The Hunt

Chapter 21- To Trust a Beast

Reiko watched his prince and childhood friend walked over with one hand clasped tightly. Cecily wasn't even looking, too focused on the cup in her hand.

Zphyr walked over, kneeling besides her.

Finally, she looked down. Her eyes didn't widen at the sight of the key. She didn't even smile. The only sign of acknowledging the kneeling prince's presence was moving the cup of steamy herbal tea a bit further than her normal diameter.

Maybe it was because she knew this wasn't freedom, this was trust. She had, after all, always been smart. Or, in the short month or so that he'd known her, that's what it'd seemed like.

"I think we're beyond the point of trust, after all this," the guard heard his prince say in his political voice. "You saved all of our lives. The least we can do is trust you not to take them away."

The guard spoke, looking at the healer and the professional assassin, "I don't think anyone has any arguments."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. They knew what she'd done for them. They didn't doubt she could've found a way to take it off if she really wanted to. In some part of Reiko's mind, he'd always seen the criminals he'd put away as cruel, unjust, untrusting, and stupid. She was none of those things. It was her who made the guard doubt her sentencing.

This girl, this woman, was good.

When the collar fell off of her neck, revealing a red rash forming, more severe due to the shock he'd previously given her, she watched the prince take it away. One of her hands went to her neck where she rubbed at some of the unusually bright redness.

"Um," the saint said, "the swelling might not go down for a few days. Getting shocked that closely, it's...it's not something people normally walk away from as quickly as you did. There's a ninety to eighty-five percent chance that you'll be perfectly fine."

Orion turned to the pure little saint. "What about the other ten to fifteen percent?"

She didn't meet the assassins eyes. "We don't like to talk about that."

An eerie silence settled over the room before Zeph clapped his hands. "Enough about that. We got the next few targets in." The prince glanced up at his small, trustworthy group of friends. "But I vote we take a few days off. There's no way we're getting much done looking like this. So two days of r and r and then we'll take up the next targets."

The others let out a sigh of relief. Even Cecily seemed to relax a little more.

It seemed like the whole of the team was ready to sleep on the couches when Alma stood up.

"Cecily, can I take a look at those burns around your neck?"

The hunter nodded, taking another sip of the tea while watching Alma.

"Uh, in the other room. I wanna make sure your, uh...arm is still okay."

Orion scoffed. "What, are you a mechanic now?"

She glared at him, all the pissy stubbornness hiding under that soft skin put in one look. "All saints have minimal knowledge of prosthetics. More than any of you."

The prince hid laugh behind his hand while Reiko looked the other way. Orion just rolled his eyes.

---

Alma was leading Cecily into their room. She ushered the criminal into the room and sat her on the bed.

"Can you... Your shirt."

Cecily nodded, going for the zipper on the nearly shredded jacket. Alma turned to lock the door. She may have put it above the benevolent prince to peep but not the other two and definitely not the other two.