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However, staring at her, at her earnest eyes and the pain that rested there, meant I couldn’t just blow off her request.
Powerlessness was a hell of a motivator, and the last thing I wanted was her going around and searching for a shade on her own.
“There’s only one shade in level 1 who might be able to help,” I told her.
“Who?”
I didn’t answer her question directly, wanting to discuss it first. “Being able to counter drugs is one thing, but a shade who can transfer that ability to another is way rarer. If you do this, though, you’ll remember everything they do. You’ll have to carry that with you. Are you sure it’s worth it?”
She nodded.“I’m sure. I need this, especially because I have no idea how often they’ll call me.”
Given that they’d done so twice already in so short a time period, she wasn’t wrong. Still…
I tried to think of another option, to figure out a way for her to get what she seemed to want without the risk of what she’d suggested.
But…nothing came to mind. The reality was that if she wanted to do this, if she was dead-set on finding a way—and she sure seemed to be—she’d figure out something. Which meant she’d be in far more danger if I did nothing.
“Please,”she signed, then set her hand on my knee.
The touch was innocent compared to the other things we’d done, yet it poured ice through my veins. I went back to Layla, back to the last time I’d thought a relationship could work out, to how she’d used our connections and my feelings for her to get what she’d wanted from me.
And I’d been the fool who hadn’t realized it.
I jerked away from Hera, my face hardening. “I thought I made it clear—I don’t trade favors like that.”
She furrowed her eyebrows then dropped her gaze to where her hand still hung, now in mid-air since I’d moved. She didn’t respond right away, and all I could think about was how stupid I’d felt after Layla, how much I’d cursed my own blindness at the truth that I was nothing but a tool for her to use when I’d thought we were…more.
Hera pressed her lips together, then stood. She headed toward the door, something that threw me.
The few times I’d tried to turn Layla down, back when I’d questioned the things she’d said, she’d always put on the charm. She had smiled, fluttered her lashes and done anything to reel me in.
Hera did none of that.
I caught her by the door, wrapping my hand around her arm to pull her to a stop before she could escape into my office. “Don’t just run away.”
She yanked free of my grasp, and her hands flew so fast it took a moment for me to understand what she was trying to tell me. It seemed she’d gotten much better with her sign language than I’d realized.“I don’t trade anything for favors.”
“So what do you call this?” I gestured between us. “Because it seems like you’re here wanting me to go out on a limb to help you, and when I’m not sure, you putyour hand on my knee. I’ve told you before, I won’t pay for sex like that.”
The anger burned on her face, but on the edges of it? Hurt. It nearly made me want to take it all back, to apologize to her for the misunderstanding, but I couldn’t move.
“I have enough of my own neuroses to deal with. I can’t be responsible for yours, too.”Her gaze moved past me and to the animal crackers on the counter. Breath escaped her nose in a silent chuckle before she shook her head. It was a sad sound, as if just seeing them hurt, which I didn’t get at all.
The sound made me freeze, so when she reached for the door again, I let her go. What was the point of trying to keep her there? So we could fight more?
I didn’t need that anymore, and I’d spent far too much time arguing with her recently. The girl was keeping a hell of a lot of secrets and I didn’t like any of them. I wanted to keep her safe but I couldn’t do a damned thing.
I wanted to tell her she’d never have to go to Medical again, that I’d keep her off the Warden’s radar, that I’d make her life what she wanted it to be. Wasn’t that what all men wanted? To be some stupid hero for the woman they loved? Someone who could keep her safe?
Yet I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t keep her safe from Larkwood, from the other shades, from the whole damned world that seemed determined to hurt her. I’d never felt so powerless before.
My gaze moved over to the animal crackers, some strange nagging in my mind, an old memory I hadn’t thought about in a long damned time.
I remembered being a kid, living in the North Tower, having all of nothing. There had been a scientist, one of the few who seemed to give a damnabout us kids. She’d brought in a box of animal crackers and given them to me, telling me ‘Happy Birthday’ despite me not understanding what that meant.
I tried to think about whether or not I’d written that in my journal, if that was how she’d figured it out. No, I didn’t think so. She must have seen it sometime, read it from my voice, then had gone out of her way to get them.
Items like that didn’t come cheap, and I had no idea what she’d had to trade to get them. Still, she’d done it, and for what?
