Page 18 of Firestorm
Vince chuckled. “Seems like I’m the only one aging anymore. How old is your parental Chain?”
“My mother was thirty-four and my fathers were thirty-five.”
Vince turned around, his blue eyes holding mine for several long seconds. “Were?” he asked gently.
“They’re dead.” I replied flatly.
“How long ago did they pass?” he asked, then quickly turned back around and slowly marked some boxes on his paperwork. I winced. I hated when people tried to make death sound less horrible than it was. No amount of pretty words would change the fact that they weredead.
“Twelve years.”
Vince continued shuffling papers before speaking again. “Accident?”
My lip trembled, but my voice didn’t. “They were victims of the Gulf Capitol Massacre.”
Vince froze, the shuffling sound stopping before he turned around to face me. His eyes tracked over me a little too slowly for my liking, then his lips hardened into a line.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he murmured. “That was a horrific day for us all.”
I held his stare for a beat longer before he turned back to his paperwork on the counter. It was probably rude of me not to ask what he meant by that, but my empathy meter was dangerously low. I didn’t care who he’d lost in the massacre.
My numb eyes dropped back to the floor like I was trying to burn a hole through the linoleum.
Just like Wyatt had said, an escort had shown up exactly an hour after our…encounter. I’d hastily packed a bag and then I was being ushered out the door for my journey.
I’d only given Zephyr one last hug, and then I was off.
My heart was hurting. I hadn’t had time to say goodbye to–
“This is a very simple test,” Vince said, abruptly pulling me out of my thoughts. “Link-testing is a blood test but affinity testing is just as simple as me touching your hand.”
I froze.
“What?” I breathed.
“I’m a Sensor,” he explained calmly. “I can sense affinities. Never been wrong, either. I’ve been doing this since before your parents were born.”
“How do you know you’ve never been wrong?” I whispered as he drew closer. I fought the urge to shrink away from him.
“Just do,” he replied, grinning softly. “Whatever you’re scared of, Ms. Aria, don’t be. You’re safe here with me.”
I really doubted that.
“Are there any other affinities you’d like to tell me about now before I check?”
I clenched my jaw.
I wasn’t telling him anything.
Vince stared at me like he knew exactly what I was hiding, and maybe he did.
Sensors were rare, becoming rarer every year. Rare affinates in general were slowly disappearing. It was more common to be a weak elemental like Seward than it was to have anything of value in society, hence why the academies were so important.
Some scientists said we were entering a mass extinction period.
Some people claimed we were ‘mixing’ too many bloodlines – suggesting that people should onlybreedwith similar affinities.
Some people thought we were just evolving.
