“We need to send a team, Carrie. Something waswrong. I was locked in Arc’s mind but it was different. I couldn’t feel or hear his thoughts, and he didn’t seem to realize I was even there.”
“We can’t, Carter,” Carrie had said, but her tone had been more defeated than final. “Arc came by just before they left. He said not to go after them, no matter what happened. That it was too dangerous.”
My Divine mate flinched and the light flared before it dimmed slightly.
“He came by?”
The disbelief in his voice made me pause. I tried to openmy eyes and managed to see Carrie’s squinted ones, the usual mess on her desk behind her. Carter was still hidden behind the brightness.
“To inform me he was leaving, yes.”
“In the middle of the fucking night?”
Carrie cleared her throat. “Well, yes.”
“And you werehere?”
“Look, what I do in my office during my free time is none of your business,” she snapped. “I was here, he stopped by, told me to avoid danger while they were gone, and that was it.”
Carter’s light nearly burned my eyes, forcing me to shut them again.
“But they’re—”
“Extremely powerful,” Carrie cut him off sharply. “If something went wrong, they’ll find a way out.”
“Come on Carrie, you can’t just brush me off like this! I was in his head like ten minutes ago! I saw…I saw them being taken by a fucking army. I saw an Earthwalker using strange powers to—” He paused and shifted beside me, his arm holding me tighter. “TochokeDimitri while he was being attacked by hundreds of people at once. The guyknewArc’s name, we can’t just—”
“What did you say?” I asked, my voice barely audible over my own thoughts. The room fell silent, the brightness dimming a little more from the angel holding me. “It can’t be true. Dimitri’s never been overpowered. He’s too powerful, he’s—”
I choked on a sob, my hands lifting to my face. Tears were suddenly running down my cheeks, drops falling from my jaw to my collarbone, staining Dimitri’s old T-shirt.
“No.” I shook my head. “You must have missed something. That can’t be right.”
The light was now gone, but my eyes remained shut, unable to open and face the reality Carter was giving me. It couldn’t be true. Dimitri had lived for so long, had survived so much.
No, he was going to get out of there. The single time he’d been caught and imprisoned, he destroyed the whole building and found his way out through the debris and corpses in a day. This was no different, except this time, he had Arc with him. The two of them had to be unstoppable.
“They’ll get out,” I whispered to myself. They had to. “I’m sure it was all part of their plan to get in. It’ll be fine. They’ll be alright.”
The only thing I remembered about the two minutes that followed was their tense silence before Carrie had the brilliant idea to ask Carter about the mess on his face. He then proceeded to call me a childish brat and stormed out, yelling that I didn’t take anything seriously.
In my defense, I drew the damn mustachebeforehe came back freaking out of his weird trance.
“You okay over there?” I cursed internally, crushing my whole face against my open palms as Marcus made his way from the door to my desk. “You’ve been cooped up in here every day for almost a week.”
Has it already been a week?Ugh.
“Not true,” I said. “I went to replace the charger of my phone this morning.”
How said charger ended up destroyed beyond repair on a random shelf during the night was a mystery. I suspected Maggie was a bit upset that I moved into the Archives and she was trying to lure me out. Or maybe I sleepwalked and decided that my charger had somewhat reached the end of its usefulness. We might never know what truly happened.
Marcus sat on the armchair facing my desk and dropped his heavy helmet on the floor next to him. “You know, if you don’t want to go home to Carter, you still have a room in our small apartment. Might be a downgrade from the luxurious house Arc invited you in, but the bathrooms are still better than the ridiculous shower you’ve been using in here. Also, I’m guessing your old bed is still comfier than the Archives’ sofas.”
I gave him a blank stare. “Who sent you to try and pull me out from here? Was it Kai? Ann?”
“No one. I’ve been visiting you here since day one, you know that.”
“And you keep making that same offer. I’m fine here. I have work to do.”
