Page 66 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“Do you need more food?” he asks, staring down at the fridge.

“No,” Ambra replies honestly, bouncing her leg against the stool. “That took nothing out of me, I could rush into battle and be fine.”

He eyes her.

“Really,” she reassures him, giving him a quick smile. “That was fun.”

Her skin still thrills with the excitement of the summoning, and if the College had ever even thought to work with her like that, she doubts she would be on this quest to end them.

All that it would take to change the course of her existence would have been to treat her a little more like Gurlien does.

It’s a somewhat sobering thought, that an organization so obsessed with power and structure could have just…thought of kindness instead of brutality and been so much more successful.

“Why are you making that expression?” Gurlien asks, swallowing down his food. “You’re making an expression. Why?”

She squints at him, appraising the risks and details of giving him that information.

But he had just done what she asked, practiced when he thought he couldn’t, she at least owes him that to keep him on her side.

“I find it ironic that all the College would have had to do with me is treat me a bit more like you do and I would be there willingly,” she says, and he blanches. “No, no, you’re fine, just that was the first time anyone’s done anything like that with the leash and…not hurt me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gurlien mutters. “I have got to get youexposed to more people.” He clears his throat and straightens, like he’s a professor and about to give a lecture, and she smiles at the thought. “One. That’s not the first time I’ve heard of a similar sentiment and it’s depressing that it’s not.”

“From who?” Ambra interjects.

“And two,” Gurlien pushes forward, “I am not some…paradigm of kindness and it’s not good for you to think of me that way.”

She stares at him, tilting down the tinted glasses so she can get a better look at him.

He shifts, before refilling the water.

Whatever it is in his background, whatever the thing that’s haunting him, he must think it’s bad. Horrible. Laughably vile.

“You know they made me kill people, right?” Ambra checks, somewhat suspicious that he seems to forget that. “You make sure I eat food and try not to hurt me. That’s a massive improvement.”

“Jesus Christ,” he repeats, then scrubs his face. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Abruptly, leaving half the cheese stick on a plate by the sink, he turns on his heel, shutting the bathroom door behind him with a click.

Alright.

Ambra slips off the stool, getting a glass of water for her own, then drifts around the apartment, checking on the books, checking to see if there’s anything she should be immediately researching, before she sits at her desk and pulls out the phone.

AMBRA (1:02 PM): What did Gurlien do that made him think he’s a bad person?

Immediately—

CHLOE (1:02 PM): That’s his story to tell, not mine.

AMBRA (1:03 PM): Obviously. But he seems to think he’s a piece of shit and it’s not matching with any of his actions.

AMBRA (1:03 PM): Also, nobody besides you likes him and it’s weird.

CHLOE (1:04 PM): Maison and Delina are his friends too, but yes.

Ambra puzzles over this, listening to the sound of the shower run through the pipes. She leans back in the chair, and it’s some comfort against the lower back, in an area she hadn’t even noticed was aching until it wasn’t.

AMBRA (1:07 PM): He has a lot of good knowledge. Even with whatever happened, he’s able to grasp theory and use it effectively and learn it fast.

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