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Instead, we each took an almost identical wide-legged stance, both refusing to look at the other.
To say the loathing ran deep would be an understatement.
He still didn’t think I deserved to be where I was.
And I would never forget the hell he’d put me through.
“By now, I’m sure you two have seen that we have four new recruits. Maggie O’Flannery and the Zhang triplets,” Gideon said. “What I don’t have for them yet is mentors.”
Anticipation sizzled across my skin.
It was an honor to get a mentee.
True, the younger ones typically went to demonslayers who weren’t so active in the field. But The Academy had received an unexpected number of new recruits over the past few years. Likely in response to the rampant demon problem we were having.
So it didn’t surprise me that they were tapping our shoulders to take on some kids.
And I was more than a little thrilled to get to mentor another female demonslayer on her way up in the world.
Sure, numbers-wise, it sounded like I would get one of the triplets too, but that was okay. It would be good to have both of them to work together to become better demonslayers. And it would likely ensure that Maggie would have one buddy in the building.
It was all a win-win.
“It would be an honor, Gideon,” Marsh said, beating me to it. “Which of the brothers do I get?”
“Actually, you are getting Maggie and Fen.”
“What?” I hissed, feeling like he’d punched me in the gut.
I’d never doubted Gideon before.
But he’d clearly lost his fucking mind if he was sticking another young, impressionable girl in front of a giant, grown-ass, misogynistic bully.
“Which leaves Dale with Chen and Bolin,” Gideon said, ignoring me. “I will get everyone’s files to you by the morning,” he charged on. “Marsh, if you’ll excuse us for a moment, I need to talk to Dale about another matter,” he said.
I wasn’t imagining the gloating look that bastard shot me as he turned to face me before making his way to the door.
I waited just long enough to hear Marsh’s footsteps disappear down the hall before I went ahead and lost my shit.
“You can’t be fucking serious,” I growled. “That motherfucker—“ I started, pointing toward the direction Marsh had walked down, “made my life a living hell for years. Years. And it wasn’t bad enough that he was a sexist piece of shit. He sicced all the others in our class against me. You know it. You saw it. How could you subject another girl to that? I would be the perfect mentor for her.”
Gideon was nonplussed by my outburst because, quite frankly, he’d dealt with a lot of them from me over the years. He tended to handle them with the resigned patience of an older brother.
“Dale, think about it,” Gideon urged, shrugging a shoulder. “If I stuck Maggie with you, all anyone would say to her is that she was getting off easy by having to train with a female mentor.”
“That’s complete bull—“
Gideon’s hand went up, silencing me.
“We know that,” Gideon agreed. “I’ve never seen someone work as hard as you did to get to where you are. You always had to be twice as good. But you still don’t get the respect you deserve. I wouldn’t be doing Maggie any favors by putting her with you.”
“But Marsh…”
“Is on your level,” Gideon cut me off. Even though I knew the words were true, it felt a hell of a lot like betrayal to hear him say them. “Maggie is not going to get subpar training. If anything, Marsh is going to push her like I’d needed to push you.”
“The difference is that you supported me. Her mentor is going to tell her she isn’t good enough.”
“And if she is going to make it here, Dale, she is going to need to be strong enough to disregard that and set out to prove him wrong.”
He made sense.
I wanted to hate him a little for the choice, but he wasn’t wrong.
“You can still counsel her on the side, provide her with the encouragement you know she will need. As will I,” Gideon added.
“Fine,” I hissed.
“You can also look at this as an opportunity to train any possible sexism out of your two brothers,” he reminded me.
That went without saying.
“But that’s not why I wanted you to hang back,” he said, rolling a crick out of his neck.
“Okay. What’s up?”
“Did you make any progress tonight?” he asked.
I knew what he meant, but my traitorous mind jumped right to nearly breaking down a building with Minos.
“No. It was a dead-end,” I said, shaking my head.
“Fuck’s sake, Dale,” Gideon hissed.
“It was bad information,” I told him, upset with the disappointment I saw on his face.
Gideon was maybe the only person in the world who I needed approval from. It bothered me when he seemed to be disappointed in me.
