The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 588

Chapter 588: 588 | And Nobody Canceled Anything [CASTLE BONUS]

He came in slowly, and that was the part that got her. Cole had never moved fast in his life, but he had always moved like the slowness was a choice. Now there was a hitch in it. He had a new cane, pale wood with a plain steel collar instead of silver, and he held it wrong, high on the shaft, because holding it low meant loading his left side and his left side was eleven days out from surgical stabilization of a flail segment.

He sat. It took him longer than it should have. Nobody offered to help, because they had all worked with him long enough to know what offering would cost.

"Vermont’s backordered," he said, before anyone could ask about the cane. "This one’s a loaner from facilities. It’s four centimeters short and I’ve decided to have feelings about that."

"You’ve decided to have feelings." Imara felt her mouth go crooked. "Should I alert the press."

"Crane is the press."

"I’m the industry," Isabelle said. "The press works for me."

The last chair filled at nine exactly, and the room went the temperature it always went when Radiant walked into it.

He filled the doorframe. Seven foot two, crimson and white, the gold emblem catching the window light and throwing it back across the table in a band that landed on Eli’s folders. Everyone straightened. Imara straightened, and she hated that she did, and she did it anyway, because thirty years of that man on billboards had wired something into her spine that no amount of faculty familiarity could unwire.

"Good morning, all." The voice shook the water in Sable’s bottle. "My apologies for the delay. Traffic on the ridge road is a living nightmare with the new checkpoints."

"You flew," Garrison said.

"The checkpoints have a no-fly overlay now. Your people are very thorough." He sat, and the chair complained. "I waited in line for nine minutes and signed a form."

"Good."

Radiant laughed, and it was the same laugh from the lunchboxes, and Imara watched him bring one enormous hand up to cover a cough he turned away from the table. It lasted two seconds. He folded the handkerchief before anyone could see anything and put it in a pocket that had no business existing in that costume, and his smile came back at full brightness.

She filed it. She did not know what she was filing it under yet.

Then Caelum Ashby came in with a cup of tea and did not offer any of it to a single person present.

He sat at the head of the table. Silver hair pushed back, linen blazer, no tie, that pocket square in a green Imara had not seen him wear before and which she suspected was significant to somebody in the room who hadn’t noticed yet. His amber eyes went around the table once, unhurried, and came to rest on her arm without any pretense of doing otherwise.

"Imara. You have more color than last week."

"I’ve been eating."

"You’ve been sleeping in the training annex office and eating protein bars out of Grant’s desk." He sipped his tea. "Cole. How is the cane."

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