Wetting her dry lips, she finally answered. “Hello, Beatrice. It’s been a long time since I last heard from you. I almost thought you had forgotten all about me.”
The woman on the other end of the line let out a deep sigh. It was so unlike what Deva remembered about her; it made Deva frown.
“Believe me; I never call any of the people I saved lightly. But you know the deal. I’m only calling in my favor because I need someone with your skillset, and even more so, your knowledge. What about a coffee? You have one last patient to see today if I’m not mistaken. I know you have a small gathering afterward, what about we meet when you are done? At that small coffee shop you like so much. It’s open late, so I’ll be waiting for you there.”
Deva blinked and shook her head. Was there anything that woman didn’t know about her? If she didn’t believe that Beatrice Dante, a woman of mystery and savior extraordinaire, was one good soul, she would be seriously scared.
“Okay, let’s meet there. But I can skip the gathering and…”
“No need, see you later, Deva.”
Slowly putting the handset down, Deva, sat back in her chair, nothing in her body steady anymore. Ten years. It had been ten years since she had last seen Beatrice or had any contact with her since her old life ended and she started a brand new one with her help. For ten years, Deva had worked at pushing bad memories away and had finally stopped looking over her shoulder. But that blessing came with a price, and Deva was very aware of it when she had accepted Beatrice’s deal. One favor. One which could be called in at any time, or even never. Beatrice Dante was the head of an organization dedicated to saving people considered lost causes. And she had been one very lost cause at one point in time.
Deva removed her hair band, letting her wealth of dark brown curls tumble down over her shoulders. She hadn’t been able to cut them off when she disappeared, and instead dyed them a chocolate brown to cover the natural pale blond. Beatrice had offered plastic surgery if she wanted, or to change the blue of her eyes with permanent contact lenses, but she couldn’t. The blond was her father’s and was something she was glad to get rid of, but her eyes were her mother’s. The deep blue could be mistaken for other colors easily, and Deva needed a reminder of something good, soft, and loving in her past when she looked at herself in the mirror. When her mother had been alive, a long time ago. A lifetime away.
This was a different life now, but was she any different? Who she had been had forged her, scarred her, inked her personality, forever. It made her strong enough to fight back, to take another path. There was nothing helpless about her, so why was she shaking? It was only a favor, not the destruction of what she had built for herself. And not even the mighty Beatrice Dante would be able to destroy that. The monsters of her past had made her vow that much, and she intended to fight for what she had built, for the woman she had rebuilt from blood and ashes.