Page 70 of Crimson Promises
“Well, you seem like the asshole type.”
She brought her hand to her mouth.
Chelsea was asking for it. You poke and poke and prod enough, and eventually, someone will bite back.
“You owe me an apology,” I demanded.I don’t really need her apology, but it would be nice.
“I won’t give you one when I did nothing wrong.”
“It’s a shame you can’t be mature enough to own up to your actions. I guess that’s why you’ll always be stuck sitting at the front desk.”
Her eyes didn’t quite meet mine.Good.
With that, I turned my back on her, collected my papers, and walked away with my shoulders rolled back, chin held high.
If she wanted to be an asshole, that was on her, but I refused to be her doormat any longer in the hope that I could win her over into liking me.
I found Jean bent over at the waist rifling through a wooden crate. She wasn’t a woman afraid to get her hands dirty—it was one of the things I respected the most about her. “Ah, there you are.”
“I finished shelving the books from the first box we went through this morning,” I said.
“Smashing.” It echoed around the crate as if she were repeating herself.
I put the papers on a folding table similar to the one littered with red dixie cups all over the frat house party. Here, the plastic table was covered with green velvet, gloves, pens, and two of the library’s laptops.
“What’s in this crate?” I asked.
“More of the same, religious texts between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries that commented on 'The Great War’.” She shook her head. “I’ve been studying this for most of my life and spent time at Oxford and Cambridge, and The Middle East. Never had I heard of the battle referred to as ‘The Great War’ until now. There are some areas of the text that haven’t even been fully translated. Some of the language is based in Latin, whereas some verbs seem to be a language not recognizable on this planet. The half-deciphered texts are the ones in this crate.” She gestured.
“Whoa, that’s so interesting.” I bent over, trying to reach for a box.
“Right?” Jean said. She seemed to be rearranging the boxes like a game of Tetris. “A professor is coming up from USD to take a look to see if he can decipher some of the text. He specializes in classics and antiquities.”
“USD?”
“The University of San Diego.”
“Impressive.”
“Very. The university has spared no expense. It’s generated a large amount of press in academia. Religion has always been a controversial subject. This has been no exception. With controversy comes press and donors. All things the Dean and its alumni are in favor of.”
“So don’t break anything in other words?” I stood up straight, and the room spun. I gripped the crate's edge as shards of wood nicked my palm. The pain grounded me as I took a few deep breaths.
Without Jean noticing my dizzy spell, I managed to help her hull a box out.
“Aurora, it is crucial that the books in this crate, particularly, are handled with the utmost care.”
“Of course.”
The garage door where trucks usually came to deliver our package was left open. Someone was continually pacing back and forth.
Jean caught where I was staring and elaborated. “Security guards.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. I never saw those around any of the libraries anymore.That would have been helpful the night I was attacked by Disgusto.
“Like I said, the university is sparing no expense to protect their favorite de jour.”
I grunted as I carried the heavy box to the makeshift workspace we had set up to unpackage them.
