Page 13 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)

R aiden stares at me as if he’s waiting to see if I’ll falter, and he’ll know I’m lying. The thing is, this part of the story is entirely true. I know I thanked them when they left me, but I really would like to thank them now that I’m more aware and definitely alive.

“That’s curious,” he finally says, earning looks from the others.

“Food is here,” Ransom announces into the silence.

“I’ll grab it,” Reed offers.

“Dude, you terrify all humans, I’ll get it,” Doc chuckles, and Reed smiles, finding it just as amusing apparently.

Doc just disappears in a puff of magic, and I feel something inside me settle. I have to admit that I’ve missed being around magic like this. Despite magic and supernaturals now being well known as far as humans are concerned, there is still a lot of prejudice and, quite frankly, fear, and that means that the supes who can tend to hide their magic or if they have features that mark them as supernaturals then they use glamours to conceal those parts of themselves. So, it's been a while since I’ve seen anyone use magic freely, and it’s making me happy and somewhat nostalgic as well.

I frown though, when what Doc said registers, and I turn my attention to Reed, “Why on earth would you terrify humans? I mean, I get that you’re fucking huge and have this don’t fuck with me vibe going on, but I don’t get why that would make humans terrified of you. You don’t scare me.”

The guys all start laughing, sharing an inside joke that I’m not privy to, and Reed’s smile widens, “And that, Neith, is what makes you such an anomaly.”

“Thanks, I think,” I reply, pulling a face. Of course, me being me, I get easily distracted and ask, “Hang on, how do you guys get food delivered and still manage to keep your address secret? Because there was only one place that I found it, and I checked extensively, plus that delivery that did have your address wasn’t a food delivery place?”

River grins and points to a slightly bashful looking Ransom, “That would be Ransom’s doing. He’s a warlock.”

“Dude, do you think it’s a wise idea to tell her what kind of supe Ransom is?” Raiden asks.

I’d be offended, but in all honesty, I’d question their sanity if they hadn’t brought it up. I am a stranger, even though it doesn’t really feel like I am, at least not from my point of view. From theirs, I’m a stranger and someone who has admitted to working for HID, who are known to cause problems for the SID and be just giant dicks in general to any supes.

“It’s too late now; he’s already told her what I am. Besides, I don’t mind; I’d know if she couldn’t be trusted.” Ransom says with a wry look at River, who, like an excitable puppy, looks properly chastised for a moment before he bounces straight back.

He plops down on the floor next to me, and since he’s fiddling with his hands, I figure he’s like me, so I hand him part of Betty to clean, and he immediately settles now that his hands are busy and continues answering my question.

I catch an impressed look from Ransom, who grins at me when I catch his eye.

“Yeah, so Ransom has these wards up around the entirety of the property, several layers actually, and he’s amazing at his craft, so they’re impenetrable, and he’s managed to weave in a few extra things. So, when we get food delivered, they get to the first set of gates and wards, which alerts Ransom, and one of us goes and gets it. By the time the driver is moving away from the wards, they’re already beginning to forget about this place, and ever having come here, it’s really clever.”

“I’ll fucking say, that’s awesome,” I compliment, “what about the order? Surely they have a record of that and question it?”

“I don’t really know how he’s done it, but he’s created some sort of spell that changes the order to a local house, and it changes location every time so no one gets suspicious,” River explains.

It’s damn cute just how proud of his friend he is.

“Foods here. You guys were fucking hungry tonight there seems to be double the amount that we usually get,” Doc announces as he appears in the room again.

I try not to look extremely guilty because I’m responsible for the amount of food and instead smile down at a now thoroughly clean Betty. I quickly clear everything out of the way because I’m going to need space for the amount of food I’ve got and the fact that I like to spread out when I eat.

Doc starts to lay everything out on their giant coffee table, and I follow everyone’s lead as they all just go and grab what they ordered and sit back down.

There’s a general hum of chatter that slowly dies as they realise that all of the food left on the table is for me.

“There is no way that you can eat all of that,” Griff mutters.

Evander chuckles, “Bad move telling her she can’t do something.”

“Challenge accepted,” I retort, causing them all to chuckle.

They carry on talking, but I’m so fucking hungry that I tune them out completely as I practically fall onto the food. I don’t make a complete mess; I am aware that I’m not alone, so I need to at least pretend that I have some manners, especially since I’m ignoring them all.

“How in the hell did you manage to eat all of that?” Reed asks, the others echoing the sentiment.

I shrug, “I was hungry. I haven’t eaten properly for a few days.”

“Wait,” Evander says, as something occurs to him, “you said that you got the call when you got back from your run-in with Ransom and the others?”

I nod, unsure where he’s going with this line of thinking and if he’s somehow realised that I’m not telling the whole truth, “Yeah, I got picked up about thirty minutes after I got back.”

“But that was over a day ago. You’ve been traveling by foot for over a day with wounds as severe as you had?” he asks incredulously, and I once again have everyone’s attention.

“Well yeah, I didn’t really have a choice, I couldn’t risk being seen and the fuckers at HID knowing they didn’t kill me off.” I explain, and when they all continue to just stare at me, I add, “I’ve been in worse situations; this one was nothing.”

“You’ve been in worse situations?” Ransom asks with a frown.

“Yes, I work for HID. They didn’t bring me in for the investigation-only jobs. I was the person they brought in to extract people or information from dangerous or tricky situations,” I explain, a proud smile on my face because I am damn proud that I was able to help as many people as I was.

“With your team, right?” Doc asks.

“Nope, just me,” I grin, stuffing the last of my spring rolls in my mouth.

“There’s a lot to unpack there,” Van frowns.

I just nod because they aren’t actually going to get any more information from me despite how much they ask because I can’t give it to them without sounding like a crazy person.

After the first couple of times that something that should’ve killed me happened and I ended up in the darkness, I thought maybe I was a late bloomer or something and was a supe after all, so I threw myself into research, trying to find anything that matched the darkness and other things I experienced, when I couldn’t find anything and I had no other signs of anything spectacular I just chalked it up to a weird quirk or fluke. The fact that it's happened several times now, so technically, it can’t be classed as a fluke is just a technicality, and I’m going to ignore it because I really did do the research, and the only possible explanation left is that I’m insane, like legitimately lock me up crazy.

So, I do what every person in my position would and ignore it. Well, I ignore the implications and just accept that it's who I am. The voices have always been a part of me, although I haven’t told anyone about them, not even Evander. I was already in a precarious position being the human orphan in a supe village; the only reason I survived was because Evander’s family took me in, and they were strong supes. No one dared to harm me. It was a hope amongst all of them that it would turn out I was a supe of some kind, even if it was a low-level one. It would make them feel better about how I mysteriously turned up as a toddler with no memories and just my name, and it would also mean that I could go to the supe college with Evander. They never put pressure on me, and I knew that they’d love me like their own either way, but I knew that was what they were hoping. I deliberately distanced myself from them after Van went to college. Things happened, my life got dangerous, and there was no way that I was bringing that danger to them even though they were supes, they couldn’t go up against this supe, but that’s a whole other ball of trauma to unpack that I’m simply not going to get into now.

Although it’s rare for someone so obviously human like me to test positive for magic and a supe side on the college entry exams, it is not unheard of which is why it's become law for every kid of college age to get tested.

An untrained supe is an unsafe one.

I have been tested multiple times over my lifetime, in the village, for the college, and then for my job at HID; they tested me as often as possible, the latest being only a couple of weeks ago because they were convinced that due to my success rate and the increasingly dangerous jobs they were sending me on, I was a supernatural infiltrating the HID, it didn’t help them like me when I pointed out a supe would have to be crazy to want to infiltrate the depressing place, either way, I always tested as human.

And I always was hit with a wave of disappointment when the results came back, which is fucking stupid because the results are always the same, and the chance of it changing is actually zero. It’s never happened, not once, never ever.

I have officially completely tuned out of the conversation that was going on around me, and I don’t actually know why they’re all suddenly looking at me.

Evander chuckles and shakes his head, “Still the same Nene.”

I try not to let it show how much hearing my old nickname has made my heart pound. I’m fucking glad he called me that and not the other one. A particularly nasty run-in used it to torment me, and now there’s a bit of trauma attached to it.

He’s dead now though, very dead. The darkness took me, of course; he didn’t expect me to come back, and I was obliged to repay the favor. He more than deserved it.

“That grin is somewhat scary,” Raiden admits, as the others seem to agree. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Just reliving some happy memories,” I reply vaguely. I’m grateful that I wasn’t away with the fairies bad enough that I answered truthfully.

“Right,” Reed mutters, a knowing glint in his eyes with a slight uptick to his mouth.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think that he knew exactly what I was thinking about or at least the jist of what I was thinking about. That would be pretty difficult though; my mental shields are stronger than most humans, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. He’s looking at me with such a knowing yet perplexed look that I take a couple of seconds to make sure that they really are still in place.

I’m surprised to find that although they’re still up and still somewhat more substantial than a normal human, they are a lot thinner than they usually are, which explains why Reed is amused. If he’s a supe that is sensitive to thoughts or even feelings or both, then he’ll be picking up on my absolute joy at the revenge I took, but he shouldn’t be able to tell anything else.

I’m assuming that the reason why my mental shields are so low is because I went into the Darkness and then didn’t immediately eat my body weight and more in food to help build my strength back up. It also shows how weak and out of sorts I still was before I ate all of that food because I didn’t even notice that they were weak, and I could be giving away all sorts of information that I don’t want to give out.

I’m reasonably sure that he’s the only one who has mildly picked up on something, and I’m hoping he hasn’t paid attention to the lusty feelings I’ve been having about, well, all of them, they’re fucking hot, and it has been a while since I’ve been able to have my way with someone.

Okay, I need to fortify my walls and fucking pronto before my thoughts really are broadcast to the whole of the room. That would be bad. My mouth doesn’t understand that it would be better if it stayed closed when I’m embarrassed, and I end up making it a thousand times worse.

Fortunately, it takes me only a couple of seconds to reinforce them back to their usual strength.

“Ow, fuck.” Reed suddenly curses.

“Did you just say ow?” Doc questions incredulously.

Even though I didn’t have my eyes shut, my focus was inward, so I have no idea what just happened. When I refocus on the room, I find myself staring at a wide-eyed Reed.

“Reed, man, are you okay?” River asks concerned.

“She kicked me out,” he replies, still staring at me.

Although I don’t understand what the fuck he’s talking about, the others clearly do as understanding flicks across all of their faces.

Ransom shakes his head, “She can’t have; there’s not very many people that can keep you out. It would be impossible for a human to.”

I pull a confused face, nose scrunched, and everything as I say, “Dude, not only would I not physically be able to kick you out of anywhere, but I also wouldn’t want to, so I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

They all look at me briefly before clearly deciding that it’s not worth replying to, and I instead just lean back and listen to them discuss something weird that I’ve apparently done without meaning to.

“But she’s not scared of him like she should be,” Doc points out.

Evander scoffs, “She’s never been scared of anything.”

“That’s true,” I comment, only to be ignored.

I know I shouldn’t, but I’m actually finding it really amusing watching them be all serious and professional, like agents; it’s also just a tiny bit hot. I have a sudden craving for popcorn. I bet the guys have some.

“Er, guys?” I ask, only they’re so deep in the conversation that they don’t hear me.

River

I can’t believe that she’s here. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her and hoping that she’s okay. She saved my life and my brothers, and as far as I’m concerned, I owe her a debt.

And she’s pretty.

Really fucking pretty.

She also somehow seems to understand that in order to concentrate, I need to be doing something with my hands; the only other people who really get that are the people in this room. She seems important for more reasons than one. She is faster than a human should be, and every now and then, her scent very subtly changes, but before I can get a good lock on the change, she’s back to smelling like she usually does. As a kitsune, I am inherently curious, and I love puzzles; it's just in my nature. The mystery surrounding her and the fact that I instinctively know that she’s not telling us things is an extremely intriguing prospect.

Especially since now, she’s apparently managed to completely block Reed, something that is impossible for a human to do.

“I could barely read her before; I was just getting small snippets of feelings, nothing else. Like what I’d get from a reasonably strong supernatural, but somehow she knew that I was there and blocked me completely within a couple of seconds.” Reed explains, his arms crossed over his chest but his eyes massively intrigued, like we all are the more that we learn about her.

“How?” Griff asks.

“Well, if I knew that, then I would be able to tell you, wouldn’t I?” Reed retorts with a raised eyebrow, and I smirk; the guy can get really sassy when he starts to let his guard down.

It’s interesting to me that he seems to have relaxed so quickly with a stranger in our house. One that appeared pretty much out of nowhere and isn’t scared of him. I would have thought that would put his back up, but it hasn’t, quite the opposite. In fact, he’s a lot more relaxed than I’ve seen him for a long time. I’m not complaining; it’s nice, and I was getting worried because he’s been even more introverted recently, but in a way, this is even more of a puzzle to me.

“Well, you are the all-knowing one,” Griff teases back, and I roll my eyes while several of the other guys groan.

Here we go again.