Page 39 of Red Demon
“Effective,” Asher’s jaw clenched. “He hasn’t caught the Red Demon, remember? Isn’t that still what you want? He can’t promise you that.”
“Valid.” I rubbed the stubble on my face. “But he’s doing more than me. He’s trying, and if she’s seen again, he can help. And otherwise I’m just sparring, folding metal, fucking dancing—” The metal was glowing red in the fire. I took my tongs to go pick it out.
“You’re still training. We’ll take her on together whenever you feel ready. That’s been our plan all along, right?” Despite speaking low, his words tore through me as I began folding.
“I’m restless, I guess.” I went to reheat my blade. “Nothing seems right.”
“Then nothing is right,” Asher said. “When you see your path, walk it, but if you’re this cut up about it, this isn’t it.”
“It’s the same feeling I get staying still, Ash. Or whenever Galen—” I let the forging press drown my thoughts. I marveled at how every decision Asher ever made seemed to fall in a straight line, while my thoughts always tumbled over each other. “I don’t think I can ever be happy or have a normal life until I know she’s dead.”
Chapter 17
Swimming
We’d been rained out the first time Mira and I tried to go swimming, but today was perfect. The late spring sun melted into a blue-violet sky with just a few puffy clouds as we emerged from the trail by the old dam. A small waterfall tumbled over moss-covered rocks in the forest, roaring alongside the chorus of unseen birds. The spray of the water cooled our foreheads, and the shimmering surface of the pool beckoned.
“Breathtaking,” Mira marveled at the beauty of the spot, the ancient granite ruins cupping the water in labyrinthine designs. “I feel privileged that you’ve shared this with me.”
A grin spread across my face. “I know, right? Ash has been coming here since he was a kid. He takes it for granted.” I walked along the edge of the pool, searching for my favorite rock.
Mira perched herself beside me, biting her lip. “Where is he?”
I sighed in the misty air. “I don’t know. He said he needed to wrap some things up around the house.” I removed my shirt, feeling the spray on my skin.
She ran her hands down her face. “Well, I hope you make him feel a little guilty when you get home. It’s hard to be Jesse and the Ashes with just the two of us.”
“Still a valid meeting of the Dead Moms Club.”
With a wink, she turned her back to me and slipped out of her pink sundress to a matching swimsuit. My cheeks warmed a little as she turned around in the two-piece bathing suit, showing off quite a bit more skin than what any of the Asri wear in the water. I slipped off my pants and shoes and tossed them under a tree.
“Well, if he was here he’d probably just be picking your brain about the code sequencer, rather than doing normal stuff, like this—” I picked her up and threw us both in the deep water.
Her eyes lit up as her shriek morphed into a laugh. She swam just out of arm’s reach before her counterattack, wrestling me under the water and climbing onto my shoulders. I found my footing, holding her in place.
We splashed and floated in the green-edged water, the spray curling over the carved masonry of a lost world. Mira was an easy person to laugh with. Asher had missed such a beautiful day.
An hour later, we dried off. I’d promised her it wasn’t necessary to pack lunch, that nature would provide. I caught a fish with my hands, dressed it alongside some small greens and mushrooms, and found a broad leaf to wrap it for roasting. Mira picked some berries when I showed her the best spot. As I bent to bring a fire to life to cook it all on the banks, she looked at me like I was a miracle worker, not a man who, at one point, lived on the edge of survival in these woods.
“How did you learn all that?” she said, with the smoking flames reflected in her eyes.
I tossed more tinder onto the budding flame. “I grew up on the South tip of the Noé Bend. No major cities, only the tech we couldn’t live without. I learned to do a lot of things.”
She bit her lip with unasked questions, the curiosity back in full force. “How old were you when you left?”
Okay. Here we go. I answered some of what she really wanted to know, focusing on the facts rather than how it left gashes in my heart. Fourteen. Siblings and Mom died. I didn’t.
The fire crackled as she listened with sad eyes, the murmur of her apologies blending with the whispering waterfall behind us. We split the wine-colored berries as the fish cooked.
“How about you, my Thebos-raised scholar?”
She raised her eyebrow.
“What do you miss that you want back? You said you came here to figure stuff out.”
A wistful smile touched Mira’s lips. “I miss my friends, my professors,” she said after a moment. “Varuna was a small, withdrawn academy, so I became very close with the people there.”
I frowned. She made it sound like being able to grow close to anyone in the long term was not a common thing.
