Page 112 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Jesus Christ,” Gurlien murmurs.

“Do we need to finish packing? Do we need to run right now?” Chloe interrupts, scrambling up to standing. “If they know our satellite phone they can find us so easily, they could just walk right up and knock on the door, why the call?”

“They think that whatever they do, I’ll counteract it, so they want to know if I’m still alive,” Maison says, his voice dead. “They don’t want to ambush you if I’m in the building.”

“So they think you might be and Korhonen didn’t get to report back, but they’re not sure, which means they don’t have drone footage that could see through the windows,” Gurlien says, but he’s almost vibrating with nervous energy. “If we leave now, they might have the roads blocked off, they might have something in place, they might—”

Not even bothering to stick around for the rest of the talk, Maison turns on his heel and strides into the room he’s been staying in, shutting the door behind him with a click.

Gurlien gapes at him, then shuts his mouth, then opens it again. “Chloe, we need to pack, get the research and I’ll get the components,” he says, grim. “If they don’t have something in place, they will fast, and we need to beat them to it.”

“We don’t have room for all the research, we have two extra people, we need…”

They squabble on, discussing what parts of her cabin to divide up, which parts of her mother’s precious research to leave behind for these people who had tried to keep her ignorant. Try to make plans for something they don’t know.

Delina pushes herself up to standing, and they both look at her.

“Make preparations, don’t take any of my mother’s stuff, and don’t leave yet,” she orders, and it’s bizarre, giving edicts forsomething like this, when pretty much everyone else is better suited to leading them than her. “They might be guessing, and no movement would be more confusing than not. They’re expecting you to run.”

With that, she glances to the door that Maison disappeared to, and, with confidence she certainly doesn’t feel, walks towards him and closes it behind herself.

The click of the door is loud, far louder, in the tiny room.

There’s a small bed tucked in the corner, and the baby blue carpet is dusty with disuse. There’s a single bare bookcase with Maison’s paintings from the last few days drying on one of them, and a small suitcase leans up against a bedside table.

And Maison’s sitting on the floor against the bed, his head in his hands.

“What do you want?” he asks, muffled behind his hands.

Delina would’ve absolutely greeted him the same way, so she dismisses the offense with a shrug, folding herself up so she’s sitting next to him.

He doesn’t move, and for a long moment she just sits next to him, listening to him breathe.

“You don’t have to talk me through this,” Maison says finally, after the moment of quiet stretches on, twisting and warping her perception of time. “I’ve dealt with this before.”

“That sucks,” Delina says baldly, and he lifts his head enough to look at her, really look at her. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you didn’t do anything for this,” he mumbles, and there’s actually wetness around his eyes. “They would’ve still made that call if you didn’t bring me back, they would probably still hurt her if you didn’t bring me back, and I would still be unable to do a damn thing about it if you didn’t bring me back.”

How many times did he struggle with this, with her blithely unaware next to him?

“Do you want to go to her?” Delina asks, and he makes a small noise in the back of his throat, something close to pain.

“I can’t,” he says, miserable, and he lets his head thump against the bed. “I can’t and you know why.”

Because of her. Because of that bond he described. Somewhere along the line it turned into a chain around his foot, anchoring him to her.

“All I can do is sit here, hope they think I’m dead, and hope they let my mom go sometime. I leave you, they’ll kill you. They’ll storm this place and shoot their way in and you’ll be the first shot.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “If they don’t get you, the next time you slip up, a demon will. I can’t do a goddamn thing.”

“I’m gonna take it that if I say you don’t need to stick around it’s not gonna help?” Delina asks, and he shakes his head. “Then we go to them.”

For a moment, she thought he misheard her, before he sits up straighter. “Delly, we can’t.”

“Why not?” she asks, and she doesn’t truly know what she’s saying, not really, but him sitting here in misery is equally not an option. “You don’t want to leave me alone, we can’t just let them hurt her, we go to them.”

“Again, they could just kill you,” Maison says, his voice rising in pitch.

“You don’t think they would like to have someone who can bring people back from the dead in their possession? Like what Korhonen said? He brought out an entire demon in order to try to capture both of us.” She challenges him, twisting so she’s seated cross legged in front of him. “Let them think they can cheat death, get your mom out, then we run. All three of us.”

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