by Amie Gibbons
“Good girl,” Grant thought.
I looked at him, heart swelling.
“You two must’ve had one heck of a talk,” I thought spoke back.
“Don’t threaten me!” Thomas snapped at AB.
Huh?
AB’s head snapped back and she blinked, mouth working. “How… what part of that could you possibly interpret as a threat?”
She looked at us like we’d have the answers before turning back to him.
Thomas didn’t answer.
“He’s as confused as her, huh?” I mentally asked Grant.
He nodded. “I told her that. And that it doesn’t matter. She’s a good woman and a good friend. She doesn’t deserve to be jerked around like this.”
Tears welled in my eyes.
He’d gone outta his way to help my friend, just cuz that’s the kinda guy he was.
He really was one of the good ones.
“Why was Thomas offering to come with us to protect her?” I asked. “That seemed very sweet.”
“Because he wants to make up for what he did to her, without admitting he did anything wrong.”
Huh.
“Why?” I asked. “Why can’t he admit he did something wrong? Why can’t he just apologize and say he knows it was wrong and go from there?”
Grant shook his head.
Did that mean he didn’t know, or didn’t want to get into it?
AB and Thomas were still in the middle of their staring contest.
I cleared my throat.
Nobody moved.
“Annabeth,” Grant said.
She broke the gaze and turned around as fast as I would’ve answering Grant.
“Work with Emily to put together the spells,” Grant said. “Thomas, we have water and food, separate them into the packs I brought. Ariana, you come with me.”
“I don’t work for you,” Thomas snapped, accent thick and making him sound kinda like a teenager.
Grant turned and glared at him.
“You bring four packs?” Thomas asked as he crossed his arms.
“No,” Grant said. “Get to work, or get out. I don’t care which.”
Grant turned his back on Thomas and jerked his chin at me. “Ryder.”
I followed him down the back hall.
Something shimmered, and it took me a second to remember they’d hidden the dead bodies and our unconscious friends back here under a shield.
Heather stepped out of seemingly empty air, and I jumped.
“Sorry,” she said, eyes going between me and Grant. “Status?”
Grant caught her up fast, and I couldn’t help but look away as he gave her a quick kiss before opening the bathroom door.
“Ryder,” he said, nodding at me.
I walked in and Grant followed.
“Sit,” he said. “We need you to learn meditation.”
“I can’t!” I said.
“Sit.”
I sat down cross-legged on the hard tile, leaning against the wall.
“Alright,” Grant said, “close your eyes.”
“Thomas already tried this, sir,” I said.
Crap, there was that sir reflex again.
“Thomas isn’t me. Close your eyes.”
I did.
“Now, breathe,” Grant said.
###
He had me to where I could clear my mind within about an hour.
“Why do I bother arguing with you?” I asked as we joined the others.
They’d set up in the kitchen area since, after the clean up after dinner, it was abandoned. Most of the servers were off after that, and there were just the bartenders left to work the bar during the networking party that would follow my conference.
AB, Grant and I took the potion AB and Emily had whipped up to boost our energies and magical levels.
I was pretty sure I knew how people on Adderall felt.
Like I could read through an entire book on molecular physics and actually understand it, and then blast a hole through dimensions and still have energy to clean my entire house.
AB had the candles set up.
And Emily had made up the magical dust and the bomb she’d talked about.
Thomas had helped her with the calculations and measurements. And they’d been flirting the entire time.
And AB was so buried in denial cuz she just couldn’t handle it, I was afraid she was gonna pop.
We had everything up and ready to go by the time I heard people pouring out into the lobby for the networking after the conference.
Kat took the guys to the hospital when they woke up, and Heather had worked with some of my vamp friends to organize disposal of the bodies.
We couldn’t do much about the bullet holes, but Emily at least put a glamour over them to hide them from the naked eye.
“We good to go?” I asked.
“I think so,” AB said, shooting a glare at Thomas.
Who was pushing a strand of Emily’s hair behind her ear as they talked.
Grant cleared his throat.
“Yeah?” Emily asked, snapping her head around mid-giggle.
“Are you prepared to watch for anything escaping?” Grant asked her.
She nodded.
“Affirmative,” Thomas said. “We’ve got her spell and will watch for anything coming through any holes while you’re gone.”
“I appreciate you staying and watching my back,” Emily said, rubbing his arm.
He smiled, big and beautiful at her.
Oh, he was plannin’ on watchin’ her back alright.
“Give me a break!” AB snapped. “Emily, you’ve been raped, and now you’re flirting with the guy who traumatized me just like you were traumatized. What is wrong with you?”
“I never raped you!” Thomas yelled, eyes blazing and fists clenching.
“No,” AB said, voice going cold and calm again. “From your perspective, you didn’t. You didn’t pay attention to me, what I wanted, how far gone I was, or how bad you were hurting me. Because you didn’t want to hear it.”
“You’re insane,” he said, stabbing a finger at her. “It wasn’t me, you were fucking crazy before I ever touched you.”
Pain flashed out from AB and she shook her head, voice still so calm as she said, “No, I had some issues, but I wasn’t broken. Thomas, you are a broken human being who pings around life, breaking others who don’t deserve it, and I am done trying to be your friend or whatever.
“I’m done thinking kindness and empathy and heart will help you, turn you into the person you pretend to be. Turn you into the person I met and fell for and wish you were. The person you’re pretending to be to her, because you want to fuck her and you smell vulnerability from a mile away.
“You’re a predator, and you can’t or won’t admit it to yourself.
“And I am done trying to save you.”
She kept her eyes locked on his. “You, my dear, are a lost cause.”
She turned her back on him, and he clenched his fists again, mouth working.
“We ready?” AB asked me, face tight and eyes blazing.
Wow, how did Grant get her to where she could say all that to Thomas?
“Yeah,” I said, taking a deep breath and sitting in the middle of the candles.
Grant grabbed our packs and he and AB joined me in the circle.
Grant lit the candles with a snap of his fingers.
I slipped into the meditation so easily I couldn’t believe I couldn’t do it earlier.
And opened my eyes as I focused on the air in front of us.
It slid open like I was unzipping the universe.
Thomas’s mouth fell open and he said something in German.
Emily nodded. “Yeah, that about covers it.”
“Whoa,” AB breathed. “It worked. Ari, this is the theoretical you just did with like no effort. Do you get how amazing this is?”
I shook my head.
“Not really, but here we go,” I said, standing and walking thr
ough.
Chapter SIX
“Where are we?” AB whispered as the air zipped up behind us.
The calculations were supposed to put us in the main city in the land of the lust Fae, and one of Emily’s spells had been treated with Shawn’s DNA, and put on a compass so we could use it to find where he was specifically.
I looked around, nausea welling like I’d taken five shots of Jager in a row on an empty stomach, as the wrongness of this place seeped into my soul.
I wrapped my arms around my middle, resisting the urge to double over right now.
We still hadn’t assessed the scene.
Or at least, I hadn’t.
Grant was already taking everything in like a computer, scanning and storing every tiny detail in the camera card that was his memory.
AB was looking around too. She didn’t have the memory and attention to detail he did, but two lookouts were better than one.
Neither seemed to be affected like me.
Then again, they couldn’t see beneath the layers of reality like I could.
We stood on a beach straight outta a Mediterranean vacation ad, with its soft white sand, blue waters and a pretty white plaster wall behind us that looked like it wrapped around a small town, based on the orange tiled roofs poking out behind it.
“It’s so pretty,” AB said, still keeping her voice low, even though no one was around.
Well, not that we could see.
But the energy laying under everything burned through me.
Every speck of sand. Every stream of sunlight. Every single drop of the beautiful water before us.
It all boiled and writhed with that horrible red energy.
The threads of the magic underlying all life here were so strong, I couldn’t help but see them.
And they all constantly moved, swirling and jerking, touching and pulling apart, with no pattern a human brain could understand.
It made me want to puke.
“Sir!” I cried as I fell to my knees, too loud if anyone was nearby. “Help!”
“Ariana!” Grant fell next to me, wrapping big arms around me as I curled into a ball. “What is it?”
“Magic here. It’s wrong. It’s like the Fae souls. I can’t… can’t take it.”
“Shit!” AB said. “Right.”
She pulled off her pack and dug through it.
My stomach rolled up and I lurched outta Grant’s arms, falling on my hands and knees as I dry heaved.
“Here!” AB fell in front of me and handed me a pair of tinted glasses. “Emily said you’d be able to see the magic, and it might be a problem.”
I took them with a shaking hand as my stomach lurched again.
And slid them on.
The nausea and panic calmed down, and I rolled onto my back, rubbing my sensitive stomach, shaking as I sucked in deep breaths.
“What are these?” I asked.
“They’re uh, kinda magic vision blockers,” AB said. “I took a pair of glasses, and smeared a power blocking spell over them. Didn’t actually know they’d work. I mean, in theory, but I didn’t know-”
“She gets it,” Grant said, tone firm but gentle.
“Sorry,” AB said, “I get repetitive. Especially when I’m scared, or I feel like I’m not being listened to. It’s really-”
“Annabeth,” Grant said, voice flat.
“Right. Sorry.” She took a deep breath and looked around again. “So, Ari, you okay?”
I nodded slowly as I sat up. “Thanks. These really help. But I don’t think I’ll be able to see any magic with these, so I’m kinda flyin’ blind here.”
“I’m not,” Grant said.
I looked at him.
He stared back.
“Sir?” I asked.
“I can see it too, Ryder,” he said after a moment. “Probably not as strong as you. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Where to from here?” AB asked. “I’m assuming we’re supposed to go into the town inside those walls?”
“Probably,” I said. “It looks like Dubrovnik.”
“Where?” AB asked.
“Tourist town on the Mediterranean,” Grant said.
I nodded. “Cute, really old town, and like all preserved. People come to see it cuz it’s like something outta history. Somehow, I didn’t think this place would be all pretty after what Emily said about it.”
“I don’t think we can trust anything that slut has to say,” AB said.
“Comments like that are not helpful,” Grant said. “Annabeth, we are in the middle of an op. That means you focus. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, nodding.
Wow. What had he said to her on their shopping trip?
I could always sneak a peak with a vision when all this was over to see what he’d said.
“How do we get in?” I asked, finally shoving to my feet. “And do we have to be covert, or can we just walk in and they won’t know we shouldn’t be here? I mean, if I can see their magic, can they see ours is human?”
“Unless they’re specifically looking, they shouldn’t be able to tell,” AB said. “So as long as we don’t do anything to stand out, we should be able to just walk around like anyone else. But I don’t know about the blending in stuff. Like, what language do they speak, and what kind of clothes, and will our backpacks look weird, and…”
She took a deep breath to slow herself down.
“I’m panicking,” she said, looking at Grant. “How do I stop panicking?”
“Breathe,” Grant said. “Remember what I told you.”
She nodded. “Right, breathe through the panic. Feel it. The only way out is through. Okay. Okay. We know where the entrance is?”
We all looked up and down the beach. Nothing obviously resembling a door in the long wall.
I flinched and pulled the glasses down to peek over them.
The sickness rolled through my stomach like one of the waves on the shore behind us, but I shoved down my gorge as I looked back and forth with my magic sight.
Looking for movement that looked like it was going through the wall, no matter how far down.
“This way,” I said, pointing with one hand as I slid the glasses up with the other.
I sighed as the glasses worked their magic and blocked out the awful wrongness of this place.
The best way I could think to describe it was being stuck in a cage with spiders, watching them walk around, catching bugs, and crawling all over you.
It made my skin want to crawl off and hide, while I threw up everything I’d eaten in the past year.
“You guys are so lucky you can’t see that,” I said. “Sir, can you see any of their magic?”
“Yes,” he said. “A little. It’s unsettling.”
I nodded. “Oh yeah. I can’t do that often, so I’m gonna need you to keep an eye out magically. It’s too much for me. Can you do that?”
He looked at me, face unreadable.
And it hit me like a big ol’ bag of bricks.
I’d just told Grant what to do.
I mean, I’d asked, but I’d taken lead.
Holy crap on a cracker.
When had I become the person capable of doing that?
“Please,” I said, smiling.
“You,” Grant said slowly, “are not the girl I knew a year ago.”
“No,” I said, looking him in the eyes, “I’m not. I’m hoping this woman is someone you can work with.”
My heartrate spiked as that tiny ghost smile perked up the corner of his mouth and lit his eyes.
“I know she is,” he said.
He turned and walked in the direction I’d pointed, and AB and I dusted off sand and adjusted our packs, little legs working to catch up with him.
“You okay?” AB whispered.
“Because of the magic here, or cuz of him?” I asked.
“The second.”
An ache in my chest made me flinch, and I shoved it down.
“I…” I shook my head
. “AB, I’m doin’ okay, but I’m in love with him. It’s not like it magically went away, and it’s not bad, it’s not killing me. But I’ve missed him. And him talking to you like that and being the man he is… I’ve never not loved him since the day we met.”
I sighed and picked up the pace to catch up to my old boss.
“You know how far?” AB asked.
“No clue,” I said. “I can see the magic, but when my vision goes like that, the real world, like actual distance, is pretty hard to tell. It could’ve been a mile. Or like, ten.” I shrugged. “Sorry, guys. Not the most helpful.”
“How long do we have?” AB asked. “If time is off here, we could have the fifteen hours or whatever until the eclipse starts, if we even need it to get out. Or we could have only ten minutes here until the eclipse hits out there. Time here…”
“Um,” I said, “I forgot to ask Emily about that. Grant?”
He nodded. “I asked. She spelled this for us.”
He pulled out a cheap plastic watch that made me want to flinch cuz it was just so ugly, plastic and black and clunky.
“It will show us the time in our world. So far, it’s the same amount of time as has passed here.”
I didn’t even need to ask to know he’d keep track of it.
“Thanks, sir,” I said. “So, right now we have…”
I paused, trying to do the math in my head. “Yeah, around sixteen hours. I think the eclipse starts around one tomorrow afternoon.”
AB nodded. “Yeah.”
“We still need to figure out how to keep them from coming through,” I said, dragging in a deep breath.
Was it me, or was the air here a little thinner?
And I hadn’t thought to grab my inhaler, or really anything from home.
I hadn’t had a real asthma attack since I was a kid, but I had the inhaler for when I got short of breath like when I was panicking or, more commonly, making myself do cardio.
I could do an elliptical, but the second I had to run, or walk fast with extra weight, I may as well have been two hundred pounds for all the lung capacity and endurance I had.
