Brian was in the middle of peeling off the pickles on his second burger, considering between throwing them in the sink or yanking open the door and throwing them onto the open road, when Carmen asked her question. Was whatever was in that building a ghost or a demon? It wasn’t any sort of ghost that Brian had heard of, so the answer was obviously the latter. Besides, it sure seemed like the whole building had been possessed, which sure seemed like something a demon would do. Once he was satisfied his burger was pickle-free, he opened his mouth to respond and set the record-
“If it were a demon, you would have had a much harder time.”
…and thankfully he was in a position to eat some of his burger instead of his words. “That’s what I was going to say,” Brian said in between mouthfuls. Thankfully, Shiki kept talking before anyone had time to interrogate that.
Not that the follow-up question was any better, though. What the fuck was a “Relationship Value?” “What the fuck is a Relationship Value?” Brian said, still chewing. His focus shifted between Shiki and Carmen, trying to determine any further clues as to what was going on. “Like, have I gotten to know Carmen better? Shiki, until like ten minutes ago, I was dealing with a fake Carmen, and she with, well, I don’t know if Carmen was dealing with a fake me or not, but I assume she was. You think I know Carmen any better because I had to wrestle a demon version of her to the ground tonight?”
He sized the real Carmen up. “It was even weaker than you are,” he said. Having said that, and looking at Carmen more closely. If she had been stuck in that room with a demon or whatever it was, she did manage to get out of it all by herself. She’d even managed to get out at about the same time Brian had, like, yeah, he’d spent a lot of time going through some really stupid potential solutions that went nowhere, but he hadn’t taken that long, had he? And like he’d told the fake Carmen, hell, like he'd told Shiki late last night, she’d been almost okay when they were dealing with the school. Two times in a row reduced the chances of a fluke significantly.
It was some measure of respect. Some. It still had to be couched in, you know, the rest of her whole deal, though, and he wasn't about to admit anything out loud anyway. “I don’t know,” Brian said. “I don’t hate her, I guess. Somehow, despite watching whatever that was in that building dance around in her body.”