Page 3 of Love, Nemesis
The stream of water flickered as her fingers shivered with the revelation. Hailey’s eyes moved from the water that read like her pulse, meeting her gaze as she pulled the teapot to her chest.
He gestured to the seat across from him, and she returned the teapot to the fire before sitting down.
“The first name he mentioned when he woke up wasn’t his wife or his child. He asked for you.” He swirled the water in the mug, lifting the steam to his face with a wave of his hand. “Do you have any sugar?”
She shook her head evenly, fighting her fear as it churned and twisted in her stomach like a wounded snake.
“Honey, then.”
She stood, moving to the kitchen to remove a small pot of honey.
He kept talking, her back to him as she reached the top shelf above her teas.
You knew this day might come,she thought, rolling through the words as they stroked her terror back into submission.And you made your choice.
“According to your report, you happened to be passing through the town and saw my officers enter the mine. Wanting to offer your support, you joined them, and then as tragic fate would have it, the mine collapsed, killing some of my best officers and injuring Pat. So, you can imagine my surprise,” he said, “when Pat McHedon claimed that not all of that was exactly true.”
She returned to him with the honey, setting it down in the center of the table. Taking her seat again, she watched as he opened the pot, stirring the spoon inside. Now, she saw herself in the honey, stretched and stirred under Hailey’s manipulation.
The golden strands streamed down from the spoon.
He allowed it to linger in the air for a moment, turning it. “You’ve always been a barely adequate soldier. I double checked your file before I came to be sure.” He chuckled at his own joke. He flipped the spoon over the tea, allowing a golden web to sink through the steam, dissolving in the water.
He dipped the spoon back into the honey, returning the lid with aclinkthat snapped her attention back to him, her eyes hypnotized by the motions.
“But then, I think I’m losing my mind, or maybe that Pat was losing his when he insisted—insisted very passionately—that after you followed them into the mine, you engaged some of our finest Numbers in hand-to-hand combat, picking them off, one by one.”
She trained her eyes on his, forcing herself to hold his gaze that burned with accusation and excitement, like a predator with its claws sunk in.
The scenes flashed back to her from the incident. The waving lamps, the shouting, the breath and fury as she fought through the panic of her enemies. The other Numbers thought nothing of her joining along on their expedition into the mine. They thought of her like an inconsequential detail, and had things turned out well, that’s all she would have been. She badly wished the mine had been empty after all.
“In the onslaught, a metal rod impaled your arm, and so,” he chuckled, “you choked a man with your legs—now that! That!” Hailey’s voice rose, a rare, painful sound.
She exhaled a slow, hidden breath, unflinching in the wake of his excitement.
“—is unbelievable, and still then! Pat said you knocked him unconscious with the metal rod you’d pulled out of your arm. You were lucky the chaos caused the mine to collapse and cover up your treachery. This reads like a novel, Ana. What a story. Imust admit, compared to your report, the tale of the traitor who fooled the Sub-Var is much more exciting.”
He shook his head at her, eyes wide, arms outstretched.
The silence lingered like a hovering gavel.
“It’s unbelievable.” She kept her tone even, voice flat. “Sounds like a completely different person.”
“It’s outrageous. You’re right.” He nodded in agreement. “Your story of the opportunistic heroine saving people from the wreckage makes much more sense than an admittedly impressive killer hiding her talents all these years,” he said, returned to his collected nature. His fingers tapped across the table like an instrument he was playing. He stood and approached the window, folding his hands behind his back. “My question now is, what did you all find down there?”
That was the question.
Hailey must know,Ana thought.He has to know.
The rumor had been that deep in the mine, the workers had stumbled upon a cavern, hidden since the end of The Ocean’s War against the Strike. The workers had all evacuated, all aside from their guide, Pat.
Ana recalled walking through those dark tunnels as if it were yesterday, peering over the shoulders of the other soldiers as they bumbled through the blackness, gasping as they walked into the cavern.
There, under layers of dust, dirt, and cobwebs, was the ornate coffin of a Strike. No doubt ferried out of En Sanctus upon the war’s end. It loomed there, surrounded by piles of skeletons that had once been the Strike’s worshippers.
Time ran the slowest in En Sanctus, and it had only been a few years since the war had ended there. Despite that, artifacts like a Strike’s coffin were extremely rare.
Thrilled by the discovery, Hailey’s men were determined to bring the coffin back to the State’s lab where it could be screened for anything that could then be weaponized. The State did love its weapons, after all.
