The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 396

Chapter 396: 396 | Amusement Is a Load-Bearing Structure [GT BONUS]

Diane answered in ninety seconds, which meant she’d been holding her phone.

The good heels are for closings, sugar. Is this a closing?

It’s a meeting where somebody’s going to try to open something.

Then it’s a closing. A pause, long enough that I watched the three dots appear and vanish twice. Who’s in the room.

Odette Reyes. Me. You. Petra Lang.

The dots stopped entirely for eleven seconds.

You got the daughter to sit at the table.

She volunteered.

Lukas Belmont, I have been in this industry for twenty years and I have never once gotten a Lang to volunteer for anything that did not have their name on the building. Another pause. We are going to have a very long conversation about how you did that.

Friday.

Friday, she wrote. Eat something with protein in it. Sleep. I love you, and if you smirk at Odette Reyes I will end you in front of witnesses.

I put the phone face down on the desk and lay back on the bed with my shoes still on, and the interface finally decided to say something, which it had been politely not doing for the last forty minutes like a butler waiting for me to finish crying.

TEMPTATION GAUGE UPDATE

Petra Lang: 9% → 21% (Curious)

Notes: Subject experienced sustained proximity, direct confrontation, and an offer of future disclosure. Subject’s internal model of Host has been forcibly revised twice in one hour. Subject also held Host’s hand for twelve seconds and does not know how to file that.

NEW HEROINE FLAGGED

Maribelle Kennedy — Branded (Apathy Toxin, Epic)

Gauge initialized: 4%

Notes: Subject is amused by you. Amusement is a load-bearing structure.

Twelve percent off one argument on a concrete path.

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