Page 33 of The Rut in the Road

Mason let out a soft grunt. “That must have been difficult.”

“He was still very upset. But their father had died from cancer, and it had been very hard on all of them, so he didn’t want to put his sister and mother though it again,” I explained.

“I meant on you,” Mason said gently. “Although I imagine it was also horrible for both him and his family.”

I blinked. “I mean. It wasn’t…” I paused, thinking about how to word my emotions. Often, if I didn’t think before I spoke, I would say something that people took entirely the wrong way.I knew Mason was patient, but I still tried not to upset him if I could help it. He’d always been both kind and tolerant of my failures. “I didn’t enjoy telling the sister that’s what happened,” I said, finally. “It was sad, but it was better that she knew than that she continued to blame herself for his suicide.”

Mason nodded. “That’s almost certainly true,” he agreed. “But that still doesn’t make what you just did easy.”

I frowned a little. I wouldn’t have called iteasy, exactly, but it also hadn’t felt particularly difficult. “I just did what was needed,” I said, finally.

Mason smiled a little. “You and Ward,” he said, then patted my shoulder before standing and walking back toward his office.

I felt my frown deepen, since I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. We could both speak to ghosts, so I suppose the comparison made sense, but otherwise Ward and I really weren’t all that much alike. We had different magic, different abilities, different personalities…

I sighed, then took another sip of the hot chocolate, figuring that this was just going to be one of those things that I simply didn’t understand but would have to accept.

There were a lot of those.

After a few more sips, I was feeling less shaky, so I got up and took my hot chocolate back to my desk to return to working on the spreadsheets.

Which lasted all of five minutes before someone else came through the door, jangling the bells.

I looked up, but my hand paused before pulling up my gaiter.

“Hey, kid,” Hart said.

Behind him, Raj smiled, the expression warm, although fleeting, as he pushed it off his face quickly.

That probably meant they were here for the FBI.

“Hello, Hart,” I replied. “Raj.” I tried to keep my tone even, but I doubted I’d succeeded. Hart’s eye roll confirmed that I had not.

Raj lifted up a satchel. “Anybody using the conference room?”

I shook my head. “Let me tell Mason,” I said, standing and walking towards the back.

“I heard,” Mason said, having come out of his office. He was studying me. “You okay to do this?”

I nodded.

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Raj asked, immediately.

“I’m fine,” I replied, smothering the annoyance at both of them. I understood that it was because they were concerned for my well-being, but I wanted to be seen as someone who could manage my own abilities, not as someone out of control or prone to failure or weakness.

I supposed I would have to actually demonstrate my stamina and skill for that to happen. Which was what I was trying to do, except that Mason’s question had now shaken my confidence and caused Raj and Hart to doubt me.

I half-expected Mason to ask if I was sure, but he didn’t. He simply nodded. “Let me know if you need me for anything,” he said, looking at each of us, as though either Raj or Hart might need him to do something. I suppose he was trying to make it seem as though he hadn’t aimed the comment specifically at me, but I could practically feel the intensity of Raj’s gaze boring into my back, worried about what I was about to do.

I hit the switch to start recording the proceedings as I walked into the conference room, and we settled around the table, its polished surface gleaming, the thin lines of dark and light wood knotted into a harmonious pattern. I ran my fingers over it, letting just a brush of feeling slip through my skin.

Pride.Strength. Power. Sympathy and protection.

I’d cometo love this table for more than its beauty. It was beautiful—Elliot Crane was a master artist, but he was also a good man. He was proud of his work, and he loved doing it, and both of those things were imbued into the wood of the table. And Ward and Beck and Mason worked with it, giving it their power and causing it to echo their passion for their work, the sympathy they felt for those who had lost loved ones, the drive that pushed them to seek justice.

Despite the grief that often accompanied the people in this room, those were the emotions that had seeped into the wood over the past six or so months.

When I worked in this room, the table helped to ground me, anchoring me to this place, to these people, and to myself, no matter how horrible the things I saw were.