Chapter 88: Time To Leave
The adrenaline was fading, leaving Meg shaky and leaning heavily against Fin. The throbbing in her face had subsided to a dull, insistent ache after his weird green light trick, but she still felt fragile, battered. Her nose definitely felt... wrong.
"My phone," she mumbled, remembering it flying from her grasp earlier. "Did you see...?"
He nodded curtly, retrieving it from a pocket where he must have scooped it up. The screen was cracked, but miraculously, it still lit up when he pressed the power button. Notifications flooded the screen. News alerts, missed calls from worried Guild contacts (probably Mara), and then... the big one.
Blazing across the screen from multiple sources.
ASSOCIATION ALERT – PRIORITY OMEGA – Hunter Fin Carver – Rogue – Extreme Threat – Lethal Force Authorized...
He went utterly still, the swirling darkness in his eyes freezing over, becoming chips of obsidian ice. His thumb scrolled rapidly, absorbing the key points. Murderer. Thief. Catastrophic risk. Harboring constitutes treason.
Seriously? The thought slammed into him, cold and sharp. They weren’t even trying to be subtle. Just burn him to the ground. Okay. So that’s how they want to play. This was bad. Really, really bad. Every Hunter, every Guild... he was public enemy number one.
"Fin?" Meg asked, noticing the sudden tension radiating from him, the way his jaw clenched. "What is it? What’s wrong?"
He instantly smoothed his expression, forcing the icy rage down, locking it away behind a neutral mask. He handed the phone back to her. "Nothing," he lied, the word tasting like ash. "Just... Guild spam. You know how they are."