Gerald leaned closer. The scent of his mana hit Cashel so hard he scrunched his nose.
The smell..God..the smell was just like.his energy.
Evil... disgustingly strong, an emphasis on that disgusting and particularly revolting.
"I’ve been looking for a way to make sure that brat gets exactly what she deserves."
Cashel stared at him, silently fighting the urge to say something that would earn him another hit.
But the second his mind betrayed him and focused oo the smell invading his nostrils, the huge hands holding his face like he was a kid, and the fact he was being held down, he opened his mouth....
And let his annoyance take over.
"So..." Cashel began, glancing briefly at Gerald’s scarred neck. "You’re having issues with a brat... a kid, huh?"
Gerald’s face went blank. "What?"
"Can’t hear?" Cashel tilted his head. "I asked why an old geezer like you has issues with a kid? Or..." He smirked behind his mask, making an amused sound despite the pain. "Don’t tell me you’re a..."
Smack!
Gerald slapped Cashel hard across the cheek. He tried to pry the mask off, but instead he was pushed back with an unknown force and his face literally turned red.
He gripped Cashel’s chin and forced him to look at him.
"You will not speak to me like that, young man," he growled. "A young man barely over two decades old should not run his mouth like..."
"And you’re allowed to? About my wife?" Cashel asked, his tone low. He spat out blood and snorted. "Sorry, Sir, but I’m not going to sit still while you insult my wife. Since we’re on that, what made you start stalking a married woman in the first place?"
Gerald’s expression twisted into a sinisterly evil one that made Cashel grimace just imagining what else was going to leave his mouth.
Lord, he had expected the deputy commander to be at least as cool or mature as Nathan or even Rain. And yet here he was.
A ridiculously strong S-rank with his ass and pride filling the space with his brain.
It was truly painful.
And he had completely forgotten there was an active timer counting down at this point.
"She’s an unstable bitch," Gerald said.
"Any slight provocation and the binding on her system starts to crack, the locked parts open. You have no idea what she becomes. I don’t even get why she was allowed to roam free alongside the others."
Cashel frowned. ’What others?’ he thought, but quickly shook the thoughts away and flexed his hands.
The pressure on him had not returned completely to his body, it was only holding him down like chains around his legs and shoulder.
A mistake on Gerald’s part, or had he deliberately done it? Cashel could not tell, but it was good.
Gerald released Cashel’s face and rose up. Then he pulled his white uniform shirt up.
Where a well-defined torso should have been, was only a vertical pillar of black crystalline material fused to his lower body and connected to his ribs and diaphragm.
Running along the pillar and into it were his veins, probably supplying blood to the organs within.
"Before I got the chance to join the SAMD," Gerald continued, "I was still with Eclipse. I tried to befriend her since we knew each other from the academy in her homeland. I thought she was still the nicest young girl from then. Then one joke about her sight... something she deserved, by the way... and she lost control."
Cashel could not believe his ears.
Gerald continued, arrogance and complete indifference leaking from his face hole. "She used one of those cursed abilities and ripped my torso clean off... I still can’t find out what exactly they are." He muttered the last part to himself and proceeded. "Not just me. She finished the entire Eclipse team I was with that day. Parts of the First Division too. Those idiots were trying to recruit an eighteen-year-old kid into the SAMD. because somehow she was made a soldier. And after that they gave her her own division just to keep her pointed at the enemy instead of at others."
Cashel genuinely could not believe his ears.
The man chose this moment to ramble and talk nonsense without looking at himself twice.
Gerald was a decade older than he was if his assumptions were right, and he still had no single courtesy. Cashel clenched his jaw.
Gerald let the shirt fall and shrugged. "I intend to make her pay for this."
Cashel could not help the short laugh that left his lips. "So your pride took a hit and you’ve been carrying hatred for a few years over a rejection and a simple joke?"
Gerald’s hand moved across Cashel’s face again.
The mask absorbed most of the impact this time, since Cashel expected it, but the force still snapped his head to the side.
Gerald was livid right now. His energy was flowing out of him rapidly so that Cashel already knew he was drunk on the power. "If she wasn’t married," Gerald said, his voice dropping to a low tone, "I would have done far worse to her before I killed her, and before that I’ll make her watch you get killed too in the most horrible way," he chuckled.
"To think I wouldn’t even have to stress about capturing you, you just had to walk into my open arms. It’s expected anyway since Reckless found Insane."
The last of the humour drained from Cashel’s mind when he prepared for a clapback. His eyes behind the mask went completely dull, no form of light reflecting off the surface.
Gerald smiled, all teeth, now speaking from his ass. "You’re just a newly awakened with an indefinite rank. You don’t even look like an S-rank like they keep assuming. I’m more bothered about what she saw in a regular like you that she refused another S-rank," he grinned. "I can do whatever I want with Eclipse backing me, take Andeen for myself and if I was generous enough I would..."
"...Repeat."
Gerald narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"Repeat what you said just now."
Gerald’s eyes gleamed faintly. As he opened his mouth to speak, Cashel broke free from the binding with a violent and forceful twist, twisting his ankles in the process.
He sprang up, punched Gerald hard across the face so that a pained grunt left his lips as his head snapped sideways, then he reached into his waistband and took out his gun.
"Should have killed you the moment I saw you," he said between gritted teeth, enduring the pain he was in. Then he pulled the trigger.
The bullet did hit Gerald’s forehead, but instead it ricocheted off his face with a loud ping and grazed Cashel’s own cheek hard enough to draw blood.
Seeing this, Cashel let out a breath through the corner of his lips...
"Well, fuck me."
Bam!