Paragon

⊰❉⊱ 17 ⊰❉⊱

"If you were here to kill me you already would have." Quinn murmured from the desk. Her open white shirt and fitted charcoal skirt were doing nothing to help the situation. Not to mention that scent.

I retreated a number of paces away from her.

"That's your best defence?" I muttered, before turning my attention to the wall of glass beyond that held the city. "You see a monster and you run–you don't pat it on the head for not killing you." I told her in disbelief.

"Do you know many monsters that put an end to manipulative misogynists?" She demanded.

I stared at her and she stared back.

"No? How about stepping in front of something to avoid me getting brain damage? Because I don't see many–"

"Quinn did you not see me?" I interrupted in a growl. "This isn't a joke."

"Then it's a damn good thing I'm serious." She shot back.

I dragged a hand along the top of my head resuming my pacing in her office. So many mortals continued their day outside this room while I stood before one that had just seen me reveal myself. She may be in shock.

She interrupted my inner debate with a surprisingly steady voice.

"Now that's out of the way you can answer my questions properly."

I dropped my hand in shock.

"You still want to question me?"

"Yes." She confirmed with no deception in her eyes.

"So much for accepting the madness that came with me." I drawled, moving forward to take the abandoned seat again before her.

She watched me carefully, scanning from the lines of my face down to the lengths of my arms beneath my dark shirt and the fitted leather boots crossed before me. If only looks could tell you everything... but they were just the surface. One of an immortals weapons.

"Were you always..." She began, unsure of how to finish that sentence.

I took her meaning and shook my head slowly. For some reason I found it hard to speak altogether now she knew what I was. How different we were.

"So you were human once." She mused in a whisper. Those burning green eyes were alive with questions and all of them directed towards me.

"A long time ago." I said quietly. Thinking back to the end of the first world war. How happy everyone was to be free... only for me to become trapped for eternity.

"What was the year?" She pressed me.

A ghost of a smile cracked my cold expression. "1918. November 11th."

The recognition of the date was enough to shock her whole body.

"The end of the war."

I nodded again watching her dazed expression before her hand felt for something on the desk and picked up a small paperweight in distraction–no doubt another gift from her adopted parents. I read Egypt inside it even from here.

"Were you... were you involved?" She whispered.

"I was a mechanic." I murmured, still seeing the crippled machines returning to us. "They needed to relieve non-combat roles so more men could push from the front."

"This is... impossible." She breathed, looking down at the glass in her hands and tracing the edges of it.

"I thought so too. Then I noticed that I wasn't changing. I was twenty three when I turned." I told her in a detached voice.