Page 50 of Anomalies

“He got drunk on your watch, then slept in your bed⁠—”

“So, you kicked my door in?” I freeze in front of… a new door.

“I fixed it.”

I whirl around to face him, stumbling back a step when he’s a lot closer than I had anticipated. “I’m not going to thank you,” I assure him, my heels knocking against the door in a desperate attempt to put some space between us.

The Captain’s grey eyes dip to where my white-knuckled hand clutches the doorknob, and then he smiles. “I don’t need you too.” Faster than I’ve seen anyone move, he snatches my wrist and my knee comes up instinctively, straight between his legs⁠—

Callan halts the kick with his other hand, stopping what would have surely done some damage. “That wasn’t very nice, Lucina.”

“I wasn’t going for nice,” I fire back.

He nods as if he finds that amusing but not at all threatening, then he pushes my leg down and pulls my wrist between us, pressing a small silver key into my open palm. “For you,” the Captain says, then flashes a second silver key and slides it into his pocket. “And for me.”

My face pales, then fury flares deep in my gut. “Are you fucking with me?” I grit out, my jaw clenched so tightly it hurts.

“What?” he feigns innocence, patting the key in his pocket. “Now I won’t have to break it down again.”

“You never had to break it down. You could have just fucking knocked.” Everything is bubbling up inside of me, reaching a violent fever pitch. “Do you have a key to everyone’s cabin, or just mine?”

“Just yours.”

Only then do I realize he’s still holding my wrist, and when his thumb brushes across it, I yank it away with a vengeance.

His silver eyes sharpen. “It has to be this way, Lucina. Pax had orders, and he clearly can’t be trusted with them.”

“Oh, and you can?” I laugh, though it’s hardly funny. “I trust Pax significantly more than I trust you.”

The Captain’s jaw clenches so tight a muscle in it flickers, and when he steps slowly into me, I’m smushed between him and my new door. Dammit, I wish there was still a hole there.

He carefully lowers himself so he can look me in the eyes. “I don’t care if you trust me, Lucina, but you will not interfere with me doing my job.”

“Right, your job.” That’s really all I am to him– a job. I muster the courage to flash an innocent smile, and he sees it for what it is: fake. “Well, in that case, Captain, you’ll be happy to know that Pax did his job very well.”

If he wants to treat me like a captive, the least I can do is make it an infuriating task.

Callan chuffs, folding his arms across his chest. “I strongly disagree.”

“Really?” My head tilts to the side, and his nostrils flare. “I mean, you said you wanted him to watch me, and he did. All. Night. Long⁠—”

A gasp breaks from my lips when something sharp scrapes against my skull, phantom claws tearing through my⁠—

Memories. Holy gods, he’s got hold of my memories.

I grit against the weight of it, my head swarming with static and thrumming with the strength of his magic as it races through my brain, prodding at the most vulnerable bits of it.

“Do you feel that?” he says low enough that chills break out across my skin. “Is this what you wanted? To try and get a rise out of me?” His hold tightens, razor-sharp talons, threatening to cherry-pick whatever he wants from my brain.

“I didn’t…have to try…that hard,” I grind out, signing myself up for the dumbest game of chicken I’ve ever willingly participated in. It’s not worth it, losing all my memories just to keep my pride, but I don’t think he has the balls to do it.

Callan’s eyes darken as if he can feel my fear. As if he holds my capacity to feel and breathe and live between those phantom claws, and one squeeze of his fist could disintegrate everything I am or ever was.

He rifles through my memories like they’re pages of a book, but there are chapters that I’d rather die than let him see, like that hellish cottage I grew up in, and those monsters I grew up with⁠—

And the Eldral. Shit.

A fury unlike anything I’ve ever conjured rises within me like a spout of fire, my very bones trembling from the weight of it, and that ancient power races towards his probing claws.