Without looking up, I reached out and unclenched Lee’s tight fist, then placed the open napkin in his hand. His breathing settled. I lifted my head and peered into his eyes, engulfed in their green.
He cleared his throat. “What do we do with this?”
Instead of replying, I took a step closer and kissed him. Slowly. Giving him every chance to run away, to retreat, but feeling his arms wrapping around me. He brushed his fingers through my hair and pressed me into him. I hugged him and slid my hands under his shirt. He was sweating, his skin warm beneath my fingertips. My feelings glided into Lee, and I felt him fusing his feelings with mine. His were centered around passion and need. Mine were a mix of warmth and tenderness.
I broke away from him and he whispered, “No,” but released me from his embrace. We remained close. Lee mumbled to himself, “Why have I only found you now? It’s not fair.”
I wanted another kiss. I wanted much more than a kiss, but couldn’t put my desire into words.
Stepping back, Lee opened the door behind him. “Come, let’s go file a complaint, or whatever people do in this country.”
He put on his helmet and handed me a light blue one. I scanned it, searching for a robot, but found only an illustration of a withered rose.
“Let’s go. The quicker we get this over with, the quicker we can come back and get into bed. Or we could stay standing. Whatever you’re into,” he said, and winked.
“We could do both.” I returned the wink and he laughed. Strapping on a helmet, I sat behind him on the motorcycle, holding onto his waist. He kept his walls lowered, and we exchanged emotional blasts throughout the ride. Not too strong, not enough to render him unable to steer, but enough to leave him flushed and panting when we arrived, like me.
Lee parked and pulled off his helmet. “You need me to go in with you?” The tension had crept into his voice all at once.
“You don’t have to.” I climbed off the motorcycle and stood beside him. “I can see it makes you uneasy.”
“Cops…” He pursed his lips. “I’d rather keep my distance from them.”
“I get it.” I put my hand on his, and sent him a condensed wave of passion.
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s not fair.”
“I’m just thinking,” I said slowly, dragging out the words, “that if there’s a long wait, we might…”
“What have I gotten myself into?” Lee said, curving his lips into a little smile.
I smiled. “Don’t worry, it’ll be over before you know it.”
A small wave of loss managed to make it across Lee’s walls. He quickly raised them back up and said, “Good, I don’t think I could handle too much of you.”
I had to kiss him. In the middle of the street, while he was still on his bike and I already had my feet on the ground, to feel his breath caught in response to the wave I had sent him.
When we detached from each other, he got off the bike, locked it and stowed away his helmet in the seat storage compartment. He slid his arms around my waist. “You’re too short,” he remarked. “I’ve never dated anyone more than three inches shorter than me.”
“How much would that be in centimeters?” We started calculating and from there got to size comparisons in general, with me trying to defend short men, and Lee easily dismissing me with examples of football players he knew.
In accordance with the Public Sector Equality Duty Act, the entrance to the police station wasn’t segregated, but there were two guards standing at the gate, a normie and a woman who emanated sorcery. Her nametag stated that she belonged to the security department and that her name was Manny. I wondered if it was her first or last name. “Where to?” She lifted her hand, palm out, fingers spread upward. A pyro. To anyone else it would have simply seemed the gesture of a security guard.
I touched my temple with my middle finger, pretending to scratch my head.
“Sherry Yakov,” Lee said, and I felt his body tense. He raised his hand and tucked his hair behind his ear, completing the intimation by turning his palm outwards. It was the American gesture. Manny shot me a look.
“Tourist,” I said, and tightened my grip around Lee’s waist.
The security guard gestured to a small side room. “Start there.”
We walked into the station, arms still tucked around each other. Lee sent me a small but very condensed wave of fear. I pulled him closer to me.
An officer was sitting in the small room. His badge read that he, Shmueli – that had to be his last name – was also a member of the security department. He gestured towards the chairs in front of him, palm down, fingers mimicking a wave-like motion. A splasher. Or an ariel, as Gaia would have called him. His dark hair receded in two large tufts on either side of his head, turning gray at the sideburns.
This time Lee remembered the correct gesture. We sat down, and Shmueli handed me a long form in small print, exuding poorly executed sorcery. Instead of frightful or anxious, it just made me nauseous and dizzy. “You need a better moodifier,” I said.
Shmueli shrugged. “Police budget.” He handed a similar form to Lee, who didn’t even pretend to read it, just stared at me.
The sorcerer leaned back in his chair. “It’s a consent form stating that you grant us permission to administer a neutralizing substance, and that you won’t do anything, and blah blah blah.”
“Blah?” Lee raised an eyebrow.
Shmueli leaned in and said, “You want to be allowed in? This is what you have to do.”
I took the pen and signed on the dotted line. Lee held his pen in the air, wavering.
The officer interlaced his fingers. “It’s a standard form. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” He was emitting a faint, menacing threat. I wondered whether sorcerers on the force learned to control the feelings they project. I’d heard rumors, but they were never corroborated. “Another option is assigning you a chaperone damus. Any funny business and he’ll shut you down before you know it.”
I put down the pen and looked at him. “Maybe you could give it to me first, so he’ll see what it does?”
Shmueli opened his desk drawer, took out a rattling bottle and fished out one white pill. It looked a little like an aspirin. He handed me the pill along with a glass of water. I swallowed it, and a few moments later felt my sorcery draining, the feelings around me ebbing; first the officer’s feelings, then Lee’s. A thick gray partition stood between me and the world. It was temporary. It would pass. This wasn’t what they used to do to us in the Middle Ages. This wasn’t even what they said the Sons of Simeon wanted to do to us. It was just temporary.
“Are you neutralized too?” I asked Shmueli, trying to take my mind off the fact that the world had just been hidden from me.
“Are you crazy? I have to work.”
Lee leaned back in his chair. “So what do they do to make sure…?”
“A damus.” He didn’t need to explain. The color was draining from Lee’s face. The mere thought of a damus watching my every move sent a shiver down my spine.
“Why would you put up with that?”
“It’s a living. You show up in the morning, do your eight hours, and go home. I make in one shift more than the two of you make in a week.” Shmueli was playing with the pill box. “It’s a job. Like any job.” His voice trailed off.
It wasn’t like any other job. I could only imagine what they thought about us on the force. How they treated us. The same as everywhere else. We were hated, and feared.
Lee shifted his gaze between me and the cop, and lifted his pen.
“Where do I sign?”
I looked at him. “You don’t have to, it’s OK.”
He kept his eyes on the form, searching for the dotted line at the bottom. “I don’t have to, I want to.”
I didn’t ask why. I felt a warm surge of gratitude, and Lee smiled without looking at me. After he took the pill, Shmueli handed us a green form devoid of emotional design; it was the pill’s information sheet, including the duration o
f its effect. “Show it to anyone who asks. Don’t get caught around here without it.” This time there was nothing subtle about his threat.
We walked out of the room holding hands.
Walking with Lee without being able to feel him wasn’t easy for me; relying only on his words and body language. Holding hands was a positive sign. The fact that his body was rigid and he barely said a word – not so positive.
A clerk led us to Sherry’s room. It was on the second floor, behind a sign that read ‘Interrogations.’ We sat down on the bench in front of her room. The clerk knocked on the door, and Sherry stepped out to greet us.
“It’ll take me at least another fifteen minutes.” She glanced at her watch. “Can you wait?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound nice about it.
She returned to her room.
Lee looked at me. “Fifteen minutes.” He ran his hand down my thigh.
I put my hand on his. “Come.”
We found the bathroom at the end of the corridor, a relatively clean room with two lockable doors. Our lips met even before I made sure the outer door was locked, and I felt Lee locking it while I reached for his zipper.
It started well, but neither of us managed to hold back for long, and it all ended too quickly.
Afterwards, I was leaning against the door, our zippers opened, my shirt slightly hiked up so I could feel Lee’s skin against mine.
“That was nice,” Lee whispered in my ear and kissed me.
“This is the first time I’ve been with someone without knowing what he felt in the process,” I whispered into his shoulder.
Lee took a step back and looked into my eyes. “You’re disappointed.”
“No,” I blurted out too quickly.
“Sorry, I… next time it’ll be better,” he said quietly, “if you want there to be a next time.”
I shoved him and zipped up my pants. “You’re an idiot.”
Lee was pulling up his own zipper, avoiding my gaze. I held his chin and forced him to look at me. “It was perfectly fine.” I kissed him. “From here we can only get better.”
Lee kissed me back, a long, deeper kiss that lasted until I ran out of breath.
“OK.” He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Remember you could have run away.”
I touched his nose. “Why would I want to run away?” I brushed my hand across his cheek, down the jawline.
He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his cheek. “Because I’m not much of a catch.” He kissed my hand. I felt my heart shrink. He didn’t believe I wanted him. How could he not see it, after I had woven so many emotions into his napkin drawing? I couldn’t find the right words to say, and I couldn’t send him an emotional wave.
We stepped out right into the scrutinizing gaze of some cop sitting in front of the bathroom. Lee flashed her his wide smile, held my hand and dragged me along. I giggled as we approached the bench opposite Sherry’s office.
Lee sat down. “What?”
“Why would I want anyone else?” I sat down and put my head on his shoulder. He hugged me. I felt him pressing his lips to my head, his body going slack. I closed my eyes.
Almost half an hour went by before Sherry called us in. It was a drab room painted a sickly yellow, a color Lee would have surely pinned some degrading name to. Sherry’s desk was green and piled with folders, documents, stamps, paper cups filled with coffee dregs and desiccated teabags, and one ancient computer screen perched in the corner.
“We were told to give you this,” I said, sat down and handed Sherry the green document.
Sherry sighed. “I don’t get these stupid protocols. I mean, really, what are two empaths going to do, make everyone high?” She didn’t use the slang term. It suddenly dawned on me that she almost always used the official terms, and I wondered whether she was just the formal type or whether there was another reason.
“Empaths can cause harm,” Lee said, and wove his fingers together.
Sherry picked up her pen and pointed it at Lee. “As history proves, whenever an empath caused damage – he paid for it.” She started listing with her fingers, “Richard Laurence, Sergey Kirov, von Stauffenberg…”
“Samuel Byck,” Lee interrupted her, “Griselio Torresola …”
“Never heard of any of them,” I said.
Sherry looked at Lee. “They don’t teach anything in today’s schools.”
“Sherry’s examples are of empaths who tried to carry out an assassination and failed,” Lee explained to me.
“And Lee’s examples are of empaths who failed but managed to kill a few others in the process,” Sherry said, leaning forward in her chair. “A few of them failed because of seers. Most because they radiated too many feelings right before attempting to carry out the deed, and the bodyguards detected and stopped them.”
“That’s why all the famous assassinations were carried out either by elementalists or normies,” Lee contributed.
“And usually against people who didn’t pay for the round-the-clock services of a seer,” Sherry added.
Two history buffs. I had the feeling they could have spent the next few hours talking about obscure historical figures no one but them knew.
Sherry gripped her pen between her fingers. “The suspect we picked up yesterday killed himself an hour ago.”
I felt a chill in my stomach. Lee tightened his grip on my hand. We had done that.
Lee straightened up. “How? You knew he…”
Sherry shot him a look and said in a level voice, “Last-minute decision, just like your sister said.” She turned to me. “We managed to interrogate him and corroborate some of the information we already had. We know he was with the Sons of Simeon, but we couldn’t get anything out of him about who he was targeting, who exactly he was aiming at yesterday.”
“He was aiming at you,” I said.
“Daphne said they’re targeting you,” Lee said to me, his tone reserved, his expression utterly devoid of feeling.
“You’re both wrong,” Sherry said, clicking her pen.
“Daphne said that…” Lee began to answer.
Sherry shot him another look and he fell silent. “Seers don’t see the future. They remember backwards, and like any memory, they notice mostly the significant things. Daphne sees Reed dead because he’s important to her, and close to her. It doesn’t mean that’s actually the main event.” She kept clicking her pen. “People are so used to listening to seers that they forget to use common sense.” She pointed her pen at me. “What would happen if they hurt you? Nothing. So why would anyone go after you?”
I shrugged.
“Think. Really.”
Lee squeezed my hand. “You said it yesterday. That he tends to put himself in the line of fire.”
“Correct.” Sherry looked at Lee. “So…?”
“So he’ll be close to…” His voice petered out. “They’re not aiming at Reed. They’re targeting someone standing next to him. And Daphne sees it because she cares about Reed more than she does about that other person.”
Sherry nodded.
Lee balled his hand into a fist. “OK. So how do we protect Reed?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.” Sherry looked at Lee. “Think like one of the Sons of Simeon.”
Lee slid his hand out from under mine and tapped on the armrest of his chair. “They’re aiming at Reed, because Reed’s standing in the way of that other person. But… if you knew whose path he was blocking, you could protect… no… wait. It’s something else.” Lee bit his lip in concentration.
“They want to bring on a revolution, right?” Lee looked straight at Sherry. I had no idea he knew anything about the political happenings in the country. After all, only yesterday he hadn’t even heard of the Sons of Simeon. He had probably spent the night catching up. Out of concern for me. I almost smiled.
Sherry nodded.
“So they have damuses telling them what to do in order to bring about this revolution, and putting Reed in the line of
fire is part of their plan. Because otherwise, the person they’re after will make sure to replace Reed with someone they can’t kill. No, wait…”
“You’re right,” Sherry said, crossing her arms. “They know their target will surround herself with whoever can protect her, and the weakest link will be Reed.”
“Precisely because he’s insignificant. That’s why they need him there. Which means… which means they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Reed is there when they need to strike, to bring him down to get to their real target.” Lee accompanied his words with the drumming of his fingers against the table. “And that means they’ll make all the futures converge into an unalterable state.”
“Exactly,” Sherry said.
I cleared my throat. “Meaning?”
They both looked at me.
“Meaning, they’ll hurt you if that’s what it takes to make sure you’ll be where they need you,” Lee said.
I was trapped in my thoughts, looking for a way out. I recalled Professor Yeshurun’s exhortation: ‘The community needs to do some soul searching, we must embrace those who are different from us.’ I felt sick to my stomach.
“I have no intention of letting them lay a finger on you. I’ll do all I can to protect you, but that’s going to require your cooperation.”
“Cooperation means I’m putting Reed on the first flight out to Boston,” Lee interrupted her.
“No.” Sherry shot him a look. “Cooperation means you two putting your trust in me.”
“No,” I interjected. They both shifted their gazes to me. “Cooperation means you tell us what you intend to do in order to keep me alive, and I decide what I intend to do.”
Her smile reappeared.
“What? I’m reminding you of Matthew again?”
Instead of replying, Sherry interlaced her fingers and raised her hands to her heart. The symbol of sorcery, solidarity and reciprocal aid.
I couldn’t read her, but I could look into her eyes. She seemed genuine. More than that. She seemed determined. Matthew trusted her, and I had seen her in action when the pyros burned those people in the pub. She did everything she could to protect me. No, to protect everyone. And now she was committing to help protect me with a gesture meaningful to us both.
The Heart of the Circle Page 20
