Page 47 of Sullied Saints

“So, shedidshow signs young?”

Needler’s eyes narrow on me. “How exactly did she ask for me to be handed over?”

My lips close. I don’t even know if I should have told him this much. “A poem,” I say tightly.

“Whichpoem?”

I huff. I’m annoyed at him for not saving himself, for directing the conversation away from his own fate. “Would that have some significance? Even if it tells you exactly where she is, you’ve made your conditions clear.”

“Well,” he smirks. “We all need clear conditions, don’t we?”

Abruptly reminded of conditions I’d once set in our… relationship, my jaw clenches. He knows how to throw me, and it’s working. “We can do this with or without your help,” I declare, moving for the door.

“Better late than never,” he calls after me.

***

"Are you sure we shouldn’t postpone? With everything this week…” It’s been over a week since Cassandra's demand/request for Needler now, and all has been quiet. Tawill has relented, seeing the sense in keeping Tristan for now, and I can relax just slightly, knowing any sentencing will be a while off being carried out.

The protests and the vandalism that are disordered for now, with Conrad’s connections keeping him out of prison but under house arrest for what will likely be long enough for the rest of the city to settle. Either way, he can’t pull everyone together where he is, and given his state the last time I saw him, I doubt he’s in any condition to. I know as well as anyone that grief needs to be faced, or else it will rear its head in any way it can, anytime it can.

After my last talk with Tristan, I felt that call of drowning my sorrows for the first time in a long time. I fought it, and something tells me that’s it. If I do get any relapsed urges again, they’ll be milder.

I’ve come out the other side.

“No,” Dirk groans, for what is probably the fifth time, standing outside the bedroom door while I change. “Just don’t talk about today if it was that bad.”

“I can’t find something right to wear.”

“Wear that.”

“There’s bags under my eyes.”

“There isn’t. My mother isn’t the damn Queen, you know.” Dirk raises an eyebrow as I stand in front of him, wearing the most neutral thing I could find, which ends up being pale blue jeans and an olive-green top.

“I know I just… isn’t it too soon?”

Dirk is distracted from answering or even hearing my question, his hands coming to the small strip of skin visible on my waist, leaning his nose into my hair. “Hm, your ass looks great in these jeans. We could be a little late?”

“Absolutely not!” I declare, pushing past him and away from the danger zone of the bed. “I amnotmeeting your mother smelling like sex. Now, how long do you usually wait until you introduce a girl to her?”

Dirk sighs as though commonly rejected—which he is not—and takes my hand to pull me towards the front door, grabbing my jacket on the way. “Don’t know, haven’t taken anyone home before.”

I pull up so fast that he swings back around to face me. “Excuse me?”

“Well, unless you count my high school girlfriend. Which I don’t really…”

“None since then? But why?” I was hoping at least to be able to not be the worst, but when the pool is me and some teenager from fifteen years ago, I could very easily be the worst.

“You know why. I didn’t care about any of them that much.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Look, the feeling was—most of the time—mutual.” I pull a face, recalling one or two breakups where it apparently was very muchnotmutual. “I just never wanted to take them to meet my mother.”

“What’s different this time?”

“Fishing for a compliment?” He raises a cheeky eyebrow.

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