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But Layden’s already turned and is stomping away.
I toss my hands in the air. “Great. We didn’t get any answers.”
Hannah spins on me. “You’re just as bad as him.” She throws a thumb at Abaddon. “Always treating Layden so suspiciously. How is he ever going to feel like this is home? You’re going to drive him away again if you aren’t careful. And he’s right. The glamours were so helpful. Abaddon and Kharon were able to walk around the city just like anyone else. Even Raven.”
She looks up at her daughter flying around the ceiling with a warm, maternal gaze. “She’ll have so many more opportunities if she can walk in the human world, too. She can go anywhere she wants when she grows up. Be anything she wants to be.”
Abaddon’s gaze immediately softens, and I know he’ll give Layden anything he wants as long as it makes his wife happy.
But I just narrow my eyes after my retreating brother’s back. I’d bet anything he had something to do with Remus’s sudden new abilities.
Time to get this little talk back on track. “We’ve lost the point. Remus is being Remus, and we all know how dangerous that can be. He’s taken this woman in under false pretenses.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lo-Ren pipes up. “I think I knew what I was getting into. Like you said, he did fly down from the sky. I saw the tail and everything.”
I turn on her. “But you didn’t know he shared a body with me. And you didn’t know he was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
She waves a hand breezily. “You know, I was thinking about that. Really, how much pressure should I put on the guy to disclose everything in the first few days of knowing someone? I think he wanted me to get to know him for him without all his baggage. And I really liked what I got to know. I want to get to know him better.”
I cough out a scoff. Baggage? Did she just call me baggage?
“Seems reasonable,” Hannah says. “Besides, what’s the harm of her staying a little longer?”
“There’s lots of harm!” I explode, and all their heads swing my way at my outburst. Dammit, I’m losing tactical ground because of my emotions. Something that usually only happens to my opponents. I’m always the cool, calm, and collected one. I try to gather myself, stand up straighter, and use reason.
“The humans will be looking for her. You said the video of Remus’s reckless actions was all over the human’s networks.”
“It’s not that bad, actually,” Layden pipes up from behind us. Apparently, he didn’t storm off to his room after all. He meandered to the fireplace couches, but he’s heading back in our direction, having been listening to our conversation the whole time. Again, my eyes narrow at him.
“Look,” he says, holding out his phone.
A video plays on it, a serious man in a suit speaking while sitting at a desk. “The incident that took the Internet by storm has officially been debunked as a hoax. In Miami this week, a winged man appeared to descend from the sky to the shock of everyone in the plaza.”
“Many took amateur video of the incident, “In the corner of the screen, a shaky video shows a shadow descending into the center of the plaza and people running all directions away from it, “and the world has been ablaze with conspiracy theories about the man, who some on the scene heard claim to be a god. But today, the Florida man has been arrested, along with his illegal jet pack.”
The video changes to police pulling a tall, drunk-looking man out of a trailer while another policeman holds up a large jet-pack, and still another drags out a pair of large, synthetic wings.
“In other news, yet another federal bank has been hacked—”
Layden turns off the video. “See? No long-term ramifications. The humans have already moved on to the next story. They have no attention span.”
“That’s that,” Abaddon says with a smile, clapping me on the shoulder. “Problem solved.”
“Wha—”
“What’s for dinner?” he asks, turning to Hannah. “Should I sear some steak?”
“What do you mean, problem solved?” I demand. “She can’t stay!”
Abaddon turns to her. “Do you want to leave?”
She shakes her head. “No, if it’s not too much to impose on your hospitality. I’d really love to stay and get to know Remus better.”
Abaddon claps his hands. “Sounds like it’s solved to me.”
“What about the little problem of he and I sharing a body!” I demand.
Hannah looks sympathetic as she reaches out to put a hand on my bicep. “I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you. It’s not like you could really discuss what it would be like if one of you started dating.”
