She turned away, and I put myself in her field of view again, my expression like stone because anything else would have broken in a second. My fists were clenched, and I was acutely aware of the burn… yet I didn’t feel pain. Even the old bullet wound in my upper arm didn’t hurt in this moment, which made me realize it usually did, just a bit. A tightness that wasn’t there in this moment.

Because I didn’t feel pain, I felt like I could do this. I could manage this because that almost-contact had shocked my system and my senses were altered in the now. That allowed me to show Amy. I could show Goddess because I trusted her. The others—they knew or they’d seen.

Well. Maybe they’d seen, but it might have taken the damage to the floorboards to show them.

Adrenaline surged through me to impel, drive me forward, in a moment I was stiller than even a person standing could be. A person that stood needed to make micro-adjustments to their position, to keep their balance. Weight shifted from foot to foot.

Not so, for me. I could have been a corpse.

I saw moisture on her face that wasn’t rain. Like the two and a half words she’d spoken, it was almost enough to provoke me again. I felt outrage, seeing that.

I knew I wasn’t being rational. I knew I was in shock.

Like with the master–stranger protocols, I had to recognize where I was, and what I needed to do. Things divorced from instinct, biological impulses, and baser needs, like fight or flight.

“Did you get your closure?” Goddess asked.

Amy turned her head to look at the woman, and I could see her eyes. Bewildered, haunted. Hurt.

Amy wasn’t under Goddess’s influence. She was a lieutenant who had connections to key players like Tattletale, Marquis, and Teacher.

I’d seen those eyes before too. Around the edges of memories that had been wiped away.

“Amy,” Goddess said.

Amy wasn’t up to speaking any more than I was.

“Go to Cryptid. You’re useless to me here.”

Amy nodded slowly. She backed away.

I had no idea if she planned to catch a ride somehow, run, walk, or do something else. I didn’t really care. She was leaving. She was gone.

She’d tried to touch me.

What to call it when someone I wasn’t prepared to forgive did something unforgivable?

I wasn’t sure. But I could cuss at myself in my head, for letting things get this far, for letting my guard down. A ‘fool me once…’ thing.

As the rush lost its hold on me, the shaking got a bit worse.

“Natalie,” Tristan said. “Can you lock up? Tress has trouble with things like keys, I don’t think Lookout keeps keys readily available—she has other things to do with her belt pouches.”