Page 85 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

T (7:46 PM): If you’re anything like me, yes. Just less precise.

MEL (7:47 PM): Don’t teleport anywhere new.

MEL (4:47 PM): Or sleep with anyone new.

“Oh that has interesting connotations for them,” Gurlien murmurs, and Ambra elbows him. “What?”

“You keep on dropping hints about something I’m not allowed to know!” she says, and Gurlien’s phone buzzes.

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s just…it’s Chloe, asking me what the hell I’m doing, and a picture of Chance,” he says, glancing at it, and as he’s reading it, Ambra snaps a picture of him with her phone. “Are you serious?”

“She sends you pictures of your cat, she’ll probably appreciate a picture back,” Ambra says, sending it over.

The motions of the phone are starting to feel natural to her.

It’s a good picture, regardless. Gurlien’s lit by the glow of the heater and the twinkling of patio lights, holding his phone in one hand and the glass of deep red wine in the other.

Three dots show up from Chloe as she types, before it disappears, and Gurlien’s phone buzzes instead.

“You are doing a decent job at endearing yourself to her,” he informs Ambra, the hint of a smile on his face.

She grins at him in return, then pokes at the platter of food.

When here before, she had let the body control their actions, let Misia decide what to eat and drink, with Ambra mostly existing in the background.

But still, the act of putting the meat and cheese on a thin wafer is almost automatic.

“So this ‘T’ says to eat a meal?” Ambra starts, holding up one of the wafers. “Does this count?”

“Traditionally,” Gurlien replies dryly, still tapping on his phone. “According to Axel—” Ambra wrinkles her nose, “—T got very drunk once and didn’t eat and was hungover for almost three days.”

“Can she heal?” Ambra asks, and Gurlien eyes her, like he doesn’t want to answer that. “Fine.”

AMBRA (7:53 PM): Important question: is it possible to heal away a hangover?

T (7:53 PM): No.

Mel (7:53 PM): Yes.

AMBRA (7:54 PM): Great.

Ambra sets her phone down on the table, then raises an eyebrow down at the food again.

There’s a strange detachment inside of her, twisting and growing at the day.

She had almost lost control, had almost killed someone who wasn’t one of the Five. Who didn’t have any defenses that could hold her back, regardless of the traps she had set. Manipulations or not, pressing all of her emotional buttons or not, Ambra shouldn’t have lost control like that.

It would’ve been better to leave no trace.

And if she’s being completely honest with herself, it had been Gurlien’s presence there that held her back.

Had been Gurlien’s presence, had been him talking so candidly about his past, had been him answering her questions, that had calmed her down. That had stopped her from spiraling into despair, that had pulled her out of the quagmire of emotions she had no real way of escaping on her own.

And here she is, having a glass of wine with him, joking and texting people, as if she hadn’t been trapped by the chemicals in her brain just a few scant hours before.

“I have a human question,” she says, turning towards him and setting down her wine.

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