Page 31

Neith

“A ctually, come to think of it, considering that you were so close to Dimitri, and such an integral part of his operation, I’m surprised that we didn’t know about you,” Raiden says with a frown, as he begins to walk again, and we all do too.

“At the beginning, Dimitri made sure to keep all of us out of the public eye. We couldn’t do what we did if everyone knew who we were.

After he changed and he moved away from what we were, and everything that came after it, Kar and I still made sure to keep as out of the knowledge of others as possible, we were obviously known but not widely so,” I explain.

“Kar?” River asks curiously.

“Yeah, he really was like a brother to me. Fiercely protective, but would mess with me all the time, and didn’t treat me any differently just because I was a human.

Coen, Dimi, and he used to have the most epic sparring matches, they were literally explosive.

He helped to keep an eye on me around the more dangerous supes if Coen and Dimitri weren’t around.

When Dimitri changed, he also tried to distract him as much as possible so that I could avoid Dimitri’s poisonous and hurtful words and actions as much as he was able to.

Obviously, he couldn’t do it all the time or even too often, since he had his own jobs to do,” I explain with a fond smile.

“Sounds like someone I’d like to meet,” Doc says with a smile.

“He’d like you guys,” I grin.

“Where is he now?” Ransom asks curiously.

“He’s still with Dimitri,” I reply with a frown.

“He said that someone had to keep an eye on him. He also knew that there was no way that HID would protect him, and he had made too many enemies and done too much to go to SID and hope that they didn’t take him down.

He had done no more than I did. He just wanted to stick around for Dimitri, even though Dimitri treated him just as badly as he treated me. I never really understood it.”

“Huh,” Doc replies, with a slight frown.

“When was the last time that you saw him?” Raiden asks, distracting me before I can ask Doc what he’s thinking.

My eyebrows draw down as I try to think of how long it’s been, “It must have been a good few years. I have seen him since I got out and started to work for HID, but it’s been a long time.

Dimitri followed him the last time and let loose a torrent of verbal abuse that nearly broke me.

Kar knocked him out, gave me a giant hug, threw Dimitri over his shoulder, and told me not to worry, he’d keep him away. I didn’t see him again.”

My frown deepens as I think back to that moment, looking at it from an outside point of view, now time has dulled the sting of his words and actions.

I’m most likely remembering it wrong, and seeing things that I want to see, it was a long time ago, but looking back, I would almost be tempted to say that Dimitri let Kar knock him out.

Kar is strong, but he and Dimitri fought all the time, there’s no way that he was able to surprise Dimitri enough to knock him out. Plus, Dimitri is stronger than Kar.

I shake my head. I’m not going down that rabbit hole, not again. I spent a long time making excuses and trying to find reasons for Dimitri’s behavior when there weren’t any, and I can’t allow myself to start doing that again, all it does is cause me pain.

“Well, if everything went to plan, then Dimitri is most likely in one of our prisons now, so you might be able to see Kar again,” Griff points out, with a slight frown between his eyebrows.

“Why are you frowning?” Ransom asks.

Griff’s frown becomes deeper, “I don’t know. I just got an uneasy feeling, my magic stirred.”

“A vision?” Raiden asks.

Griff shakes his head, “I didn’t see anything, but I would definitely say that the feeling was a premonition. I just don’t know exactly what it’s about.”

“Give it a day or two, and you’ll probably get the full vision that will let you know what the feeling was about. That’s how it usually works,” River suggests.

Griff nods in agreement, “Yeah, good point.”

“I just realized none of you answered me, and we got all off track with the conversation,” I say after a few moments of silence. “Can I kill him?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Evander replies. “As much as I want to be able to tell you to go for it, it will just end up causing you more problems.”

“Plus, we would probably have to go on the run and not to sound incredibly selfish, but I really like our house, and now that I’ve finally moved in I can get my room exactly like I want, I’ve never really had a room before, not one that I’ve wanted to make my own.

Just in case I’ve had to leave it,” Doc rambles.

His ramble catches me off guard completely because I haven’t ever heard him ramble before, and it clearly catches him off guard as well because his eyes widen and then dart around looking everywhere but at me.

I reach for his hand and squeeze it tightly. “You’ve never really had a room before?”

He glances down at me, his expression cautious like he’s waiting to see some kind of judgment or something similar on my face, when he doesn’t find any, he doesn’t relax completely, his shoulders still tense and his eyes tight.

He glances up at the others, and I catch Evander nod once, and give him an encouraging smile.

He lets out a heavy breath and then replies, “No. I have never had a bedroom that was really mine. From the age of twelve, I grew up in the supernatural equivalent of an orphanage. Any roommates that I have had since have gotten pretty fed up with me pretty quickly, and so I never made a space mine. I’m not easy to get along with. ”

I frown, “Why not? I don’t find you difficult to get along with at all. I think you’re amazing, and so incredibly intelligent. I love it when you talk about what you do and why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s really interesting.”

Doc’s eyes widen, and the others chuckle softly.

“I told you,” Van says.

I’ve clearly missed something. “What?”

Doc stops, moves me so that I’m facing him, and pulls me tight against him, kissing me softly. He gently rubs his nose against mine and says, “Nothing. You are absolutely fucking perfect, how the fuck did we get so fucking lucky.”

“Ain’t that the truth brother,” Ransom mutters while the others all nod in agreement.

Doc pulls my hand gently so that I carry on walking, and I sort of just follow in a daze. That was so fucking sweet. I definitely feel like I’ve missed something big, but I have no idea what, and no one seems to be upset, so I decide that I’m going to let it go.

“So no murder?” I question again, trying to change the subject, even though the conversation has been had, and I know the answer.

Evander chuckles and shakes his head. “No Nene, no murder. At least not for the moment.”

“I’m good with that,” I reply. “I don’t want Doc to lose his bedroom. I really like my bedroom too actually. Oh, I’m so tired,” I finish as a giant yawn seems to overtake me from nowhere.

“It’s been a long day,” River points out with a smile.

“Tell me about it. I had the trial this morning, then the panic of watching you guys in a trial, and then what I thought was another one, but even if it wasn’t, it was like a trial and I met a fucking unicorn, that’s just nuts.

Honestly, I think if I didn’t have the proof on my arm, I wouldn’t believe it happened and would think that I had fallen in the woods, landed on some hallucinogenic plants, put my fingers in my mouth somehow, and then tripped the whole thing. ”

River bursts out laughing and teasingly asks, “Does that happen often?”

I raise my eyebrows, “You would be surprised how often that happens.”

River’s mouth drops open in shock as all of the others burst out laughing.

“No fucking way,” Griff chuckles.

“Oh, you have to tell us that story,” Reed adds.

I grin, “Maybe one day.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” River grins, “it sounds like one epic story.”

I chuckle. “Oh, it is, but I think I probably need to be drunk and have Coen with me in order to give it justice.”

“Even better,” Ransom laughs.

“Back to the original question,” Griff says.

“I think when it comes to getting the necklace from Kylen, the plan should be that you get it if the opportunity arises and it’s safe to do so.

If it’s going to put you at extra risk, then don’t do it.

Coen wouldn’t want you to risk yourself unnecessarily.

If you can’t get it, we will figure something else out.

We teach at the academy, and we can ask Ty to make sure that we’re around when they are. ”

“No, we can’t,” River interrupts. “Ty said that their team would be disbanded, and they wouldn’t be working for SID when the Choosing is over.”

“That’s true, I forgot about that,” Griff replies with a frown.

“Do you think that they know that?” I ask curiously.

River shrugs, “I have no idea. We got pulled in a lot sooner than we thought we would, so Ty may not have had a chance to fill them in on the price of their actions and pulling a human into the Choosing.”

“That’s true. I’m not sure he would have told them anyway. They’re a danger, and if they have no job left to go back to, or it’s under threat at least, then they don’t really have much to lose, and they could have posed an even bigger threat to Neith,” Raiden points out.

“I’m not human though,” I say, replying to what River said. “Is that likely to cause a problem for Ty when he fires them, because technically they didn’t pull a human in?”

Van shakes his head, “I don’t think so, as far as they were concerned, they pulled you in thinking you were a human.”

“Besides, that’s not the only reason why Ty is getting rid of them. They have many faults, and they shouldn’t be SID agents,” Ransom adds.