Page 37 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

Yun

I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep before I saw Corsa standing there, before me. One minute I was in the shower, the next, there he was.

I shook my head, wondering how unlucky a person could be. This didn’t feel like good sleep, like the kind that would let me wake up well-rested. Instead, it seemed as though when someone finally woke me, I’d wonder what century it was.

“This is bullshit,” I muttered. At least we weren’t in The Pitt, at least not like before. Instead, I was still in the shower, which had me turning my back on him and pretending he wasn’t there.

He’d already ruined so many things, did he really have to ruin my shower, too?

In fact, that made me wonder if I might be sleeping under the water right now. Maybe I was drowning?

That seemed like a pretty foolish way to go. Could Kenyon solve drowning? At least a petty part of me thought Mr. Yorn would have an aneurysm that his little pet escaped him in such a mundane way.

“You didn’t speak like that before.”

“I was a kid before. I’m an adult now.”

“So it seems.” Something in his tone triggered a warning in my head, made me twist and really think.

I hadn’t fallen asleep, had I? I remembered getting into the shower, lathering up my hair, all of it. I didn’t have any gaps, which meant…

I grabbed a towel that hung over the top bar of the shower’s glass door, then held it in front of me. It didn’t wrap fully around me because that would require far more coordination than I thought myself capable of at the moment.

“You’re here.” I hated the fear in my voice, the way it shook.

“Not yet, no.”

“But I’m not asleep.”

“I could only contact you when you were asleep before because you were outside of the portal. Now you’re here, home, so I can reach you when you’re awake.” His gaze moved over me, but I didn’t feel anything sexual in it. Still, it made me want to cower away. “You’re finally coming in the right direction.”

“I’m going for the heart, not for you.”

“Lucky for you, just as you’re connected to the heart, so am I. I never much believed in fate before, but I understand now that some things are meant to be, that they are inevitable. I was always meant to be here, and you were always meant to come back to me.” He shrugged, as though it were a forgone conclusion.

I shook my head, refusing to accept that. “I know what happened in The Pitt before, I know how you ended up trapped here.”

“Yes, I made a choice to follow orders.”

“You made a choice to follow your own interest. You were more than willing to let kids die just to get a shot at glory, at a title from people in power.”

Anger flashed in his purple eyes, but he didn’t rise to my jab. “Do you know why you’ve been running for ten years and I haven’t?”

“Because you’re trapped in here and I wasn’t.” I winced at my own words, wondering who I’d gotten that snark from. I’d guess Carter, since if it were Ingram, there would have been more cursing.

He smiled as though mildly amused. “Because I have power and you don’t. It’s why you were shuffled from squad to squad, why that fool from Obsidian thought he could use you, why you constantly need a squad to save you. You look down on me for my choice, but the reality is that I did what was needed to gain power, which is all that really matters in our world.”

My fingers ached as I gripped the towel, the water still falling down and soaking me. I didn’t tear my eyes away from him, even though I knew he wasn’t exactly there. He was in my mind, portraying this to me, perceiving me through reflections, but he wasn’t here.

“You’ve made it ten years without me. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Because I think I would have lost my mind if not for you. Corrupted do that, they lose themselves, their minds fractured by the pressure of that corruption inside of them. It takes over until nothing of who they were remains. That would have happened to me as well, but I stumbled upon you. You pulled me back from that edge.”

“No, I didn’t, given you’re still corrupted.”

“The cracks formed, but you created a band around my mind, holding it together, letting it fuse into something else. Not the same person I was, but not a corrupted either. Instead, something at the center of those two.”

“Even if I did do that, you clearly don’t need me now.”