on it, but it at least didn’t have the same grip on me that it used to.
I’d always heard that sharing trauma helped, that allowing others to carry some of it made a person feel better, and I’d never believed it. I’d expected censure, distrust, hatred. I’d known the Guild would want to exploit me, thought any squad would see me as defective, so the fact that I’d unloaded that entire story only to fall asleep there, beside Shear, felt like a gift I’d never expected nor deserved.
“Ms. Moore.”
The sudden voice of the last person I wanted to see had me slowing my steps.
“I believe I made it clear that I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Yorn.” I didn’t bother to even turn back to face him, wanting to make it clear how little a damn I gave about him.
“Yes, but that doesn’t change anything. Whether you wish to give in now or later, you will still give in.”
The words he chose, the cadence of his speech, it felt familiar. I’d noticed it last time, too, but then I’d been surrounded by others speaking. This time I heard it more clearly.
He sounded like Shear…
