Rise Of The Shadow ||A Contemporary Fantasy Romance||

03: Three Good Reasons to Not Give a Fuck

CAELI

I could hardly believe Vince. We had left Hunter at his hotel, where he gave his phone number to Vince in hopes we would contact him if we needed an extra person to work with. Apparently, he was desperate for money and willing to pass his phone number on to strangers for a lead.

It didn't add up to me. If this Hunter was so protective of his so-called name, why would he give us his phone number? I had threatened to kill him, to me the risk wouldn't outweigh the reward. I'd never give a stranger my phone number, would never risk someone being able to trace me through it. Aside from that there was the disconcerting conversation that Vince had lead on the way way to the hotel.

He'd built a fucking rapport with the American, and it made me both lightheaded and itchy just thinking about it.

"You alright, kiddo?" Vince asked, likely because he'd noticed how often my fingers were trying to ease the pain at my temples. "Is this about-"

"If you do so much as imply you want us to work with that lying American, I won't hesitate to walk through that door and never come back." That was a lie, I would hesitate, but I'd still do it.

"Caeli-"

"Come on, Vince. His name is Hunter for fuck's sake." I collapsed onto the edge of my queen sized bed, and wrung my hands together. "If he is a treasure hunter, don't you find it a little suspicious that's the name he gave us? We can't trust him." My eyes dropped to focus on the bandages that were wrapped around my wrists. The cuts were the lease of my worries, because I knew they would heal quickly. I always healed quickly.

"Look, we both know that your intuition is pretty shit when it comes to other people. I can list out evidence on that front if you need me to." Asshole. I crossed my arms over my chest and stopped my leg from bouncing. He was right, but he didn't need to know that I agreed.

"There's no need to do that," I said through gritted teeth. What I needed right now was a strong drink, not a damned lecture. Although, judging from the look on Vince's face, it was the latter that I would be receiving.

"Well, then I won't. I'm just saying that we can't really hold his name against him." I really hated it when he made a good point.

"If you're implying that I should give him the benefit of the doubt, I won't." I furrowed my eyebrows as my mouth went dry. Leaving the American alive had been a bad idea, I should have just killed him the second I came across him in that museum. "We don't know a thing about him, and his name-"

"You remember when we met, right?" My face fell slack. He surely wasn't about to compare this situation to back then. "I stumbled upon this kid who saved my ass by killing seven people in the space of three minutes. It took six months of being around each other every minute of every day for her to give me a simple name." It took me that long because I didn't have a name, or I did but that's not what I wanted to be anymore. For the first time in my life I wanted to be human, to be someone rather than something.

"I remember saving an old man who should have known better than to piss off an entire black market ring without backup." I uncrossed my arms and dropped my hands into my lap.

"I was only thirty-four, which is not old," he argued. When I looked up at him I saw the small smile on his face, it was one that I had seen plenty of times before. It was never a good thing.

"What?"

"I'm just grateful you didn't kill me that night," he said as he sat next to me on the bed. "I mean, I should be dead but I'm not. You gave me a chance, and I gave you one. We're both better off for it. Because of that night I'm not going to die a lonely old man... or just a lonely man. I would definitely be dead by now if it weren't for you."