Distractions

Twenty-Three: Maybe Pizza Doesn't Fix Everything

Trigger warning over

"What did you just do?" she demanded, not caring that her voice was an octave too high and her words were sharp with distress.

"I took a sample of your blood to test," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why?"

"There weren't granola bars in the kitchen." Valentine faced her with a sort of curiosity burning in his gaze that reminded Everest of a forest fire. It was obvious and bright, but also deadly.

"But I just found some."

"There weren't granola bars in the kitchen," Valentine repeated. "Yet when you were looking for them, they appeared."

"That's not how that works." Everest's small smile was tense and slightly mocking, her tone just the same.

"That's the point." Who knew Valentine could be so deadpanned that it sounded sarcastic?

"Why did you need my blood then?" Everest asked, getting back to the point.

"To see if there is anything else in your blood that would have caused you to be able to wish things into existence." Valentine continued walking, but Everest stared, dumbfounded, in the middle of the hall.

"WHAT?" she shrieked. "What? No? That's not how that works! That's not how anything works!"

"Calm down and follow me," Valentine snapped. "We're going to be late."

Everest really wanted to scream, or even better, throw something, but she had to suck it up and follow the psychotic ass who was her father. She did allow herself to mime punching Valentine, as well as throttling him, and that alleviated her pure frustration a little bit.

"Jace," Everest hissed into the blonde's ear when she stopped to stand beside him. "Why is Valentine so irritating and unhelpful? It shouldn't be possible to be as irritating and unhelpful as he is."

Jace stifled a laugh. "It's part of his charm I guess."

"Yeah, well. His charm can fuck off and never return."

Jace had to work harder to stifle his laughter that time, but he succeeded somehow.

Everest pulled her sleeves over her hands and crossed her arms, a scowl mixed with panic forming on her face. Nothing was going right. Not her being kidnapped, or Cyprus Fallis of all people being on the ship, not being colder than a polar vortex all the time, not having blood drawn so Valentine could do tests on it, especially not finding out that she was experimented on as a kid. Everest groaned and tilted her head back to face the starless, smog-filled sky. Could this—no. She wasn't even going to go there.

"Come along, follow me," Valentine beckoned. He spoke as if he hadn't just drawn blood from his youngest child, as if he wasn't a horrible person leading her and Jace to who knows where. Everest hated it.

Everest followed Jace and Valentine through a Portal that had appeared at some point and immediately wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

She was standing between Jace and Valentine on a random New York street (as evident by the angry lights and glaring 'New York' in front of everything around her) that wasn't so random. Specifically, the pizza parlor in front of her wasn't as random as she would have liked.

"Why are we at Reggie's?" she demanded. She moved to Jace's other side so that she wasn't standing next to Valentine. Jace was an adult, he could deal with the jerk. (Technically Everest was an adult too, but Jace was older so he was technically more of an adult than her.)