Page 89 of Marked by the Demigod

And she was locked up for all of it.

"How'd you even..." she gestures at the room, and the tiny little hospital hidden in the back of the government office in a strip mall. "Find me? I mean..."

Trixie's eyes narrow and Katya groans. "I plugged your phone back in," Katya says, as close to grumbling as she gets. "I plugged your phone in and she showed up."

Trixie doesn't even look at Katya. "Your phone finally showed up on the app," she says, airily. "I followed it."

For a few brief seconds, Aimes tries to imagine how it must've been for Trixie, terrified, checking her phone every few minutes, then getting in her car and racing through traffic. "I'm sorry, it died and there wasn't any...actual electricity."

Trixie sits half on the little cot with her, and it's as if they are in undergrad again and studying on their dorm beds. "You're not really in danger, right?"

Aimes smiles, and even that feels fake. "They keep saying I am."

Trixie raises her chin. "She can stay with me for the night."

"That's not smart." Katya raises an eyebrow at her.

"Is it night?" Aimes asks, and they both look at her, so she shrugs. "I don't know how long I was asleep. Or in that...place."

Trixie bristles at the mention of it. "It's like...nine PM."

"Great." And she suddenly, viciously, wants Iakov back in the room, if only for the cuddles, even if she very much doubts that she could fall asleep at that moment. But instead she pokes Trixie in the side. "Hey. Anything else I need to explain?"

Her face creases, sudden. "If you were going to get married, you could've told me, I would've come to the ceremony," she says, quiet. "I wouldn't have judged."

The pause lasts long between them.

"Though I'd totally tell Rocky so he'd have a conniption fit." An odd smile breaks over her face. "He'd be so pissed."

The smile loosens something in Aimes's heart. "He saw us out at a restaurant."

"That guy was him?" Trixie jerks her thumb at the door, where Katya still stands in full professional mode. "How'd he... I dunno, not take off Rocky's head, Darth Vader style?"

"I think he was tired." And it's such a quick breath of normalcy, like they're talking about regular guys with nothing else. "And...about the wedding...I don't know what they told you but...I didn't know it was happening."

She watches that cross Trixie's face, watches her transform from cautious optimism, to confusion, then to utter fury. "What."

Katya's face is a stoic mask, and completely unhelpful.

"It was a weird situation? It was a magical thing?" None of her answers are helpful. "I thought we were just...having sex?"

Trixie narrows her eyes more. "Did he know what he was doing?"

Aimes nods, and Trixie smoothly stands up, calm, her face utterly impassive and utterly terrifying. "One moment."

And she calmly walks out, her steps even, politely opens the door, steps through and --

The sound of a fist hitting face echoes with a smack, and both Katya and Aimes wince. A strangled "hey!" Comes from the other room, before Trixie strides back in, not a hair out of place.

As if nothing happened, she sits next to Aimes on the cot and only then does she pause. "You couldn't feel that, could you?"

"No," Aimes says, not quite sure if she's in shock or very amused. "Did you..."

Trixie nods, as if that’s the most normal thing about her day.

"Huh."

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