Page 97 of Tortured Soul
“I’m not a—”
“Oh, yes you are! You can’t keep your damn mouth shut when you’ve had a few.”
“Yeah, like you can—”
“If you’re done feeding the rumor mill, I need to check out this file,” Carter said, pulling my focus to him with a sharp turn of my neck.
“Oh, we weren’t—”
“Please.”
The room fell silent.
It wasn’t the simple word that snapped my mouth closed. It wasn’t the fact that he actually handed me the file and didn’t throw it on my desk or at my face either like he usually did.
No, it was the fact that thewordwas actually said and notsneered. It was the fact that his usual scent was covered by an herb I recognized, but couldn’t remember the name of.
My throat bobbed and my eyes fell on the stapled documents in front of my face.
“Sure,” I said, taking them carefully.
He didn’t say anything else while I was processing his request. Didn’t tap his foot on the ground. Didn’t sigh in annoyance or cast me murderous glances. And, as soon as I handed it back to him, he nodded a thank you and left without any comment.
Marcus and Ann both stared at me, their jaws dropping.
“Well, you either managed to knock some sense into his stupid head, or Carter was replaced with someone else,” Ann said.
Marcus scoffed. “Please, I’ve been suggesting they replace him with some shapeshifter or robot for years now. If it was that, they would have done it way sooner.”
Chapter 28
Lola
Kai never showed up to ask for the file Arc mentioned, and Ann stayed with me until the night had almost fallen.
I was starting to think Arc sent me there on a false pretense to be sure I wouldn’t pester him about his attitude toward Dimitri. But it was fine, really. I was willing to stay here until he’d drag me out himself.
Thinking about it all afternoon, I reached the decision that as soon as Dimitri was back, we would be out of here. I couldn’t deal with Arc’s hot and cold behavior and his weird agenda, nor Carter and our constant fights.
The only thing I needed to do before I could leave was to get Arc to revoke the binding promise.
Yes, he was definitely getting the brat tonight.
I walked between the shelves, glancing at the old books’ spines and occasionally picking one to browse the pages. Most of them must have been hundreds of years old, written by Immortals about their life hidden among humans, or by humans who discovered our existence.
I also looked at Carter’s file, hoping to finally know how he fell—obviously to throw it at his face later—but all the Guardian’s and his were surprisingly empty.
As I walked in yet another row, something moved behind me.
I froze on the spot and waited, all my senses on high alert. But no one was here. There were no footsteps, no unusual smell, no cloud of smoke.
I resumed my pace, holding my hands at my back, ears perked to react at the first sign of danger.
Something rattled again and I turned around sharply.
But once again, no one was standing behind.
I narrowed my eyes at a book, which was slightly pulled out from the perfectly aligned row. It wasn’t when I passed it just a second before…
