Chapter 597: The Eye of the Hurricane
Chapter 597: The Eye of the Hurricane
I stayed on the rooftop until my ass went numb from the concrete. Maki slept against my stomach, her twin tails twitching through whatever dreams three-hundred-year-old cat spirits had. Probably fish. Probably murder. Possibly both.
The pendant had stopped burning cold about twenty minutes after Natalia’s voice message. Not because she’d calmed down. Because she was planning. The warmth that replaced the cold felt worse somehow. Like the eye of a hurricane. Like the moment before a gate boss finally decided you were worth killing.
I’m keeping score.
Four words. Four simple words that promised consequences I couldn’t predict and probably couldn’t survive. Natalia didn’t do empty threats. She did spreadsheets. She did itemized lists of transgressions with corresponding punishments organized by severity and creative potential.
My phone buzzed again. Not Natalia this time.
Emi.
Are you okay? The pendant went weird and Natalia locked herself in her room and won’t answer when I knock and I’m worried about both of you.
I typed back. Define weird.
Cold then hot then cold then really really cold then warm in a way that felt scary somehow.
Sounds about right.
What did you do?
Kissed someone.
The typing indicator pulsed for a long time. Emi was probably crying. Emi cried when she was happy and when she was sad and when she saw a particularly cute dog and when her cookies came out wrong. The girl had more tears than a monsoon season.
Was it nice?
I blinked at the screen.
You’re asking if kissing another woman was nice?
I’m asking if YOU’RE okay. The kissing is secondary. You can kiss whoever you want as long as you come home.
Something in my chest did a complicated thing. The kind of complicated thing that happened when someone loved you without conditions or reservations or the expectation that you’d be anything other than exactly what you were.
It was nice. She’s complicated. I’m in trouble.
You’re always in trouble. That’s why we love you.
We?
All of us. Even Skylar, and she’d cut your throat before admitting it out loud.
I laughed. Actual genuine laughter that echoed across the empty rooftop and startled Maki awake with an indignant hiss. The sound felt strange in my chest. Good strange. The kind of strange that reminded me I wasn’t just Kaelen’s memories and the System’s puppet and a collection of schemes wrapped in human skin. Sometimes I was just a guy sitting on a roof with a cat and a phone full of women who cared whether he lived or died.
Tell Natalia I love her.
She knows. That’s why she’s so angry.
That doesn’t make sense.
It makes perfect sense. She loves you enough to be furious. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t feel anything at all.
I stared at the message for a long time. Emi’s wisdom snuck up on you like that. One minute she was crying over burnt muffins. The next she was dropping psychological insights that would make a therapist weep with envy.
I’ll fix it.
You always do. Goodnight, Satori. Please sleep.
I pocketed my phone and looked down at Maki, who had resumed her position against my stomach with the air of a creature deeply inconvenienced by human emotional complexity.
"Time to go."
"Maki was comfortable."
"Maki can be comfortable in the bed."
"Maki wants fish."
"It’s one in the morning."
"Maki doesn’t care about human time constructs."
I stood up and tucked her under my arm like a furry football. She protested through the entire walk to the maintenance door and down three flights of fire stairs and through the security-camera-blind corridor I’d mapped on my way up. Her complaints continued through the elevator ride and the walk to my room and the process of unlocking the door with the keycard that cost more than most people’s monthly rent.
The room was exactly as I’d left it. Expensive. Immaculate. Empty in a way that made the loneliness settle into my bones like cold water.
I dropped Maki on the bed and pulled off my jacket. The pendant hung against my bare chest when I removed my shirt. Still warm. Still pulsing with Natalia’s awareness across three hundred miles of ocean and uncertainty.
I love you, I thought at it. Not sure if she could feel the words through the bond. Not sure it mattered.
The pendant pulsed once. Gentle. Almost forgiving.
Almost.
I showered. Changed. Lay in a bed that was too big and too soft and too empty. Maki settled against my chest in her cat form, her purring a constant vibration that should have been soothing but mostly just reminded me of all the things I was doing wrong.
Sleep came eventually. Fitful and shallow. Full of dreams about rooftops and crimson hair and ice spreading across surfaces I couldn’t see.
The knocking started at six.
Helena’s voice came through the door with the professional cheerfulness of someone being paid very well to be awake at this hour. "Good morning. Guild Master Cabana requests your presence at breakfast. Formal attire has been provided."
I groaned into my pillow. Maki made a sound of supreme annoyance and retreated under the covers.
"Give me twenty minutes."
"You have fifteen."
I made it in twelve. The suit waiting in my closet fit perfectly because of course it did. Dark gray. Subtle pinstripes. A tie that probably cost more than my monthly food budget back in the slums. I looked like a corporate shark. The kind of guy who destroyed small businesses for fun and dated supermodels because they came with the territory.
The pendant sat cold against my chest under the expensive fabric. Natalia’s morning check-in. Making sure I was still alive. Making sure she still had something to be angry about.
Breakfast happened in a private dining room on the executive floor. Veronica sat at the head of a table designed for eight, her golden hair catching the morning light in ways that professional photographers probably dreamed about. Reyna sat to her right, looking far too awake for someone I’d been kissing on a rooftop five hours ago.
Her green eyes found mine when I walked through the door. Something passed between us. Acknowledgment. Memory. The ghost of spearmint and serotonin and complicated feelings neither of us had words for.
"You look rested," Veronica said.
"I look like I got four hours of sleep and my girlfriend is plotting my murder from three hundred miles away."
"So normal for you."
"More or less."
I sat across from Reyna because the alternative was sitting next to her and I wasn’t sure my self-control could handle the proximity. The pendant’s temperature dropped slightly when I made the choice. Natalia approved. Or at least didn’t disapprove as much as she would have otherwise.
Breakfast was elaborate. Fresh fruit. Pastries that probably had French names I couldn’t pronounce. Eggs prepared in three different styles. Coffee that smelled like someone had robbed a bank to afford it. I ate mechanically while Veronica outlined the day’s schedule and Reyna watched me with an expression that made thinking difficult.
"Your assessment results came back," Veronica said between bites of something involving avocado and probably ten thousand calories of healthy fats. "The evaluators were impressed. Especially with your recovery metrics."
"I work out."
"You work out in ways that shouldn’t be possible for someone at your registered ranking."
"Late bloomer."