Our eyes meet, and I add in a whisper, "You can still trust me. I’m sorry if I crossed a line. If I abused that trust in any way. Please forgive me."
Blue doesn’t answer, but his eyes stay locked on me, as if he’s gauging my truthfulness, maybe even through our Bond.
And I have nothing to hide. I’ve never betrayed him in any way beyond the incident with his glasses, so I hold his gaze without flinching.
For some bizarre reason, the cryptic thing Snow said earlier comes back to me out of nowhere. I have no idea if it even makes sense, but it slips out of me anyway.
"Sometimes you need to break something to come back stronger."
No clue whether it applies to any of this, but I say it anyway.
"Excuse me?" Blue raises an eyebrow.
"It’s…um. Something Snow told me. A piece of advice, I guess. About how to get out of trouble."
The elevator doors slide open onto the small Malden branch floor, so Blue doesn’t get the chance to respond.
Simon is already standing there waiting for us, Director Flanegin next to him, talking and gesturing widely.
"Oh, good, there you are!" Simon sighs, as if relieved he can excuse himself from his chat with Flanegin. "Another few minutes and we’d be late. Traffic’s ugly at this hour."
He joins us as we continue down, the director being left behind.
Simon constantly talks during the ride to the lower levels, but my head is a mess and almost none of it sticks.
We step out into the underground garage, and I’m immediately unpleasantly surprised by the sight of Ruben, Rolf, and Lionel standing near Blue’s limousine.
"They’re coming with us today?"
Blue nods.
"Yes. We decided that whenever I handle matters outside the office, I would be using external security, did we not?"
I mutter an ugly Russian curse under my breath and follow him anyway.
Hector isn’t with the guards today, and their car pulls out behind us.
We start crawling through the city, pushing through traffic.
But I just can’t calm down.
From time to time I throw little dart-like glances at Blue, who seems to be deep in thought.
At the back of my head, this strange pressure starts building, slowly at first, then strong enough that my vision almost swims. I don’t understand what’s causing it. Is it just nerves about the whole situation, or is it an actual reaction to what’s about to happen? As the sensation keeps intensifying, I turn to Blue.
"Listen. I know you’ve already made your decision. But you need to know that sometimes, ten or fifteen minutes before something bad happens, I get headaches like this…"
Silence follows. Blue just stares at me.
Simon, who has no idea about my abilities, looks up with an amused expression.
"Probably a hangover. Those can hit in the middle of the day too. Annoying as hell."
I let out a loud breath.
"No, that’s not it!" My voice is half an octave too high. I look at Blue, almost pleading. "I don’t drink." I lean a little closer to him. "I have a bad feeling, Blue, I beg you. We should be extremely careful."
Our eyes stay locked for a while. Blue doesn’t ask anything else, he just nods, activates his earpiece, and tells Ruben to stay on high alert.
