Dell

She’s been through it🥲

“I’m going pee,” she announced finally.

“Go piss girl,” Miranda muttered from her desk, inspecting the structural integrity of her latest card creation.

Whatever. It was fine.

She didn’t even truly know if she’d met the woman before. It could have been someone with similar features that was jogging these memories.

Whatever.

She flinched, pushing the thought as far down as she could.

She’d always done her best to not think too hard about her mother. She had a tendency to spiral.

Telling Max her story had been as painful as it was cathartic.

Her mind went to dragons for some reason.

A flash of an old memory, she was hunched by her fire, using the light to doodle a lopsided dragon on a scrap of paper.

𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮, she remembered far too slowly. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘺’𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘴…

She couldn’t put words to the feeling of knowing the memory was there but not being able to fully grasp it.

Like sand slipping through her fingers, she couldn’t quite close her hands tight enough to keep ahold of the bigger details.

Miranda knew this better than anyone. She’d been the one to drag Sasha back from the ledge. Sasha owed her life to her just as much as she did Lysander.

Miranda didn’t push the subject, attention returning to her own desk. She knew if Sasha wanted to talk about it she would.

She didn’t remember much of her time with Dale, or the few months she’d spent on the streets before that. Everything prior to Miranda moving into her room was a blur. Even the first few weeks they had spent as roommates were slightly fuzzy.

Miranda had gone back to her desk, but she stared at Sasha a while longer. “Are you sure you don’t know her?”

Sasha looked away. It was a moment before she could answer. “No.”

Sasha made an exasperated sound. “Me?! She was freaking me out!”

Someone else might have missed the quick looks or explained them away as her glancing around the room, but Miranda and Sasha had both learned to pick up on those sorts of things.

Miranda only waited a half second after the door had clicked shut. “That was fucking weird.”

Sasha spun back to her. “What the fuck did you say to her?”

“Nothing, dude, that was all you! You freaked her out!”

“Oh! Thank you!” she squeaked back, voice oddly strained.

Sasha hadn’t been listening to their conversation, but whatever Miranda had said, the poor thing looked like she was a second from crying.

She crossed the room swiftly, eyes locked on the floor as she did so.

An eternity later, her phone buzzed against the desk.

[Ok send her back]

[not your secretary]

[I love you :)]

She looked up and found the woman already watching her. “Ren said he’s ready now!”

Why had Ren not texted her yet?

He was on the phone with Lysander for gods sake, they lived in each other’s skin, what the fuck could they possibly be talking about for so long?

Sasha turned her attention back to the email she’d been drafting, but for some reason she’d forgotten every point she had planned to make.

It didn’t help that the woman kept stealing glances at her from across the entryway.

Max had asked them to put it there, a little spot for Anatoly who was forced to call the office home while they dealt with the fallout from the Whetherbys.

Julianna had drug him to the grocery store, but as long as they didn’t touch his books she doubted he’d mind her loaning it out to their guest.

Miranda’s quick derailment of the conversation at the prospect of a new tattoo shop for her and Lysander to check out had led them to the couch on the far wall.

“...have we met?”

Sasha blinked up at the woman. She was… familiar, but not in a way that really jogged any sort of recognition. Most likely, they’d crossed paths in something work related.

“I don’t think so,” she answered, but something tight in her chest wasn’t entirely sure of the answer.

The sweetest babies🥹😭

🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️

Everyone works for him, this is lys’ world we’re just living in it🙂‍↕️

It’s more fun that way🤠

He’s nothing if not honest lmao

Just a little bit🙂‍↕️

Sighing once more, Rosewood seemed to deflate slightly.

“Regardless of 𝘩𝘰𝘸 it happened… the Hostetlers are satisfied with the outcome. We must both pray this means I’ll never set eyes on you ever again.”

Lysander’s grin was a cruel sort of glee. “Neither one of us is that lucky.”

Lysander was right. Ren could see it in the twitch of Rosewood’s jaw, Lysander was right and Rosewood knew he was.

“You should be grateful I’m not going to kill you for this,” he said, voice low, eyes nearly glowing in the dim light.

“You’d miss me.”

“Their instability is your instability. That’s why you sent us, isn’t it? Because, for whatever reason, you can’t afford their collapse.”

Rosewood didn’t respond, but the silence was answer enough.

“Finneas would have expedited the process. He was a nail ready for the Thomas family’s coffin.”

Rosewood’s eyes snapped open at the interruption.

Lysander went on before he could argue. “Even the smallest grains of sand at the very bottom are integral to the structure of the castle as a whole, aren’t they? Brush a few grains off the side and a whole wall could fall.”

Rosewood let out a strangled sigh, scrubbing a hand across his brow. In that moment, he was a far cry from the quiet and composed man Ren usually saw.

“If you had just done what I’d told you to—”

“The Thomas family would have collapsed.”

“Are you allergic to doing what you’re told?” he asked when he looked back at Lysander.

Lysander shrugged. “Kinda.”