Afraid of the Dark

Chapter 18: Personal Affairs

Todo nods deliberately and she can see the gears turning again. "And...? When you 'stepped out,' were they out there?"

"'They'?" Reela questions, deciding that now's the time she should start playing coy now that Avinalyn is getting brought up, and she gets a cheap scoff from Todo.

"Reela, we've known each other for ten years now, so you know that 'cagey' ploy doesn't work on me," he states. "Which tells me that they were there and you're trying to hide it. What happened?" he presses which only reminds Reela of why she hates the fact that he's the smart one here.

She narrows her eyes at him as her own gears start cranking away at her poor brain that's really been going through the ringer since arriving here. Why is Todo getting so touchy with her all of the sudden? She thought he was concerned because of what Avinalyn did to Corb, but instead he seems almost indicting.

Should she just tell him that Avinalyn took her to their house? Something tells her he won't drop it until she tells him the truth. This was supposed to be about him. Why did this, once again, turn right back around on her?

She sighs with another coy shrug. Force of habit. "They... brought me to their house and—"

"What?!" Todo gasps a bit too loudly and Reela tilts her head to think to herself.

"Well, actually it was more of a castle. In Aramora, which was... a shock as you could probably imagine. But hey, weird teleport glass came out of it, so I guess—"

Todo grabs her arm and stops walking, forcing her to stop as well and face him. "What the fuck happened?" he growls and she notices his eyes continuously glance from her eyes to the burn on her chin.

Reela looks down at his hand gripping her arm and frowns before glaring back up at him. With a sigh, he begrudgingly lets go and she resumes walking. Todo follows with his full focus on Reela all while Corb is apparently either too deaf or too out of it to have noticed Todo shout a second ago.

So that confirms it for Reela. Todo is definitely still pissed about the Avinalyn incident. She is too whenever she thinks about it, which she welcomes as a generous reminder of exactly how much she hates Avinalyn.

But she's not looking to charge at them in a blind rage like it seems Todo is ready to do, so even though he can see through her coyness, she decides to just blatantly withhold the details of the fact that Avinalyn poisoned her food and tried to kidnap her again.

"What do you want me to say? I went to their castle, got the shard, and used it to come back."

Todo shakes his head and takes a moment to breathe to tame some of that anger in his eyes. Is he really that upset that she's not telling him? If anything, she should be mad at him for avoiding the question when she asked him what was wrong.

"Did they fight you?" he asks, and Reela answers honestly.

"No," she says and cocks a brow when his eyes narrow in on her chin again.

"Then explain the burn," he states. Reela reaches up to rub her thumb over the red spot along her jaw. How does she keep forgetting it's there? "It's clearly from them, considering their whole 'fire' thing. If they didn't fight you, then why was their hand on your face?"

Reela snorts with another shrug. "I don't fucking know. I keep asking them what it is with all the face-touching but they're a coy little shit."

Todo huffs and just slowly nods again. "Huh. Sounds familiar," he side-eyes her with a glare.

"What, do you want me to touch your face?" Reela teases and starts reaching up to poke his cheek, but he catches her wrist and looks down at her with a stern glare. Since when is Todo this fucking serious? He stops walking again, which again stops her too.