Book Five, Chapter 44: The Cargo
To say the first few minutes of contact with rescued players didn't go according to plan was an understatement.
We had planned things out. Antoine had a whole "Welcome back to the land of the living" speech prepared. While we had discussed the possibility that there might be some trouble with the rescued players, we had not anticipated it coming from Andrew's team. As far as we knew, they had not been touched by Project Rewind because they arrived too late. We were wrong.
Luckily, after those few moments of confusion, we did manage to get back on track.
Antoine even managed to deliver part of his speech, explaining that rescue tropes were back and that Andrew, Michael, and Lila were the first to be rescued.
Of course, Andrew's team was a failed Party of Promise, so they weren't exactly starting from scratch.
The whole time, I was scanning our surroundings for Omens because we were still standing at the entrance to the KRSL Powerworks Pavilion. Abandoned industrial parks and power plants were creepy enough. Add in the crows and the occasional howl, and my "I don't like it here" trope was driving me crazy. Luckily, I could rely on Antoine and Kimberly to be the welcoming party.
I zoned in and out of their conversation. Cassie was happy now that things were going well.
I kept to the perimeter and kept my eyes open. Lila, whose motives we had not yet ascertained, watched me from the dirt, leaning on one arm with her heels tucked to the side as if she were at a picnic in an old painting. Her eyes were red, her hair black as coal, her skin pale except for the dirt from the ground she sat on—a little porcelain doll who could never hurt anyone, you'd think. But she had blood on her hands.
Everyone was so tense because of her. They were trying to be civil. They were trying to be logical. Her presence made it difficult. Everyone spoke in slow, careful sentences like they were afraid of waking a tiger, all for a woman who could not have done physical harm to any of us, not unless we trusted her.