Page 45 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

Guiding, but not the regular type, not what Yun had done already. Instead, this went further. It felt like the difference between a little water spilling over the edge of a cup and having someone throw that same cup at the wall, shattering the glass and causing the water to go everywhere.

I pushed upright, still trapped between them, just enough to look her in the eyes. It seemed I was the first to react, or at least the only one capable of doing so.

“I’m sorry,” she said a moment before the world around me disappeared.

The last thing I saw was a tear running down her cheek.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Yun

Something about extracting myself from the group, about cleaning the cum they’d left on me, inside me, was so much worse than anything else.

A vision of Shear’s face when he’d realized what I’d done hit me again. No, that was far worse. His expression had held confusion, betrayal, fear—all things I never wanted him to look at me with.

Thankfully, only he’d been sensitive enough to tell in the moments before I’d incapacitated them all, pulling so much corruption from them quickly enough to knock them out. It wouldn’t last that long, but it didn’t need to.

Hell, maybe they’d wake in an hour and blame me so much that they’d head for the portal on their own. I didn’t want them hating me, didn’t want to tarnish the memories that meant so much to me, but I’d carry that burden if it meant protecting them.

I wouldn’t turn into Corsa, someone who would destroy those I loved for my own selfish wants.

After I’d cleaned up and dressed, I left the house, knowing exactly what I would find outside even before I went.

The dungeon was hardly a safe place for a guide to wander around in, not with the portal open. Two monsters waited just outside, those vacant eyes telling me who actually controlled them.

Corsa wouldn’t want to risk me getting hurt or dying on my way to him, so he’d sent me an escort. I might have considered that sweet if I didn’t know better. He didn’t give a damn about me, at least not any more than he did any battery. I was a means to an end, a way to help his madness, but he didn’t actually care about me as a person. I wondered if he wouldn’t have been happier if I were brain-dead somehow, just a body for him to use as he pleased.

It reminded me of all the ways the men had proven themselves different, the sweetness in their movements, the way they’d put me first no matter what.

One of the monsters bumped against my side with a gruff noise, as though scolding me for having drifted slightly off course. Then again, I had no idea where we were headed exactly, what the path was, so I remained between the two guards. Their heads reached my shoulders, even as they stood on all fours. They could have torn me apart between one breath and the next while never breaking stride.

Yet I refused to fear them.

They were mindless beasts—nothing more. I’d learned what real monsters were over the years, had learned what a person should truly fear. These things could kill my body, sure, but there were worse things out there could take so much more from me.

The monster to my left let out a growl that made it harder to stick with the whole, ‘won’t be afraid of them,’ plan. I realized he had more purple than the other, and this close, I was able to tell them apart. This one—I named him Spot—had larger fangs than the other—I went with Pear for him—but was a tad bit smaller overall.

Also, Spot tended to growl more than the other, but bumped me less often.

I worried for my sanity a bit when I realized I thought about the two as though they were domesticated pets of mine, like they had their own personalities I had to work around.

Clearly, I’d been in The Pitt far too long. It was as though Corsa and this place had broken me already, and they hadn’t had to do that much this time around.

Spot growled again, more anger in his tone, his head lowering like a dog that had caught sight of something. Bushes shook before us just before someone walked through them.

An esper?

No. I’d guessed wrong, it wasn’t an esper but a corrupted. It was in the dazed look in her eyes, the way she stumbled slightly, as if the entire world had changed around her and she hadn’t yet adjusted.

I had no idea what kind of esper she was, who she’d been before—nothing but the uniform she wore.

If she was here, she had to be an S-Rank? Maybe an A, if she’d started as someone to guard the portal?

A twig snapped beneath my foot, and her gaze lifted, locking in on me in a way that made me gulp hard.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice twisted with something dark. She didn’t seem to even notice the monsters beside me, who both had their teeth bared.

Strange that I wasn’t sure which I was more afraid of—her or them.