Page 113 of He Who Ignites The Flame
“No,” she said, her voice flat.
Barrett let out a sigh. “Tell me what you know about him.”
“I met him at the bar,” she said, her eyes almost unseeing as she stared forward.
“Did you get a good look at him?” Barrett pressed.
“He wore a hood. His face...” Her lips started to quiver, the words cutting short, but there was no fear in her voice, her expression. It was as if the knowledge she’d been tasked to relinquish simply ceased to exist.
“What about his face?” Barrett demanded, brows pinching together.
“I have no memory of it,” she said, blinking. “Blurred. Darkened.”
Barrett let out a groan of frustration. “Tell me what happened.”
“He asked me how old I was,” she said. “Then, he wouldn’t leave me alone, asked me if I had any strange dreams lately. When I told him I wasn’t interested in talking anymore, he got agitated and stormed off.”
My heart plummeted in anticipation of what I knew was to come, what I feared had happened given the state we’d found her in.
“I hadn’t realized he’d followed me from the bar. He cornered me, started asking me strange questions. None of it made sen?—”
“What questions?” Barrett demanded.
“He wanted to...” Once again the words fell short, and she blinked, a pained look slipping through the drunken mask. “I can’t...”
“Barrett,” I warned, watching the numb look on her face fracture, her brows furrowing as her mind began to buckle under some invisible weight.
“Think. You must remember,” Barrett growled, planting his hands on the bed on either side of her.
I grabbed his shoulder. “Barrett!”
He whipped around to look back at me, his eyes furious, but he didn’t speak. The girl’s eyes fluttered before she slumped back onto the bed, Nicholas catching her before her head hit the mattress.
Nicholas panted, a sheen of sweat coating his brow. “Apologies.”
A muscle ticked in Barrett’s jaw as he stared down at me. Never had he looked so angry at me, his steel eyes burning with a sort of resentment that mirrored my own. It hurt to look at, hurt to feel that gaze sear into me.
“Search her memories,” Barrett said without looking away from me. “See if you can find anything.”
“Right away, sir,” Nicholas said, arranging the girl into a more comfortable position.
Barrett shoved past me, and I twisted to watch him storm out of the medical bay. The beast bristled within me, its affection for Barrett not enough to take his temper as I followed him through the double doors.
“What the hell is your problem?” I demanded, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to turn back to me.
His lips parted but then shut as he seemed to struggle to form words. He pulled his gaze from me, his hands balling into fists. “You’re interfering with my work.”
“Your work?” I balked. “I was only trying to help you!”
“Thalia,” Micah said in warning as he approached me from behind, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.
“No, this is bullshit,” I shouted, glancing back at him before leveling my gaze on Barrett whose eyes briefly flitted to Micah’s hand. “What’s going on with you? You’re always in a foul mood, skipping out on training, irritable whenever we hang out. Then, you push that poor girl past her mental limit when it’s clear the fucking Nous user altered her memories. You could have hurt her!”
He tilted his head and arched a brow, his voice bitter as he spat his words at me. “Oh, you care so much for these humans now, do you?”
“I do when they are unjustly harmed!” I shouted. “Unlike you, I have a conscious. Unlike you, I’ve seen the cruelty those without power suffer at the hands of those with it.”
His chest heaved as he took a step back, a muscle ticking in his jaw despite the flicker of guilt in his eyes.
