Page 120 of The Guru: Shadow
“Deis,” said Sam. “The issue is, people don’t like to be wrong, as usual. They idolized Delilah, and now they accuse Emma of having the move against her engineered to get Delilah out of the way.”
“We need to sit that out, it will all clear up in due cause, when the Feds are done with Gamma, they’ll know, until then, damage control.”
Damage control. Accusations. Feds. I’m in a movie, a dream, and when I wake up, I’ll be back in my old life.
And just when the magnitude of it seemed to overwhelm her again, as the tight knot in her throat began to grow, his hand wandered around hers.
“Nothing we can’t manage,” he whispered. “It’ll be alright soon. The best thing is to not let it get to you. People are awful, but they forget really fast. It’ll all be over next week.”
Whatever it was about his touch, his words, they somehow grounded her, vanishing the urge to run and hide. So, she took a leap of courage and leaned into him. As she looked up over her shoulder, she saw the corner of his mouth twitch into a slightly smug grin. He wanted it. He wanted her to rely on him.
“Deis, I have a suspicion,” said Jaz.
“And what would that be?”
“What if they are pushing it? If they try to contain the damage by defamation? It would explain the unexpected magnitude.”
“It would fit the story of that man mixing with the paparazzi,” thought Deis out loud. “Pull up the face shot again. I’ve seen him before. Somewhere. And did you get anything on the phone you found on Carl?”
Wait, what?They found a phone on Carl?
“There you go,” said Jaz, and an image appeared on the screen to her left. As her eyes wandered onto the screen and she stared into those almost black eyes of a hooded man, an ice-like shudder ran down her spine.
It can’t be. It can’t. Please let my brain be fried and haunt me with my past.
“Who is that?” she asked Deis, rounding incredulously on him, staring back and forth between him and Jaz, who stopped her summary on Carl’s phone. Something she would’ve been so interested in to hear, but right now, nothing else mattered.
“We don’t know, he was one of the men hunting you–”
Coincidence. Let it be a coincidence. A look-a-like.
“He what? I…I…it can’t–”
“Emma, what is it with him? Do you know him?”
His voice had an urgent, demanding undertone, but it just could not be. She felt weak, like someone had pulled the rug under her.
“He…Deis, he is supposed to be dead.”
He just stared at her. And once again, her past was catching up on her like a storm raging over the country without shelter.
“Who is he? What’s his name?” And he almost shook her.
“Why don’t we know who that is? Why is this news to me?” he rounded with a reprimanding tone at Jaz and Ed.
But they would not know. Because no one knew.
“Emma…”
31
EMMA
PLAYLIST: CAN’T PRETEND - TOM ODELL
When she woke, the scent of coffee and freshly made waffles made her dream of standing in front of Floria’s Baked Goods as a child, right around the corner where they lived. Floria had been an old lady, a retired librarian, who fulfilled her dream of having a bakery truck as she turned sixty-five. She was the loveliest and sweetest person she knew back then, and it was one of the very rare happy memories she had of her past.
So, when she opened her eyes, she somehow had the hope that her whole life had been a dream. Only it was not as she looked through her squeezed eyes into a pair of piercing ice-blue eyes.