Page 6 of The Red Rider
“Is something funny, fucker?”
“I wasn’t trying to be offensive, Ariel. I wasn’t hinting you were anything like your father, either. The four of us are ancient. You’re what, in your forties now? Aeron and Leif are practically obsessed with you. While you were in that coma and dreaming, they had time to do nothing but worry about you and let their feelings grow. You just knew them online, and then you were forced to sleep. I wouldn’t blame you if your feelings weren’t as strong as theirs. It sounds like they are, though.”
“And you had to piss me off to find that out?”
“I don’t think you realized it until I challenged you, Speedy.”
I snapped my mouth shut and pouted. He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t like being poked and prodded into admitting my feelings. I tried seeing a therapist after I got settled after I ran. I don’t think it was therapy in general, just the fact that the therapist I chose wanted me to deal with my shit on their time and not my own. I wasn’t ready to confront all the shit my father put me through in two one-hour sessions and didn’t go back. Miss Mabel was sort of my therapist. She let me talk about things in my own time, and I didn’t have to try to get everything out in one specified hour.
“You’re adorable when you pout.”
“Oh, shut up!”
The door slid open, and Aeron and Leif came in. Leif noticed the target stuck to the door with chewing gum right away. Aeron zeroed in on Dice lounging on the couch with me.
“Seriously, Dice? Gum? I live here!”
“I thought you were supposed to be teaching her,” Aeron grumped.
“She needed a target, and Iamteaching her. You’re all gung-ho to pit her against Isaiah, but you know just as well as I do, there’s already going to be a lot of unresolved shit in the air when we get there. If you don’t want her to destroy everything and not just Isaiah, we need to talk about everything we can.”
Wait a minute, what? All I’d done was cause a power outage. I was pretty sure my father couldn’t make me lose my shit to the point that I destroyed the entire white house. Plus, I would have four angels as backup.
Aeron just deflated.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Use the spray adhesive next time. I don’t want your spit all over my door. It’s not sanitary.”
“I’m an angel. My spit is divine.”
“No gum on the door, Dice!”
“Fine! Ariel, welcome toDealing with Your Shit 101.I’m your new therapist. I take payment in salsa and foot rubs.”
I rolled my eyes. I guess this was really happening. The Horseman of War was my new therapist.
“I’m not touching your feet, Dice!”
Chapter 4
I
would have thought our plan was finally coming together now that we had a cure, and Dice was here. Things just seemed to have gotten tenser. Leif kept snapping at Dice like he was going to trash his entire apartment, and Aeron was back to being grumpy again. We were all back in the apartment trying to eat dinner, and shit was just super awkward. No one was talking, and everyone was paying so much attention to their food, it was like they thought it could talk back.
I wasn’t having this. If Dice were inserting himself as my new therapist, my unqualified ass would psychoanalyze their angel asses right back. If I was a loose cannon when we got to the White House because I hadn’t dealt with my shit, what did they think was going to happen if we got there and they couldn’t even have dinner together? And there was still some mysterious Horseman out there I hadn’t met yet that I’d already been told didn’t do team sports.
“What in the exact fuckity fuck is going on? I thought we would be celebrating Dice getting here and moving closer to stopping Isaiah. You all look fucking dire, and this meal is even more awkward than the time I let myself into Miss Mabel’s apartment, and she was entertaining a gentleman friend on her couch.”
“Ew,” Aeron said.
I punched him in the arm.
“Watch it. Even old Nephilim need to get laid. She started hanging a sock on the door on the nights she had naked friends over.”
“I think that’s beautiful,” Dice said. “If I actually aged, I would hope I was getting some right to the very end.”
“Thank you,” I said.
