Page 111 of The Succubi's Choice

“Katya, really?” Miri blurts out, and they both look to her. “He’s being overprotective, not threatening.”

Katya raises her eyebrows more, and it’s only years of knowing her that show the apology in her eyes. “It’s not so much of threatening as a precaution,” she says, “Miri knows a lot of my business and how I work—I would hate to have that leak into the Organization as a whole.”

The over exaggeration isn’t missed on Miri, but it hits its mark on the Archdemon. “Well, one of your own just said she wanted to contact the remaining twin, the other demigod,” he says, smooth, “I can see why they wouldn’t want her getting that out.”

All Katya lets out is a quick breath of air, and that’s the only thing she lets slip, because she’s a professional.

“And I charmed her so she no longer has records of the night, but...” Miri blurts, before they both turn to her, warning in their eyes. “Katya, this is complicated.”

“I see,” she says, delicately, mind going a million miles per minute. “Can you...stay somewhere else today?” She says, gingerly, her eyes straying up to the runes above the table. “Somewhere not on the Organization radar, somewhere they won’t think to look?” That one is directed mostly to the Archdemon, and Miri knows that, but the helplessness sticks in her throat, sticks in the back of her mind.

“I can stay here,” she says. “They can’t really get in, without us...knowing.”

“That’s not safe,” Katya says, at the same time the Archdemon says—

“No?” His voice is strangled, like he’s not sure if he should contradict her.

Katya looks back at him, before directing her gaze to Miri, and she’s almost beseeching, like she wants to say things but can’t, not in front of this Archdemon that she doesn’t quite trust, and Miri can’t quite give her the signal she’s looking for, the signal that it’s okay, that she can say these things.

“Miri, they asked me to arrest you,” Katya says, finally, with an air of desperation. “If you show up to work they will be waiting for you, and I won’t be able to stop them.”

“Yes you could,” her Archdemon says, his voice laconic and slow. “It wouldn’t be that difficult for you at all.”

Katya turns to him, but of course his face is impassive, all emotions and motivations carefully tied behind the mask of control.

But Katya is savvy. Katya is used to dealing with people who don’t want to be dealt with. Katya stared down demigods who wanted to kill her and her friends and escaped with just a messed-up shoulder.

She lifts her chin. “I think you and I operate with different ideas of what is possible,” she says, her voice light and friendly. “This is me, stopping them, on my own terms.”

He inclines his head, giving Katya that win.

“Arrest me? Really?” Miri says, trying to match the lightness of Katya’s voice and probably failing. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Obviously I know that, and obviously I don’t want you to be arrested, but I got the alert, so did everyone...”

“I can take care of that,” Not-Thomas says, and she doesn’t miss Katya’s raised eyebrow.

“They’ll still know it happened.”

There’s a moment of silence, a moment of waiting.

“How long?” Miri asks. “How long would I have to be in hiding?” It sits poorly in her stomach, tastes bad in the back of her throat.

“You shouldn’t,” The Archdemon mutters, so quiet only she can hear.

Katya sighs, deep. “I don’t know how long it’ll be in the system and —"

With a small puff of air, the Archdemon disappears, leaving the two of them alone, and Katya surges forward , bracing her hands on Miri’s arms.

“Miri, this is bad,” she whispers, wholly unnecessarily. “I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t warn you, but something serious is happening and they’re blaming it on you.”

“And hiding is the solution?” She whispers back, her heart pounding, a lump in her throat.

“I don’t know, at least until I can fix it, until I can figure out where it came from —" A spasm crosses her face. This Organization, this place where Katya’s dedicated almost her entire life, is showing her the rot within, and Katya is faced with the idea that she might be complicit.

It’s a thing that Miri wouldn’t wish on anyone, as no one wants their belief in an unshakable thing to be jostled.

“I don’t want to be just...waiting for it to become better,” she says, using her voice fully, waiting for the snores in the next room to stop and Gabriel come out, for a back-up in the conversation, for someone to help her, see her point of view.

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