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“I don’t understandwhy you’re blaming this on me,” Lara St. Maarten said, her voice colder.“Ididn’t close the portal, Detective.”

Nick stared at her for a few seconds, for the first time wondering if maybe shehadclosed it. The idea hadn’t even occurred to him until then, but now it suddenly felt like a real possibility. He was forced to dismiss the odd thought seconds later.

No, she hadn’t closed it.

Probably.

St. Maarten continued to watch him, her eyes cold.

“You’re angry at me because you… quite wisely, I might add…hesitatedto go through an inter-dimensional portal with mindless abandon. The smarter angels of your nature, Detective, decided maybe it would be better to stop, think, consider. Given you had absolutelyno ideawhere that doorway might lead, or whether that place or time or dimension would kill you the instant you landed… or kill your friends and family, more surely, even if you survived… pardon me for not being overly broken up that you came to your senses at the last second!”

Her lipsticked mouth pursed as she shook her head.

“Do you really want to aim your temper tantrum at me?” she scoffed. “What possiblepurposedoes that anger even serve now? Especially since it was your owncommon sensethat caused you to pause before doing something somonumentallystupid?”

Nick didn’t answer.

At his silence, Lara St. Maarten sniffed haughtily.

“…I don’t know if I should be flattered or not that you’d rather creditmefor that rational hesitation, Nick, instead of your own better judgment.”

“Wewouldhave been through it, if you hadn’t stopped us,” Nick growled.

“It would have been a very foolish thing to do,” she snapped back.

“Don’t even pretend that’s why you put a stop to it,” Nick warned, a touch colder himself. “You didn’t rush up there with the fucking Leash toprotectus… certainly not to protectme.You came up there to make sure I didn’t abscond with your favorite weapons.”

“Ludicrous,” she scoffed. “You are utterly paranoid, Nick. When have I ever done anything but help you and those children––?”

“Paranoid?”he cut in. His anger spiked, in spite of himself. “You brought those fuckers up there, knowingexactlywhat they were. Knowing exactly what they do to my kind. They fuckingmurderedtwo vampires right in front of us, and disappeared Walker into a gods-damned black hole run by the H.R.A. If he’s not dead already, he might not ever see daylight again––”

“Nonsense.” She snorted, refolding her thin arms. “Your flare for the dramatic really has no bounds.” She glared at him in open warning. “I hope you don’t speak like this in front of your N.Y.P.D. superiors, Nick, because you sound like some kind of anti-human radical.”

“What part of what I said isn’t true?” Nick snapped.

“How aboutallof it,” she shot back. “Mr. Walker is perfectly fine. Mi6 is negotiating for his release as we speak. At worst, he’ll be banned from returning to the Protected Areas of North America for conducting illegal activities on our soil.”

Nick let out a skeptical grunt.

She gave him a scathing look, her nostrils flaring.

“As for those vampires who were supposedly ‘murdered’ for no reason,” she said, making air quotes with her fingers.“Bothof them were wanted criminals who had only recently escaped confinement. They’d been convicted of the murder of their mutual human employer. The main reason they picked Forrest up was to explain his association with them––”

Nick let out a humorless snort. “What an absolute crock ofshit!”

She rolled her eyes, her expression irritated. “As I said, your penchant for drama, exaggeration, and conspiracy is unparalleled, Nick.”

“As is your capacity for treating me like I’m a fucking idiot,” Nick snapped back.“Youdid this, Lara.” Nick growled low in his throat.“Youdid it. All so you could keep your pet seers. All so you wouldn’t lose the illegal weapons you have in Tai and Malek. And now you expect me to just go back to working for you, like nothing happened––”

“I expect no such thing,” she said, her voice even colder.

She drew out a menacing-feeling pause.

“But since we’re discussing it,” she went on acidly. “I find it exceedingly interesting that you intended to remove three of my best and mostirreplaceableassets, people I actuallycareabout, and have known for decades, incidentally, without so much as telling me.”

Her voice grew harsher, more openly angry.