Marcus - Precinct 12

by Chloe Vincent

  The thing about Adina's power was that it was "emotion-based magic", which was a fancy way of saying that she got stronger the more passionate she became. If she was having a grand old time and there were no problems in the world and everything was sunshine and rainbows, she probably tapped out at pausing her Spotify from across the room. If she got angry enough, she could take the Eiffel Tower down. She wasn't quite at the level of tearing down beloved landmarks, but she had achieved the level of emotion necessary to hurl a 300-pound man through the window and into the neighboring building should the need arise. She forced herself to think happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. Happppy... God, it would make her happy to throw him out the window. He'd survive. He was a tauren. He would certainly not be walking pretty for a while, but he wouldn't die, and as far as building damage went, that's what insurance was for. She took a deep breath and gave it one last rational attempt to de-escalate the situation. "Leave. Now. We aren't interested."

  Had someone been filming the situation, this would have been the scene that made the movie rated R. It would also have been the scene where the audience got to watch a very large, inhuman man get his ass kicked by a petite, cute, human woman who looked like she'd barely graduated college despite being 28 years old. It would have been filmed in slow motion, starting with the moment where the big moron decided that the best course of action was to "teach her a lesson just like she deserved". The swing of the punch. Adina, dodging it. Adina, yelling things that even an R-rated movie would be hesitant to include. Adina, activating her powers.

  Big guy, being jettisoned like a wrecking ball through the lobby of the office, shattering through the glass doors, pulverizing the chairs in the waiting room, and slamming into the last wall with devastated sheetrock flying everywhere.

  He stumbled to his feet groggily, blinking hard like he was trying to comprehend what had just happened, oafish jaw dropped in stunned silence. Adina still stood in her office with white sheetrock dust coating her hair and body—probably ruining the business suit she was wearing—and shards of glass everywhere, literally steaming to the touch with an inhuman glow in her eyes. Her hands trembled with rage and power at her sides with waves of heat coming off every inch of her body. "Get the fuck out of my lobby, you little shit!" she snapped at him.

  The big tauren, who had evidently not learned his lesson, looked like he was planning to come back for round 2. Before he could say or do anything, there was a loud creak as Alexander, the nighttime secretary, dramatically pushed the mangled remains of the half-door to reception open. It barely was hanging by its hinges since it had caught much of the impact, but Alex knew how to play the moment for maximum entertainment value. The young fox shifter, smirking the whole time, delicately picked his way into the midst of the fray. He lightly picked a hunk of sheetrock off his shoulder and tossed it to the ground. "Hey," he whispered loudly to the tauren in front of him in his ever-delightful Irish accent, still with that hint of humor in his voice. "Take some advice and get out before she gets really angry."

  Bewildered, confused, and not eager to fight both the startlingly strong Adina and this muscular upstart, the tauren shouted something dramatic to the effect of "this isn't over!" and hustled out to catch the elevator, leaving Adina and Alex alone in the devastated lobby.

  Adina glared at Alex. She hated the way Alex looked at her when she got angry. Alex never got angry. Ever. The young fox shifter was the most lighthearted person she'd ever met, and whenever he saw her like that, it reminded her that she needed to do better. There wasn't a reason to have lost control. He wasn't upset. He was just disappointed. The worst part was that he'd never say he was disappointed. She could just see it in the way he looked at her. He believed she could control herself better, and that's what was so painful to see. Still quivering with anger, she avoided his eye contact and pretended to look at the shambles of the room. "He swung first," she managed halfheartedly. Her rage quickly began to fade.

  She'd lost control. She'd been trying so hard to keep her emotions in check, but that guy had just kept triggering her. He wouldn't leave even when she'd been nice about it, and then he'd swung and it had all just gone black. She unclenched her fists forcibly and let out a low groan. "Are you okay?" It was the closest thing she ever got to sorry. "I shouldn't have done that." That was her version of sobbing and begging for forgiveness. She wasn't exactly the most open person. Slowly but surely, the heat faded from her body. She didn't feel better. It was like she was just swallowing it all. She never felt better. She was in a constant state of unpleasantness. Whatever they'd done to her when she was a kid, her body still hadn't been able to reckon with it.

  Alex chuckled softly as he picked his way towards her around the remains of the room, delicately stepping away from the wreckage so his shoes wouldn't get ruined. "Oh, I'm fine. And hey, it gave this place the renovation it needed." He pretended to judge the layout. "Bold, but sensual. I don't know, boss. I think it's crazy enough that it just might work. I hear the next big style coming in is enormous destruction. I think we may be just ahead of the curve."

  Adina groaned as she surveyed what she'd done. Why hadn't she just tossed him out the window like she'd intended? At least then there would have only been the window to fix. Now, she'd have to bring in a whole contractor, or maybe they could do it themselves. The truth was that the agency wasn't exactly in a place to be dishing out tons of money to redo the whole layout. Business was good. It wasn't booming, but it wasn't bad, just... slow, maybe. At least the police weren't going to get involved. That was one of the perks of being her and living there: it took a hell of a lot more than that to get the cops to show up. It was actually nice. Back when she was in the main part of Hollywood, she got to know each of the officers personally with the amount of times they had to come show up. Now, she was off the beaten road and you sure had to know how to find the agency, but at least there was less law enforcement.

  "You're stressed," Alex insisted, meandering up closer to her while her mind was going a million miles an hour. "You need something to take your mind off everything."

  She knew what he was doing. Alex wanted to be the thing taking her mind off that stress. Alex was a great guy. Cute, too. Maybe a little younger than her, but not by much, and his optimism and determination that all dreams were possible made him actually quite charming. She never saw him in anything other than his snappy work clothes, but he'd made it quite clear that he'd like to see that change. If Adina was interested in that sort of thing, he'd be at the top of her list, but the fact was that she and romance didn't talk much. They weren't friends. Romance had its own life away from her. Every time she tried to get into relationships, it ended up in disaster—and that was from someone who felt only partway bad about hurling someone through a building. She wasn't just an emotional magician. She had other, darker parts of her powers. She fed off the more "sinful" parts of humanity. Greed. Lust. Envy. The list went on. It felt good to be around those things, but it made being in a relationship nothing short of a struggle. It wasn't like she saw people's secrets, but when she was getting hot and heavy with her boyfriend and all of a sudden, the hot checkout girl with the belly button ring popped into his head… did she wanna know that? Nope. It was easier to just steer far clear of the whole mess.

  Alex was a great guy. She wanted to keep it that way. As it stood, although she knew a little more about him than she wanted already, at least it wasn't as bad as if they were intimate. She'd had to cross people off the list of her contacts before when she'd learned things that she did not want to learn but could never forget. Deal breakers. It wasn't like she played with his emotions and kept him going. She was pretty clear about keeping her distance. If he wanted to keep chasing that rabbit hole, it was up to him, but she wasn't promising him anything.

  She went to the window and studied the skyline outside. "What's the news? Anything new? Anything important?" Alex was also her plug-in to the world. She kept fairly current, but Alex? Alex knew what was happening before it ha
ppened. Celebrity gossip? Oh yeah. Underground movements? No problem. The coffee machine was almost out of water? He'd already filled it. The guy was on top of it. The only thing she wished she could change about him was that he would be fine with being just on top of it instead of wanting to also be on top of her. That was fine. She'd learned throughout her life that people weren't able to change much about their sexualities. As long as he didn't act on it or do something perverted, she wasn't going to judge him for anything like that. Heaven knows that she wasn't exactly a shining example of sexuality.

  Alex listed off a few things. Boring things to her, mostly. Gossip. The only thing that caught her ear was when she caught the name "Marcus Pierce" and then the word "attacked". She tuned in, tearing her mind back to reality.

  "What? What was that about Pierce?" She wasn't much for the celebrity life, but she was familiar with Pierce. He was Mr. Hot these days. All the women wanted him. Some of the men wanted him. He seemed to have it all—charisma, looks, appeal, and intelligence. His broody Detective Lewis had always been sort of hilarious to her, too. She wasn't critical of his acting abilities, but the character himself was absurd. To put it simply, if he had been played by an unattractive man, Precinct 12 would not be even remotely as popular as it was. No, the only reason that show was as successful as it was came from scores of lonely women who thought they'd be able to comfort the handsome, jaded detective and bring back the light to his life and it was all so romantic and blah blah blah. That being said, his role had been something she'd been rather entertained with over recent times. She'd caught an episode or two. She spent the whole time thinking, "God, what kind of lonely loser would watch this crap?" and then proceeded to think that while binge-watching an entire season. She wouldn't qualify him as a celebrity crush, but if she was pathetic enough to think that way, maybe he was number one on the list, even though the list certainly did not exist and she would strongly correct anyone who said otherwise. If she had been into harebrained, good-looking actor hunks, she might have even thought he was cute.

  Alex came up beside her. "You didn't hear? He got attacked outside his set a couple weeks ago. Supposed to have been pretty injured. He's back to filming now, though he's apparently got a guard or something now."

  She nodded thoughtfully. "Huh. Well, I guess that's part of the job. You get famous, you get creeps and psychopaths. Remember that one guy who killed someone for that actress? Mid-80s? Said he did it so she'd love him? Nutjob, that's what he was."

  Alex's voice changed completely, going from cheeky and flirty to startled. "Oh, um, boss... we have a visitor."

  Adina was so stuck on trying to remember the name of the mid-80s actor in question that she didn't even notice him say anything, but abruptly she registered what he said and glanced towards the door.

  There he was.

  The only person she didn't even remotely expect to see.

  Handsome. Tussled black hair. Deep blue eyes. The sort of body to make all women melt. Wealthy. Famous.

  At the top of a list that certainly did not exist and that she would strongly correct anyone who said otherwise.

  Marcus Pierce.

  3

  An Unlikely Visitor

  Marcus stared blankly at the decimation that looked like it had at one point been a lobby. He'd been referred here after the incident, and based on what he'd understood, this was a place of wisdom, intelligence, and power. Now, it looked like it had been hit by a particularly successful drive-by by a vicious biker gang. Powdery white stuff that he guessed was dust from the drywall coated everything from the computer at reception to the ornate, destroyed chairs in the lobby. Glass, pieces of furniture, and more lay all over the place like the room had just had a terrible night of partying and was not quite out of it yet.

  He cleared his throat when he noticed the two people staring at him. One was a small woman, maybe a little over five feet, and cute. Very cute, actually. It was almost impressive how fast the "fuck that" part of his brain came leaping into the forefront when the rest of his mind was focused on what the hell had happened there. She wore a little business suit that complemented her well, but based on the fire in her bright blue eyes and the way she stood there defiantly (and the way the other guy clearly was subservient to her), he made a mental note not to mess with her. The other guy was, to him, comparatively far less interesting. Just some redheaded dude who had a nice vest on and some classy attire. Obviously cared a lot about his appearance, but he had a welcoming way about him, which was what ended up keeping Marcus around. If it had been simply the woman there, he might have reconsidered the advice to come here and skedaddled. At least there was one friendly face. Maybe, once he talked to her, the woman wouldn't be quite so terrifying. For such a petite person, she emanated enormous power. Was she human? After all, this was a rather questionable place, and although he didn't know much about the nonhuman, the Gifted were supposed to be rather common. Just because he personally couldn't see through it didn't mean that this woman wasn't actually a shapeshifter or a wizard. Wait, wizards weren't supposed to be female. A witch? Whatever she was, he felt wildly out of place. It was like racial prejudice, but worse. It was speciesism. He knew that he, as a plain-ass human, didn't stand much of a chance against any Gifted.

  He took a deep breath and spoke, infusing his words with a bit of dry humor to make it less awkward. They seemed just as startled to see him as he was to see the lobby. "I don't suppose this is a good time?"

  The woman blinked, hard, like she was trying to figure out if it was really him, the Marcus Pierce, before shaking it off. "Oh, hi. No, no, come in. Just doing some... decorating?" She said it like a question, as though she were basing her response on his reaction. Maybe this woman was nicer than she appeared at first.

  "Dramatic makeover," he replied dryly. He found himself somehow slipping into his character. He was normally a rather upbeat, happy-go-lucky guy. His detective role was the exact opposite, and now that he'd been so accustomed to being recognized as that character, he found himself having a few more of those traits than he used to. A concerning thing, to be sure, but no less concerning than whatever the hell had happened to him before. That night in the parking lot had changed him. He'd noticed himself looking around corners more skeptically, being more reluctant to trust strangers. "I'm Marcus. Good time to talk? I have something that you might be interested in."

  The woman threw out a hand in a friendly way, but caught herself and finished the motion with cool professionalism. "Please, come in. I'm Adina and this is Alex."

  She tossed her head to the redheaded fellow next to her, who tipped an imaginary hat and replied, "Charmed."

  Marcus didn't give a damn whether this guy was charmed about it or not. Truth be told, he barely noticed his presence. There was something incredibly magnetic and fascinating about the way that Adina interacted. Sometimes, whenever he was talking with people, he noticed odd traits. He loved studying the way people moved about and smiled and scowled and responded to all kinds of things. Some people were timid. Others were loud and brash. There were tons of personalities, but most of the time, people fell into some basic presets. Maybe he was overthinking it already, but the way that she'd been so friendly with her handshake and then seemed to remember to be distant caught his attention. She was guarded about something, but what? His actor brain took off, trying to synthesize what it was about her that made her do that. It took him a few moments to realize that what he was doing was, in fact, staring blankly at her without any response, so he hurriedly shook her hand and said something back in return.

  It took them about five minutes to maneuver past the wreckage and get to an untouched room, where Scotty McScotsman went off to do something else and Adina and Marcus were left alone in the office. Marcus took a seat facing the desk, but Adina kept standing, leaning against the wall by the window and scanning him with the sort of face that people always got when they were trying to figure out if he was the Marcus Pierce.

  "Yes, I'm the actor,
" he told her preemptively, saving everyone the time and trouble. "I need your help."

  She grinned and once again clamped it down to become Mrs. Professional. Interesting. "What can we help you with? My assistant told me that you were attacked. I hope everything's safe and sound now."

  She might as well have been speaking as a robot. He could see the personality under there, but she was being all work and no play. Well, fine. He wasn't here for play. He was here for protection and some Gifted detective work, and if opinions were to be believed, the Guardian Angel Investigation and Detective Agency was the best place to go, hands down. He'd had to prepare himself to talk about the incident ever since he decided to get some professional help. Sure, the police got involved. Sure, the studio had gotten some people on it. Nobody had gotten anywhere. All that was clear was that he'd been walking to his car, someone or something had attacked him, and that was it. No promising leads. Nobody knew what the hell it was, if it was human at all, or what its intent was. Jealousy? A crazed fan or a deranged critic? Nobody knew. He'd been stressed out of his mind, barely getting any sleep, wondering what the hell the next step was. Adina, hopefully, would come swooping in with her years of successful operation and bring it to a close so he could get back to his life. He'd known, obviously, that he would have to talk about the incident to explain the situation. He'd been dreading it. The last thing he wanted to do was rehash it for the hundredth time, especially now that he was finally healing up. He'd only spent a little while at the hospital, but the whole time, he worried about whatever it was coming to finish the job. He plastered a polite smile on his face and nodded like he was supposed to. "Healing up just fine, thank you."