Fearghas gestures toward the door, and we follow him out into the hall. It’s empty, leading me to believe Rainey and Elijah are entertaining Felix in the waiting area. “Breaching someone’s mind is not an easy thing to do,” he says. “Especially when they know what I’m doing and why. She will inadvertently block me, making it incredibly—unpleasant.”
Tarnley is silent.
“What do you want to do?” I ask him. “She was your friend before all this. You’ve known her the longest.”
“It’s not as though we partied together,” he snaps. “Shit, I’m sorry.” After pinching the bridge of his nose, he takes a deep breath then looks back up at me. “Worst case scenario, she tells someone what she saw. There will be no evidence of an attack, and likely they will think she’s insane.”
“Risk wise, it’s low for us,” Fearghas replies. “Your team erased all the security tapes?”
“They did.”
“And the bodies?”
“Taken care of.” Tarnley’s response is tight, and I know it’s because he hates what he has to do in order to keep us shielded from humans.
“Her cell phone?”
“It was in her purse the entire time. We checked it, just in case, and wiped the phones of the victims before destroying them.”
Fearghas sighs. “Then I say we make sure she understands how important it is to keep this to herself, but we let her walk.”
The door opens into the hall, and Rainey strolls in, bag of Skittles in hand. “What are we out here chatting about?”
“Deissy doesn’t want her memory wiped,” I explain.
The hunter doesn’t even break stride. “So? Who gives a shit? Those humans didn’t want to die tonight. Sometimes we don’t get a choice.”
I’d been expecting some pushback from Rainey, so her harsh tone does not surprise me at all. Luckily, Delaney picks that exact moment to make her presence known. She strolls in through the same door Rainey came through.
“What’s going on?”
“These asshats want to let the human keep her memories.”
Delaney’s sharp gaze travels over us, then back to her sister, before stopping on me. “You really think that’s such a good idea?”
Fearghas clears his throat. “Since I am the only one here with the power to mind fuck someone—literally—I feel that my vote is weighted heavier than all of yours. And I, for one, would prefer to not have to force someone into having memories removed they would rather keep. I have a distaste for the action, anyway, and that type of violation—” He visibly shivers. “I’m not interested in taking part if I can help it.”
“And if she tells everyone? Writes a book about it? Puts it on the news?”
“Then it would be a fictional book and fake news as far as the world can tell.”
Delaney shrugs. “Then I don’t really care.”
“That’s only because she hasn’t seen you, yet.” Rainey shoves past us and into the room with all the grace of a bull. “Why the hell don’t you want to forget tonight?” she demands.
Deissy jumps off the table, going toe to toe with Billings’ deadliest hunter. “Would you? Would you want to erase an entire night of your life, especially one where you discovered an entirely new world and all the dangers that could creep out of the shadows?”
Rainey practically growls in frustration. “If I could forget this entire supernatural world exists, I absolutely would. You need to understand something, human; once you know about it, there is no going back.”
“Tarnley already told me as much.”
“Oh okay, well if Tarnley already told you, then you know it all, right? Know all about the monsters that go bump in the night. The succubae who fuck and drain the life out of their victims, the shifters who morph into animals that will just as soon look your way as they would have you for dinner.”
“Rainey,” I start.
“No,” she cuts me off. “This human needs to realize exactly what is going to happen.” Rainey crosses her arms. “Once you carry the knowledge, there is absolutely zero forgetting it. You willalwaysbe a part of this world. The bad, the worse, and the downright fucking horrific parts of it.”
“I know that.”