Page 27 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)
Léandre
T he girl is looking at me like I’ve grown a second head, and I can’t decide for the life of me if I find it exasperating or cute.
She looks familiar, and I’m not just saying that because I remember seeing her cry on my first day after my memory loss.
I think I know her from somewhere.
There’s something in my mind that tells me I’ve met her before, but I can’t pinpoint what it is or where that would be.
It wouldn’t matter, though, because she doesn’t seem to like me very much.
If we knew each other before my memory loss, we were probably far from friends.
“I thought you didn’t remember anything?” The girl—Cassiopé—tells me.
It’s worded weirdly because it sounds like a question, but I’m not sure she’s actually expecting an answer.
I still answer, anyway.
“I don’t. But I’ve learned a bit about him. And it’s undeniable that he’s my father. Physically, I mean. I also know from Angélique that he wasn’t always so… fractured. We’re all hoping that giving him back his wings will help, and I wanted to do that for him.”
I’m not saying that I doubt it’ll bring him back from the madness he seems to live in, though. I’m not sure they need to know.
I’m also not sure they need to know that I think my father will be even more broken—if his mind comes back—when he discovers that the son he raised is no longer.
Because so far, the time we have spent together is peaceful, but it’s also blissfully devoid of any memory between us.
We’re both content to just exist next to each other.
But I don’t see that working out so well if his mind is back to normal, though.
I hear the girl grumble something, but what, I have no idea.
It’s done so low that I know it wasn’t made for me to hear.
I saw her a few times in Notre Dame, which means she’s probably used to the fact those damned bats can hear everything and anything. For all I know, she might be a bat herself.
“What’s in it for you?” I ask the grumpy duet.
“You’ll have to ask Elis, I’m not in the know,” Cassiopé tells me with a shrug. It makes me wonder why exactly they picked her for this mission, if she knows nothing about what we’re about to do or what we’re going to steal.
“You don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I can carry whatever we’re getting from there,” the man says.
If she’s grumpy, he’s grumpier.
But they both seem to be very professional, and for the next hour, we pour over the maps that lay on the table.
They’re accompanied by schedules of every sort that show all the people getting in and out of the whole building on a daily basis.
I don’t know how the humans got their hands on all of that, but it’s truly impressive.
When we’ve been here for almost the whole morning and have compiled every document that can actually be useful, Elis interjects.
“We need to bring you up now,” he tells me, and I have no idea why it came so suddenly. I have half a mind to ask about it when Cassiopé chimes in.
“I’m not ‘we’. Bring him back over ground. I’m going to see Christina.”
Well, that sounded lovely.
I truly have no idea what I did to this girl, but it must have been something truly awful. Or maybe she’s just a bitch.
No, it can’t be that. She doesn’t seem to react the same way to Elis’s presence, so it must be me.
Well, I don’t know what to do to make it better, anyway, so she’ll probably have to bear with me until this mission is over.