Page 84 of The Succubi's Choice

Again, she feels small, in the face of all the shit happening, so Miri just shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t die?”

“Wonder if your demon got that information,” Jacqueline says, almost idle. “That could be telling on who he got informed by.”

Another appraising look from Katya, and they’re going to be massively annoying together, Miri just knows it.

“I’ll text him and ask,” she says, pulling out her phone and ignoring the aghast look from Katya. “If it’s him and not, you know, Thomas, he’ll probably tell me.”

“Can you tell from text?” Jacqueline breathes, all of a sudden very eager. “Are their word choices that distinct?”

Miri glances up at her, thinks about it for a moment, and decides not to answer.

MIRI (3:11 PM): In the report you got of me, what other injuries did it put down for me?

It doesn’t take long, and she gets almost identical raised eyebrows from everyone.

BLOCKED NUMBER (3:13 PM): First of all, you weren’t joking about the torture, second of all, Jesus Christ, third of all, if I’m looking at the right packet, it says wrist abrasions, minor head contusion, and copper poisoning??? Isn’t that really bad?

“Okay that was Thomas, and the packet says minor head contusion.”

“How could you tell?” Jacqueline says, a bit too quick to be studious, and Miri shows her the text instead of answering.

“So at minimum, he got a different report than I did,” Katya says, brisk, but with a significant glance to Miri. “That’s less than soothing, but —"

They’re all interrupted by Katya’s phone ringing, loud and strident, and they all fall silent as she answers, then steps outside.

“We aren’t going to take that as a reason to not trust him, are we?” Gabriel says, quiet. “Because I trust him still.”

Jacqueline gives him a look like she thinks he’s being unbelievably stupid. “He tried to kill us a little bit ago, some skepticism is good?”

“He also made Miri look the healthiest I’ve ever seen her?” He shoots back, and Miri just wants to go back to the bed in the comfortable room and not deal with all of this.

* * *

The next weekof her life passes without anything remotely resembling activity, and it’s like a breath of fresh air. She sticks to a normal feeding schedule, still not quite feeling the same insistent hunger as before, meticulously applying makeup to her arm every time she goes out without a jacket. She goes to work, doing normal paperwork things and going to normal checkups where firmly nothing happens out of the ordinary. No attention from the Organization, no new updates from Lundy, and nothing except for Katya’s incredible rage seems to have changed.

She doesn’t hear from Not-Thomas at all. Not a peep, not a text that’s not from Thomas, and not a random appearance where she is.

She tells herself it’s not because of the night in the fake hotel room, but that’s pretty hard to swallow.

Her arm stays exactly the same, and with just the barest of thought, her charm is bright, visible, and entirely unpredictable.

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