{"id":4597,"date":"2021-04-09T21:59:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T01:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4597"},"modified":"2021-04-09T21:59:13","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T01:59:13","slug":"nineteen-04-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4597","title":{"rendered":"Nineteen – 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thomas Merlin Ambrose’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Opening the door, I winced at the sudden brightness that flooded in.\u00a0 The morning sunshine was stronger than I\u2019d expected, or it was later than I expected\u2014probably a bit of both.\u00a0 A hiss escaped through my clenched teeth and again, I wished I had my father\u2019s old sunglasses, the ones that he\u2019d worn after fights for reasons that were only now starting to make sense.<\/p>\n

Tory wasn\u2019t right<\/em> in front of my door, but he also hadn\u2019t gone far.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t look at me right away, not turning as I closed my door and limped\u2014gods and monsters, why am I limping?<\/em>\u2014toward him.\u00a0 He blew out a quiet breath, though, letting me know that he knew I was there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand any of this,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd I\u2019m not going to pretend to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI only understand half of it,\u201d I admitted as I came alongside him.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe even less than that.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t change what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou said we were going to go talk to the visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded.<\/p>\n

He sighed.\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s do it, then.\u201d\u00a0 He turned to start walking, then stopped, looking at me with a furrowed brow.\u00a0 \u201cAssuming you can<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, maybe the fact that you\u2019re about the color of a sheet of paper?\u201d<\/p>\n

I made a face ands hook my head.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be fine.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right.\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t sound like he believed me.<\/p>\n

Truth be known, I didn\u2019t believe me, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thomas Merlin Ambrose’s point of view.] Opening the door, I winced at the sudden brightness that flooded in.\u00a0 The morning sunshine was stronger than I\u2019d expected, or it was later than I expected\u2014probably a bit of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[336,337,368,14],"tags":[340,271,150,171,170,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-4597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-19-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-artorius-mackenzie","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thomas-merlin-ambrose","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-1c9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4598,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions\/4598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}