The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 578

Chapter 578: 578 | Insufficiently Devastating

I stood in the hallway watching Felicity Hardy walk away like she hadn’t just casually informed me she was running a long-term seduction campaign approximately forty feet from a woman she’d been calling Mrs. F while establishing rapport for that exact purpose.

The universe had a sense of humor. I’d noticed this before. Usually right before it did something horrible to me.

My phone buzzed. Sloane, from inside the conference room I’d just escaped.

Explain.

Then, three seconds later, before I could type anything:

NOW.

Then, three seconds after that:

Actually don’t. My mom is doing the thing where she smiles and I can feel the temperature dropping. Get back in here before she starts strategizing.

I went back in.

Diane sat at the head of the table exactly where Park had been, which felt like a statement she was making to nobody in particular. Her charcoal suit was immaculate. Her gold earrings caught the fluorescent light. Her expression carried the specific calm of a woman who had already run through eleven possible responses to the situation and rejected all of them for being insufficiently devastating.

Sloane sat two seats down, arms crossed, ears pink.

"So," Diane said. "Felicity Hardy."

"She’s a classmate." I sat down across from her, because sitting felt safer than standing, and because standing meant Diane could look up at me with the particular expression that made grown Heroes reconsider their sponsorship demands. "We had a couple classes together. She’s harmless."

Sloane made a sound.

Diane heard it. Filed it. Continued. "That girl walked into a room she had never been in, identified the person with the most influence over your life inside of four seconds, and spent six minutes running a charm operation on me while establishing physical claim on your arm." She folded her hands on the table. "That is not harmless, honey. That is a professional. I would know. I hire professionals."

"She works in illusions."

"She works in people." Diane’s drawl went slow and appreciative in the way she used for competitors she respected. "The illusions are just the part that shows up on the licensing exam."

Sloane finally uncrossed her arms. "She has a thing for him. She told me. To my face. In the flooded sublevel while we were fighting for our lives." Her jaw worked. "She said she didn’t want to compete. She wanted to keep everyone. Whatever that means."

I knew exactly what that meant. I had a fairly detailed understanding of what that meant. I’d acquired that understanding in a movie theater with the lights off and a very convincing illusion of two people discussing cinematography running four feet away while the actual two people did something considerably less academic.

I did not say any of this.

"That’s a very specific thing to say during combat," Diane observed.

"She’s a very specific person." Sloane’s fingers drummed the table. "I don’t know if I hate her or if I like her. It keeps switching. She helped me during the incursion. Read a whole enemy position off her own illusion getting shot. That was actually impressive. And then she calls Lukas bestie and touches his arm and I want to detonate the nearest load-bearing wall."

"Don’t detonate the load-bearing walls," Diane said. "We’ve discussed this."

"I’m aware, Mom."

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