Page 50 of Breakaway
I chew on my nails as I let his words sit in my mind. The middle nail gives a little crack, and then the fake pops off.
"Oh," I say, looking at the nail now resting in the center of my palm.
It's not even that bad, and it didn't hurt. These nails were some cheap ones from the drugstore, and they hold no sentimental value to me. My mind is so twisted from everything else, though, that I look at the nail, a big frown on my face, and the tears start.
"Reese?" Marr looks to me, making sure I'm not hurt.
I hold up the pink nail so he can see it while blubbering, "I chewed off my fake nail."
CHAPTER 18
ZILL
Breaking News! Rumors of Empress's imminent leave of Earth have fans wondering if the pop star is abandoning them without even a farewell.
We could. We should. Yes? Yes.
Ignoring how my shadows want to go back to Reese's family house and let them know how displeased I am with how they treat her is harder than it looks from the outside. Granted, Reese is curled up in my lap with my arms banded around her, and I'm not about to do anything but hold her until she wakes.
She's no longer crying, which is a relief, but for the first few minutes… How she crawled into my lap and nuzzled against my neck and cried because she knew I would care for her? Yeah, that was difficult. Fulfilling in the strangest way, but also hard. Not even Kolos gave either of us a hard time about it.
He, Isha, and Marr took to the opposite side of the hotel room, speaking quietly amongst one another while I held Reese and told her I was proud of her for cutting them out of her life, how she was so strong to even tell them to their face that she was no longer going to be around. My shadows even remained respectful. They wiggled over her back and arms and tunneledthrough her hair, same as my fingers were, as I rubbed her head and urged her to let out all the hard feelings.
Marr told the others what happened while Reese told me. Neither of them told the whole truth. Marr kept some of the more vulgar things said to Reese to himself in some sort of way to uphold his respect for her. We all heard them in his thoughts, though, and saw how close he was to shifting. The fact that he was so close was a surprise to him as much as it was to us. He's a mature Lokan, one who's in control of his shifted form, which is what makes him well-suited for security work. The fact that he was so close to losing it at Reese's family meant he was more than angry about how they were treating her.
Reese didn't tell me everything, but only because she kept getting flustered when she was speaking. Her breath would catch on a sob or a hiccup or something. She'd tell me she wasn't sad, she was angry, and then she'd tell me that I should just listen to Marr's thoughts if I wanted it all. I'd smile and tell her she could take her time, but I wanted to know what she had to say, even if she didn't want to talk about all of it.
Reese told me most of it, probably everything that she could reasonably remember. She left out the part about one of her cousins calling her a whore, but I wasn't about to bring that up. How a whole group of people who benefit from her generosity can feel so much animosity toward her is beyond me.
Maybe if I meet them one day, something I don't want to happen, I can get some answers from their minds. I have a feeling it's mostly jealousy, but there could also be some resentment involved. Probably resenting her for doing something with her life and getting out of the little town of ignorance she grew up in.
"Hey, absolutely no rush, but we're wanting to know if we're staying here for the night or heading back to the ship?" Marr is the one sent over to ask. As much as my shadows shroud Reeseand tighten around her to keep her out of anyone's reach, I don't snap at him and tell him to back off like they want me to.
"You about ready to go?" I ask Reese.
She waves her hand through the smoky tendrils until they dissipate and give her space to move in my lap. "Ready when you guys are. I definitely don't want to spend the night this close to them."
I press a kiss to the top of her head before untwining us from one another's hold. Isha is angry but trying to hide it. She's not good at it, considering she has her arms crossed, brows lowered, looking like she's ready to go take on Reese's entire family herself. She probably could too, and not just with mind tricks. Between her and Skia, she's the one who likes to physically fight. Seeing as Kolos and I have no problem sparring with her, we've had our asses handed to us a few times.
Kolos isn't nearly as angry as Isha, or if he is, he's keeping it tucked tight to his own chest. He's learned how to mask a lot of his feelings and emotions with humor and pretending that he doesn't care about anything. We don't call him out on it because none of us know what it feels like to have a soulbond reject us. Now that I have Reese near me, now that I know how special she is, it would gut me if she told me she didn't want to be with me. How Kolos even finds the will to do anything other than wallow in self-pity is a feat in and of itself.
The ride back to the ship is quiet, everyone dealing with what they dealt with either firsthand or through Marr's memory of the events. I keep Reese tucked up close to me, and she watches as the world turns into a blur of green and blue underneath us.
"Can we stop off at my apartment to get the rest of my things when we come back for the interview?" Reese asks, the only sound in the entire transport.
Isha continues to look out the window, giving us some semblance of privacy while Kolos goes through his comm, paying us what appears to be no attention at all.
"Of course, do you want me to have Brandr and Ingo pack anything in particular for you, or just want to go look for yourself?"
I grabbed everything she asked for when I stopped by the other day, but she has a whole apartment's worth of belongings. We'll need to go through and figure out what she wants to move onto the ship and what she wants to part with. I keep very few belongings in my private ship, so there's plenty of space for her. Still, it's a small ship, and if she really wants to come with me, she'll be leaving a lot of her belongings behind.
"If they wouldn't mind getting some more boxes, but other than that, I'd prefer to pack it up myself. I want to grab the rest of my clothes. Also, and you can't make fun of me." She cuts a look at the other two in the back of the transport with us. They continue doing their own things, and when she looks at me, I hold my hands up to show I'm not a threat. She narrows her eyes at me, assessing whether it's worth it to tell me or not, but since Kolos isn't giving her a hard time for it already, she thinks it's safe. "I have quite a few of my costumes I'd like to bring. I know there's not really a reason–"
Kolos snorts then, and I have to bite down hard to keep myself from smiling. Reese sucks in a deep breath, turning to, I'm assuming, scold Kolos. Before she gets the chance, I place my hand on her cheek and get her attention back on me.
"There are plenty of reasons," I assure her.
She looks like she's going to argue with me, and gods, if I have to explain this to Reese of all people in the transport with Kolos and Isha listening in, I'm never going to live it down. Thankfully, something clicks into place, and Reese's cheeks turn the softest shade of pink as a smile spreads across her lips.
