“What did you say to him to make him risk your wrath?” Coen asks me and the guys stop talking and look at me questioningly as the realization dawns on them. “He may not give a fuck about whatever consequences he would get from escaping the prison, but the last thing he wants to do is piss you off, and he knows he walks an incredibly thin line right now.”
“I asked for his advice,” I explain. I realize that keeping what I asked of Dimitri a secret is most likely going to cause more harm than good. So, I meet Baz’s gaze, “I was worried about trusting you despite the fact that it felt like I could. I have trusted people that I shouldn’t have before.” Understanding lights Coen’s eyes, and he immediately gets up, rounds the table, picks me up, and puts me on his lap, holding me closely while I continue to face the now worried-looking guys.
I continue to explain, immediately comforted by Coen, I have no idea how he knew that I needed him before I even did, but fucking hell does he have my heart.
Coen’s actions put Baz and the guys on edge, and they all tense, their deadly auras coming out to play.
I continue to explain, “Dimitri immediately knew what the real root of my issue was, and he told me that he made sure that he remembered His magical signature, so in the unlikely scenario that he could put his torn and burned pieces back together, Dimitri would know. He was going to use me as a conduit of sorts, look through myeyes to check that you weren’t Him, for me. I made the mistake of challenging him when he joked that it would be better in person, and I reminded him he couldn’t escape. He was proving a point.”
The guys all stare at me, but not in the way that I thought, more in the way that they think I’m missing something. All of them, even Baz, share a look.
“What?” I ask. I then add, because I think that’s what they’re looking at me for, “Oh, you’re good, Baz. Dimitri said that we could trust you, and confirmed that your magical signature wasn’t His, even though I knew that.”
“That’s not what we were looking at you like that for, Nene. I sort of assumed you would have told us sooner if Baz wasn’t safe,” Van replies.
“Then what was the look for?” I ask, still confused.
Surprisingly, it’s Baz who answers me.
“He came to ensure that you were safe. It wasn’t to prove you wrong, or show off, he risked being punished at the prison, risked you hating him again, all to make sure that you were safe and to reassure you,” Baz tells me bluntly. “I like him.”
“We all do,” Reed agrees.
“I . . .” I trail off, entirely unsure how to process that, but at the same time, it makes sense to me.
Dimitri always put my safety first, before everything else, and that’s why it hurt so much when he stopped.
Except he didn’t, did he? Not really.
He still protected me in the only way that he knew how to, and honestly, that makes me feel big things that I’m not quite sure how to handle.
Sensing that my brain is short-circuiting right now, Van thankfully changes the subject and looks at Doc.
“So, you know there's a breach at the prison and are guarding it just in case someone tries to use it to escape, but you haven’t told anyone or fixed the breach,” Van says.
Doc nods, a smile lighting his eyes, “Yep. Do you really need me to spell it out? You all feel the same as I do. None of us likes the fact that Dimitri is in there. When I found the breach, I considered closing it up, and then I decided not to. Things with us change on a dime, and I thought that it would be better to be overprepared than underprepared, so in the eventuality that we needed to get Dimitri out and we couldn’t do it by normal means, we would have a backup plan.”
“Brilliant,” Griff grins. “I like it. Although Dimitri has just proved that it’s not necessary.”
“Unless he could only get out because of that breach, is it a magical or physical one?” Raiden asks Doc.
“It’s just a physical one,” Doc replies. “I hadn’t got far enough into the thought process to figure out how we were going to get through all of the magical protections.”
“Which means that Dimitri was able to get through them,” Baz points out with his eyebrows raised. “From what you said about how quickly he got to you, it would seem that he did it with very little effort as well.”
I nod, “He seemed too, but when I spoke to him when he went back, he seemed really tired, so it must magically drain him.”
“That makes sense,” Ransom agrees. “It’s an incredible amount of magic that he had to cross through, and he seemed to do it with a ridiculous amount of speed.”
“Agreed,” Griff replies. “At least we know that there is an option to help Dimitri if we need it.”
“Yes, because it’s not crazy to break someone out of the prison that we have put multiple extremely dangerous criminals in,” Coen says sarcastically with a smirk.
Baz’s eyes widen as he sits up in his chair, “Wait a fucking minute. You guys are law enforcement?”
“We didn’t tell you that?” Raiden asks with a slight frown.
“No, you definitely didn’t,” Baz replies. “That makes the whole break Dimitri out of prison at some point more intriguing.”
