Page 28 of Cast in Shadow (Drenched in Darkness #1)

28

By the time I made it back to my suite, I almost had my head on straight. Or so I thought, until I opened the door to find Shayla waiting for me. She was sitting in my chair, her arms crossed over her chest, with just the warm light of my reading lamp illuminating her.

“Where have you been?” For one brief second, she looked like a disappointed parent.

I was tempted to remind her that I was her legal guardian up until a few months earlier, but I bit my tongue. Respect demanded respect. “I went to see Emerson.”

Excitement lit her hazel eyes, but she managed to keep her expression schooled otherwise. “And?”

“And what?”

“Did you two make up?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked. “You both say you’re sorry for whatever you did wrong, and you get on with living. What’s so hard about that? ”

More than I hoped she would ever know. I glanced around the room. “Are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?”

Shay rolled her eyes. “Deflecting? Really?”

“Actually, this is what most people would call concern,” I fired back.

“I’m fine.”

I dropped my keys on the table beside the door and sank down onto the soft couch. “Do you want to talk about it?”

We both knew she was in my suite because her nightmares had scared her badly enough that she hadn’t wanted to be alone. The fact that I wasn’t here when she needed me didn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies, but I wasn’t about to let her shut me out now.

She uncrossed her arms and folded her legs beneath her. “Not really.”

“Was it about Phineas?”

Another half-hearted eye roll. “So what if it was? I’m awake now. I’m not trapped in some shitty room while that asshole…”

I gave her a few seconds to find her voice, but when she didn’t go on, I asked, “While he what?”

Neither she nor Nguyen had completed an incident report on their abduction, and they were both frustratingly tight-lipped about what happened that night. All I knew for sure was that it was bad. Also, when I got my hands on Phineas, I would use every drop of power at my disposal to make him pay for what he did, and I would make damned sure it hurt.

She shook her head, but as she did, she curled in on herself. “It doesn’t matter. There was no permanent damage.”

Maybe not physically, but trauma like that left invisible wounds that would only fester and eat away at her confidence and mental health the longer she ignored them. It didn’t help that she was also a lot like me: stubborn to a fault.

Pushing her too hard wouldn’t help .

“Did you get any sleep?”

She nodded. “A few hours.”

“You want breakfast?” I could order her to lay down and try to get a little more shut eye, but I knew even the blackout shades that kept my suite as dark as night on the brightest day weren’t enough to trick her mind and body into sleeping when the sun was up.

She looked me up and down with a critical eye. “How about I cook while you shower?”

“That bad?” I pulled my shirt up to my nose and sniffed. Emerson’s scent clung to the fabric. It was faint, but it was all I could do not to inhale more deeply. Like a hopeless addict.

I remembered this feeling all too well, like I was spinning out of control.

His pull was so goddamn strong.

“If you can smell him…” Shay let her words trail off.

Point taken. I let my shirt fall back in place. “I’ll be quick.”

When I emerged from my bedroom a short while later, dressed in clean black fatigues with my hair wrapped in a damp bun at the base of my neck, the scent of her homemade egg drop soup was already filling the air. I’d given her a hard time about making it for breakfast the first time she’d done it, but as she’d pointed out, when we tossed in a handful of fried wonton strips, it wasn’t that different from eggs and toast. It also warmed the body in a way the latter never could.

“It smells delicious,” I offered, walking into the kitchen behind her and pulling two big bowls from the cabinet.

“It’s almost ready.” She didn’t look up when she said it. She just kept staring down into the slowly swirling concoction.

I reached around her and shut off the burner, then wrapped my arms around her. “You know I’m here if you want to talk, right?”

Shay nodded silently .

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night.”

She laid her head back on my shoulder. “I’m not upset about that, Senna. I practically shoved you toward figuring things out with him.” She patted my arm gently, and I released her so she could face me. “I’m glad you went to talk to him. Really.”

And yet, the guilt eating at me didn’t ease in the slightest.

“I’m supposed to meet him tonight, but I can postpone if you want.”

She shook her head. “Not a chance. You’re going.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Bullshit,” she breathed. “Maybe you don’t realize it, but you’ve been different since he showed up.”

“Yeah, more on edge than ever.” More confused. More heart torn.

“No. Well, maybe a little. But you’ve also been more… I can’t even think of the word.”

I arched a brow and waited.

She shot me a weak glare. “You know… more human. Like, with feelings and everything.”

I barked out an unexpected laugh. “I am human, honey.”

“You know what I mean.”

Okay, so, maybe I’d been a little closed off, but it was a necessary evil. Before starting Lexa, my life had depended on me being an island unto myself. And after, well, killing dangerous rogue supernaturals didn’t exactly make the organization a friend to all in the magical community. Most people who knew about us understood our mission. They didn’t always agree with our methods, but they knew removing bad actors helped keep everyone else safer.

The flip side was it also made us plenty of enemies. So, even after realizing Emerson had stopped looking for me, I still kept everything bottled up. It was safer that way. At least for me.

No one could hurt me if I didn’t let them in .

Shay was wrong about the catalyst though. It wasn’t reuniting with Emerson that changed me. It was her. When I brought her under my wing and started to see her as my daughter, that was the first time I’d let anyone know the real me since Emerson. Granted, she didn’t know all my secrets, but she knew who I was better than anyone else.

“It’s not just him, you know.” I wrapped her in a hug. “If it wasn’t for you softening me up, he wouldn’t have a chance in hell with me right now.”

She hugged me back. “I’m not so sure about that. You took me in off the street and treated me like family when I had nothing. That takes a big heart.”

I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but her words triggered a wave of guilt. I’d noticed her on the streets around the hotel weeks before we’d ever exchanged words, and the only reason we did was because she was a better person than I was. “In case you forgot, you were the one who saved me in that alley.”

“Then we saved each other?”

I nodded. That was how I saw it.

“That’s kind of poetic,” she said.