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Maybe it was precisely the fact that we didn’t take the car together that initially caused the rift betweenhim as soon as he walked into Thea’s office, and I still disliked hiain at our destination

Prudence busied herself with tying her hair back and, for soot out of the hired car, so she was either too occupied to notice Bastion pulling up on his h tih He was throttling it loud enough, in that specific here someone pretends he doesn’t want the attention, but clothes hi accessories anyway

But that was too harsh As histrionic as he was, it pained ood dress sense I’d hack ue off before I’d let him know that, but his leather jacket looked like it’d been cut to fit, his jeans the seven-hundred dollar type that came pre-distressed, because the wear and tear orth extra so up the sides of his motorcycle helmet were, okay, kind of cool His blond, close-cropped hair stayed oddly neat and unmussed even after he’d removed his helmet, and his eyes seemed to savor the way others looked at him He was, in short, a cocky bastard

Bastion looked like the kind of guy who greith a nanny and servants and a house with a pool and a library, and also the kind of guy who failed at every effort to conceal it He couldn’t have been any older than either er, the way he dish and his shoulders spread too broad gave hier I could s want to be cool He was exactly the kind of person who’d try to assert that coolness by putting souy, that someone was me

“Okay, rookie” Bastion cracked his knuckles, like it was supposed to intimidate me Okay, it did, a little, but it was such a patently alpha er to throw his weight around “Job’s sioods” He cracked the knuckles of his other hand Fingerless gloves, I noticed

“I got that,” I said “Prudence explained to me on the way”

Bastion’s lips turned up at the corner, what I would conature sneer “Did she tell you about the potential traps?”

Traps? He got me there “What traps?”

“Bastion, honestly,” Prudence cut in “Don’t scare the poor kid”

That stung a little, not because ere so close in age, but for highlighting how much of a rookie I was Which, I suppose, was fair, but didn’t I deserve a little credit?

“He’s a newbie,” Bastion said Also fair “Guy barely kno to control his gift and Thea’s already sending him out with us?” He stuck his hands into his jacket pockets and sidled up to le, face so close that I could see the blond wisps of stubble on his chin that he was so transparently trying to pass off as a beard “What makes you so special, anyways?” Anyways, I noted Another little affectation

I shrugged That was the way to get under their skin, guys like Bastion, by showing them how unbothered you were There was another way, of course, and that was to be a bit of a smart-ass “Maybe I’m cute”

Bastion frowned He didn’t back off

“Ora forear Bastion back a couple of steps, “ in him You have to ad quite like what Dustin can do”

Bastion scoffed “So he can , and a mediocre Hound, at best”