Cobra gazed vacantly in the direction in which Lucy had left. She probably still wanted to find Minerva to ask some more questions; barring that she might move on to other locals she'd marked. If she remembered. He absentmindedly noted that he still held the notebook he'd snatched in his other hand.
No, it wasn't the lack of knowing where she could be that kept his feet firmly rooted to the ground.
Like afterimages from a bright flash, the intense memories cycled through his head on repeat. They pounded his skull and he could picture them clearly, even with his eye closed. He wasn't certain if Lucy had known how strongly it would affect him, but it ended up being the perfect sort of mental bomb on his psyche. A part of him felt nauseous, but when he bent down to take a gasping breath it was a bitter laugh that escaped his lips.
How perfect. He'd wanted to know exactly how she felt about him, and he'd gotten it. Perfectly, he might add, since it was her memories used against him. There was little room for second-guessing in that. He alternated between deep breaths and wheezy laughs.
As the images in his mind eventually started to fade, he started walking in the opposite direction from where Lucy went, tucking the notebook into a sleeve. He wasn't eager to run back and give it to her, after all. He didn't have a goal, barely even a direction, just the notion that he would not follow, not chase, and not even chance upon running into her.
Which made him all the more aware that there were familiar people about to turn the corner…