Chapter 6

6

S he teleports back to the underground bunker, before Gurlien bitches enough to take him back to the motorhome so he could grab his phone.

And the moment she does, the moment the body’s feet hit the cheap linoleum floor, she sways.

Gurlien grips her by her elbow, then unceremoniously dumps her to sit on the plush couch.

“Hey,” she protests mildly, but the couch is a welcome surface, so massively different from all the slick white.

“You’re still in pain,” he accuses, despite the fact that he’s still the one with a bleeding wound, even with the rather professional level bandage job he gave himself. “No more teleporting until that’s done.”

“We don’t know who he talked to,” Ambra says, but lets the body melt into the couch. “We might need to go somewhere else, somewhere less obvious.”

“No,” Gurlien flat out refuses, “you’re going to sit there and actually recover.”

Stiffly, he tosses a foil wrapped pastry at her, then grabs his phone, staring her straight in the face as he dials .

If she had been less tired, she might’ve put a stop to that, but instead he places the phone on the counter, pressing the speaker.

“Yes?” a guarded male voice on the other end says. It’s not a familiar voice, so it’s not the Half Demon.

“Yes, hi, I need you to tell me how to give her some pain relief,” Gurlien snaps out, and his hands are shaking, so he crosses his arms. “We just had an encounter with a higher up and he did something.”

There’s an inhale of breath, and Ambra’s interested, she just can’t bring herself to sit up out of the clutches of the couch.

A female voice speaks in the background, somewhat musical, but Ambra can’t make out the words.

“There’s not an easy answer to that question,” the male voice replies, and Ambra anticipated that. “Morphine and most opioids don’t work, and the ones that do leave withdrawals that are—”

“Not worth it,” the female voice interrupts, clearly, and there’s a hint of recognition behind it, something that Ambra half remembers.

“Not worth it,” the male voice continues. “Make sure she’s fed—”

“Why?” Ambra interrupts, and the phone goes silent.

Gurlien carefully folds his glasses and sets them on the counter, then rubs between his eyebrows.

“Oh, you’re dealing with this stage of things,” the male voice says, mischief thick in his words, and all at once, Ambra decides that he’d be annoying to actually speak to, outside of the direness of the situation. “We went through this with Mel, I’ll chat with him on some particularities.”

The female voice scoffs.

“Food, rest, and moving the body will help,” the woman says, and again, her voice itches at Ambra’s mind. She should know her. “Trust me.”

“Who are you?” Ambra wonders aloud, and there’s silence before the line clicks off. “Who was that, do I know her?”

Gurlien rests his head against the counter, and it can’t be comfortable. “I’m not going to answer that.”

Ambra squints at him, but can’t muster up the ability to get up from the couch, a shiver winding up her spine, some left over nerve firing a bit too hard.

Johnsin always left sensations and they always lasted for days. Always some ache or stab or throb, always where she doesn’t think it would be.

“I was hoping there was an easily available drug to give you, but apparently not,” Gurlien says, muffled, and the thought is nice, more than she thought she would get.

“It’s just pain,” Ambra points out.

“And human bodies aren’t supposed to be in constant pain,” Gurlien shoots back, before he shuffles around the small kitchen, pouring a glass of water—the same cup the body drank from all those months ago—and sets it in front of Ambra. “She’s an expert, follow her advice.”

“She sounded familiar,” Ambra says, voice smaller than she would have liked. “Like I’ve heard her before.”

He hesitates. “There’s a non-zero chance you have,” he replies, before disappearing into the bedroom, emerging with an armful of blankets which he dumps on Ambra’s lap, then pointing at the foil wrapped pastry. “Eat that, drink that, then sleep.”

Ambra splays her fingertips over the blankets in the way the body used to, and the blankets are soft to the touch, almost fuzzy. “You shouldn’t have been able to feel the pain through the leash,” she starts. “Otherwise, the other four would’ve stopped Johnsin long ago.”

“I didn’t.”

She doesn’t look up at him, instead staring down at the blankets. They’re a cheery sort of light pink, the color the body smiled at when they were shopping for this place.

Exhaustion does blur at her eyes, some strange mixture of pain and tiredness and a surreal sort of lack.

It’s the same surreal emptiness when she saw Korhonen killed in front of her. The same sort of lack when Gurlien shot Rastian in the head in the heat of battle.

And now, Johnsin is among those few who will never control her again. Never hurt her. Never light her nerves on fire and hold her in place in agony.

“Thank you,” she says, after a long pause of staring at the flimsy foil packaging, of listening to Gurlien tap on his phone.

He shifts, glancing up.

“I don’t think I would have gotten free without you.”

Not even waiting for his response, she tears the flimsy packaging, and there’s a frosting covered pastry inside, dry and powdery, but she eats it anyways, mechanically.

It’s not great, coating the inside of her mouth, but she forces it down all the same.

“You’re welcome,” Gurlien responds, voice fake and neutral, and if she had more energy she would absolutely poke at that, prod to see what causes him to fake his response.

But instead, she just eats the pastry, then the next when he places it in front of her, drinks the water from the cup left by the body, then lets herself clutch at the blankets until she loses consciousness once more.

The next morning, wind creaks through the motorhome, shaking the plastic siding and rattling the windows and waking up Ambra with the chill on her nose.

She blinks awake, and underneath the blanket she’s very close to comfortable. Sure, it’s cold, and her face is almost numb from being above the warmth, but her muscles aren’t clenched and her nerves are soft.

In the other room, Gurlien putters around, almost inaudible underneath the sound of the wind.

She lets herself wonder at that for probably longer than needed, then sits up, letting the blanket fall.

And immediately, the back cramps up, her spine aching, and she hisses out a breath.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Gurlien breezes in. His hair is already perfectly combed, he’s wearing the pants he stormed the base in, and somewhere he found another men’s shirt. New bandages are wrapped neatly around his arm, precise in a way that suggests a long history of medical knowledge.

Meanwhile, Ambra’s hair is tangled, sticking off to the side, and the shaved side of her scalp prickles when she raises her hand to touch it.

“How good are you with teleporting to specific places?” Gurlien asks, and she blinks at him. “Not just your safe houses, other places.”

“Perfectly good, thank you very much,” Ambra says, then makes a face, her mouth mealy.

She’s now been out of stasis for two nights, and the human body continues to be disgusting.

He watches her like a hawk, as she unsteadily steps towards the bedroom .

On the bed, two backpacks sit open, and Ambra glances inside.

A few changes of clothes for her, the notebook, some of the food, sealed water bottles, and the single change of clothes for Gurlien.

So he doesn’t intend for them to stay there.

A part of her should be offended that he thinks he’s making the decisions, but the predominant part of her is just curious.

“You’re still in pain,” he calls, cautious, from the main room.

“Obviously,” Ambra snips back. “Johnsin doesn’t make it disappear when he stops his grip.”

She turns to the rainbow closet, and again, her heart jumps in her throat, but she pulls out another soft shirt, one that hugs the body’s skin, and another red sweater over the top of it as her arms prickle with the cold.

Gurlien steps in, glowering at her. “And how long does it last?”

Something prickly at the line of questioning, something halfway between pride and shame, stops her words, causing her to scowl at the closet before she pulls out a pair of slacks.

He leans against the doorway, crossing his arms at her, the fake bored expression filtering over his face once more.

And she needs to keep him on her side.

Especially after he was able to break the grip with Johnsin.

“It varies,” she responds, finally, sitting on the bed and attempting to finger comb her hair. “Sometimes days, sometimes far less.”

He nods, neutral.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him, it’s a passive wearing off, not an active decision,” she supplies, and his brow furrows. “So we don’t have to wait for someone to decide to take it off, we don’t need to find someone else to relieve it, it just…is.”

“Okay,” he says, simple, and the hair on the back of her neck raises.

“You’re planning something,” she says, and he nods. “Tell me what you’re planning.”

“No,” he says casually.

She raises an eyebrow at him, and he blanches for a split second before the bored mask falls again.

“Not until I have more information,” he says instead. “Talking about it preemptively could weigh the results in one direction.”

That’s fair, but she still scowls at him.

“Get up, we are meeting some people.” Gurlien says, almost curt.

“No,” Ambra blurts out.

“Yes,” Gurlien responds. “They’re not going to hurt you, they’re not going to tell the College, and best of all, they’re going to have information for you.”

She frowns at him.

“They’re going to have information on Nalissa,” he says, crossing his arms. He doesn’t think she can tell, but he’s bluffing. “And they’re not going to give that over the phone.”

That part, at least, seems true.

“Where is the meeting spot?” she asks, skeptical, but she swings her legs out to stand and wobbles.

They’re sore, like the body had completed some sort of athletic feat, and she scrunches up her face all the same.

“Can you teleport by coordinates or do you need to visit first?” Gurlien asks, which is an interesting question, one most don’t think about .

“Coordinates are difficult, but I’m fairly decent at them,” Ambra says, cautiously.

“I’ve heard that’s impressive,” Gurlien says, just as cautious. “46.6652N by 122.9698W.”

“That’s deep inside another demon’s territory,” Ambra warns him. “I will run the moment I think I need to.”

“And where we’re going, I want you to let me do the talking,” he continues, which is at least interesting. “We’re getting there first, and if they feel threatened, they will leave maybe without even speaking to you.”

“Interesting,” Ambra replies cautiously, giving up on the finger combing and brushing past him to grab the brush in the bathroom, before startling at her appearance.

The hair on the shaved side of her head is starting to grow back, just barely prickling out of her scalp, like someone smeared a reddish-brown dust over one side of her skin.

She leans in close, rubbing her hand over it, and the texture is wholly unpleasant.

“Gurlien,” she starts, and he glances inside, “how fast does living human hair grow?”

Again, the non-amused look.

“I’ve never had hair grow once inside a body, how…how fast does this happen?” Her voice tilts up, outside of her control, and it’s a stupid thing to have an emotional reaction to, but here she is all the same. “Should it be this fast? This feels fast, I don’t—”

“It varies,” he says, parroting her own words at him. “Did they shave it every day?”

She nods, a lump in her throat.

He takes a very obvious glance at the shaved side of her head. “Human hair generally grows between half an inch and an inch a month. Some stubble after a few nights is within the statistical mean.”

Still feels fast, but she just breathes hard out of her nose, then grabs the brush and attacks the non-shaved side.

“If it causes distress, we can pick up some razors and you can continue it,” he says, and her throat just closes up further. “But that would be your decision.”

It shouldn’t be. It should be the body’s, but she’s gone.

“We should practice with the leash,” Ambra says, instead of anything swirling inside of her. “Test the distance, in case you don’t come with me when Nalissa or Boltiex summon.”

“We will,” he replies, and the neutrality once again shivers over her. Like in some way, while she slept, the balance between the two of them shifted in his favor.

Which is patiently ridiculous. She’s a demon and he’s a dud.

But he does hold her leash.

She braces herself on the sink, staring down at the spotted faucet, her mind briefly blanking out in terror.

He can’t do much, he could barely grasp it enough to break Johnsin’s concentration.

Gurlien gives her a last brow furrowed look, before going back to the backpacks, opening up the small room to a little more space for her, just enough for her to wrestle herself under control.

“Has there been any chatter about Johnsin yet?” she asks instead, finally wrangling the hair into something resembling neatness. It’s far from styled, but it doesn’t look like she slept on it anymore. “The faster we get chatter, the faster Nalissa or Boltiex will act.”

“That’s one thing we’re going to find out,” he says, zipping up the backpacks as she finishes. “I was going to have you take me to Chloe, but T…Axel thinks they’ll be able to track your location through it so I’m not going to risk her and the others.”

He says the words like it gives him a bad taste, and she wants to pry, wants to peel his mind open to understand how he processes all of the human emotions without being as affected as her, but instead she just grabs his shoulder, teleporting to the coordinates.