Page 25 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

It’s logical, so she sits primly on one of the cushioned chairs, letting the heater point directly at the ache in her legs.

It’s not quite the comfort of under the blankets, but it’s a different sort of soothing. Like the muscles and nerves need it.

Her warmest safety spot is in that nebulous area between Eastern Europe and the middle east, and it’s still too close to Nalissa to want to teleport them there, but she briefly thinks of the desert sands and wiry green trees. The body had complained about the heat, but it had been quite a few months and Ambra doubted the weather is quite as severe now.

Gurlien disappears into the cafe, until she can only see his silhouette through the window, just the suggestion of his glasses and the cut of his chin, though he gestures enough with his hand that there’s the barest hint of a tug at the leash with his motions.

It’s the clumsy sensation that the Five all had in the first few months after the merge, but as they got used to controlling her, they all learned how to stop telegraphing all movement through the leash.

She’s going to have to see if he could be taught to neutralize that, if the lack of magic in him will grant her that, or if she’s just going to have to deal.

Then, suddenly, the back of her neck prickles, and shestraightens, as if her spine decides she needs to sit upwards in response.

She’s being watched. She’s being watched and it’s someone she doesn’t know.

It’s not a threat, it’s not quite a scan, but power flows into the tiny clearing, washing over her, until the hair on her arm raises and her heart jumps.

There’s nobody else in the clearing, just her.

It’s not another demon, not exactly, but there’s something fundamentally wrong with it. Something twisted, something not quite human, and it settles over her for a moment before it vanishes.

Ambra blinks out at the clearing, her pulse pounding underneath the skin, and resists the urge to teleport away immediately.

It wasn’t a demon. It definitely wasn’t the College.

They didn’t reach for her leash, and Gurlien’s inside and she still can’t tell if he could help her if she goes so far away and…

A sleek black car pulls up to the small gravel lot.

She eyes it, letting a scan of her own snake out, and there’s just one person inside…

Another dud. Another person who once had ability, but the space where it should be is scarred over, the edges like a demon sliced it out of him.

She perks up. He’s absolutely not the one who just flooded her with awareness, but…

The door kicks open, and it’s a young man, face open and friendly, with curly black hair.

“Ambra?” he calls out to her, and she flinches, at yet another person knowing her name.

“Gurlien’s inside,” she lets the words fall out of hermouth, not even bothering to control them. “What was that?”

He smiles so sudden it’s startling, and she sits back. As if space could give her some room to process the discomfort. “So you did feel that.”

“It wasn’t you?” Her words trail upward, and she swallows down. “I know it wasn’t you, you’re a dud, it’s obvious.”

“Thanks,” he replies cheerily, then grabs one of the chairs and sits across from her, entirely too close. “That was a friend, she was checking to make sure you weren’t going to put me in danger.”

Ambra doesn’t know how someone could determine that from that sort of flood, but she scoots her chair back just a bit in case.

“What is she?” Ambra asks. “That wasn’t a demon and that wasn’t human.”

The man across from her stares, a bit hardened, before defaulting back to friendly, leaning back casually in his chair. “Absolutely not telling someone with ties to the College.”

“I don’t have ties, they’re the ones that tied me to them, and I’m trying to get away,” Ambra shoots back, but her hands twitch up towards the leash anyways.

He smiles, wide, like she’s a dear friend and this is expected, and her hackles rise again.

There’s a small earpiece attached to the back of his ear, and Ambra’s killed enough people with them to know that he’s wired. That someone else is listening in, giving him information specifically so she can’t hear them.

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