Hunter. Sydney Robinson

      Chapter Six

      Angel’s eyes slid open, and she found herself looking at the ceiling of Scott’s basement. She sat up and unlatched the new harness she had made for her waist. About three visits back, she had worked on the chair of the memory pool to make it operational for one person. Angel had found that she got as much out of the pool alone as she did with Scott attempting to build blockers himself, so she used it as a calming technique. Nothing really blocked her emotions; it only dampened them and allowed her to control them and her outward facial expressions.

      As she exited the pool, she pulled her hair from her face and grabbed a towel that Scott had hung next to a collapsible changing wall. Angel had requested him to purchase her a swimsuit or something she could wear while in the pool so as not to soak her clothes through or cause any more problems like six months ago. Images of Ashlee’s laughing, smiling face and Kelly’s dead eyes plagued her mind whenever Angel shut her own.

      “You’ve been under longer than usual. I was beginning to worry,” Scott commented from where he was sitting on the staircase, waiting for her to change and get ready. On most nights like this, he would work on his books or organize his shop while she meditated. But tonight, business had been slow, and he had instead been helping her out. As a Guardian, or at least having been at one point, Scott had access to files that Angel didn’t, access to information that Angel needed.

      “Did you find anything?” she asked as she came around the screen, heading for the stairs where she knew dinner was waiting.

      “Only the information you already knew. And of course, I would like to inform you that looking for a random ‘Peter’ in the computers is next to impossible,” Scott stated, following her up to the workshop and then further up to his kitchen. “Though after you eat something, I do have something I would like to tell you.”

      The room was sparsely furnished, though what would you expect being a small-town bookstore, with a chain store located one town over? Scott would usually state this every time Angel pointed something like that out to him. It wasn’t that she minded the Spartan living conditions; it’s just it more surprised her than anything else. She would have assumed that as a Guardian, Scott would have been better off.

      Angel made her way into the room and sat at the table in the center of it, which was occupying most of the space in the tiny kitchen. Scott, who tonight was wearing a worn gray sweater and dark-wash jeans, set two bowls down on the table. Two spoons followed shortly, and then the man himself sat at the table. He began to eat the stew he had placed in front of her like a person who had not consumed any form of sustenance for several days, raising the bowl from the table and keeping it inches from his face as he more or less tipped the contents into his mouth, using the spoon as a guide for the sparse chucks of meat and vegetables. Angel lifted her spoon from the table and slowly ate hers, not really needing it due to the dinner she had had at the academy but also not meaning to seem rude by not eating. As she did so, she took note of the lack of substance to the stew, with its watered-down broth and the before-mentioned veggies and meats. Angel was once more reminded of the living conditions Scott resided in.

      She looked about the room as she ate, using her training to appear as if she were just glancing about, unsure of where to focus when eating. But in reality, she was looking for something in particular. Or, in this case, the lack of something. It was as if she noticed for the first time the lack of food in the apartment. She had seen the large bag of rice on the floor next to the counter countless times but had never noticed that there was almost never anything else present foodwise when she was here. Upon realizing this, Angel set down her spoon.

      “Go on, ask.”

      Angel jumped when Scott’s voice broke the silence of the room. She looked at the man who was watching her far more intently than she had anticipated. He looked rather odd though, glaring at her around his bowl, making him look like a wide-eyed frogfish and only made worse by his glasses. He set the bowl down with a sigh and looked at her expectantly.

      Angel, who was puzzled, stuttered out the question, “What am I supposed to ask you?”

      “The question, it’s burning behind your eyes. If you plan to keep this charade going for any length in time, you will need to learn to work on that,” Scott commented as he rose from his seat and placed his bowl and spoon in the sink. He paused and gazed out the window above the sink, but his view was blocked by his own face staring back at him in the darkness behind the glass. He braced himself on the edge of the counter and waited.

      “Why, if you were a Hessian, do you have so little money? You were obviously high up the ladder when you were a member. You have a prototype of the memory pool in your basement. Why then are you living this way like a common poor man?”

      Scott sighed, looking again at his reflection before turning. “Two very good questions, but they both require very long answers. Finish eating, and we shall retire to the living room.” He glanced at the clock as he spoke, “We don’t have a lot of time before I need to get you back.”

      Angel looked at her bowl and contemplated if she was hungry or not. The thought that Scott was going without because she was