by Trisha Telep
“Brenda!”
I heard him shout behind me, and I froze, wiping at the tear that was sliding unceremoniously down my cheek.
I turned slowly to see him walking quickly to catch up to me. “What?”
“Why did you take off without saying anything to me?”
“I didn’t want to get in the way. Also, I have to meet Sandy at the mall like I said I would.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to thank you for all your help.”
“You mean helping you lose your bracelet and your chance at getting back into your pack?”
His lips twitched into a small smile. “My pack was lost to me when my mom died. I just didn’t want to accept it. I don’t want to be anywhere I’m not wanted anymore. I don’t want to force anyone to want me in their life if they aren’t interested in having me around.”
“Your brother’s a jerk.”
“Yeah, you said that before. And it’s true. Maybe he’ll realize that one day, too, but I won’t be there when it happens.” He raked a hand through his tawny-colored hair. “Look, there’s a bit of a problem.”
I looked at him with surprise. “What?”
“It’s the bonding spell.”
“Mrs. Timmons removed it.”
“I know, but I’m not sure she did it right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I feel the same as I did before,” he said softly, approaching me so he was only standing a few inches away. I didn’t pull away when he slid his fingers into my hair and swept it off my shoulder.
“Which way is that?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Like I belong to you.” He smiled. “And that’s kind of hard to ignore.”
A breath caught in my throat. “Well, I don’t think that has very much to do with the spell.”
“Why not?”
“Because the bonding spell would make a witch’s familiar feel like he belonged to the witch, right?”
“Right.”
“The thing is—I feel like I belong to you too.”
“So it’s a mutual problem we seem to be having here.” He nodded. “And what do you think we should do about it?”
I slid my hands up over his chest to his shoulders. “I’m thinking ... nothing. Nothing at all.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan.” He bent forward and kissed me.
My heart swelled and felt like it was going to burst. I was crazy about Owen. I didn’t care if I’d known him two days or two years, it wouldn’t change a thing about how I felt.
After a long moment he pulled back a little from me. “So now what, little witch?”
“Now?” I reached down and took his hand in mine. “I need to introduce you to some people.”
“Who?”
I grinned at him. “My pack of misfits. Consider yourself the newest member.”
His dark blue eyes filled with happiness. “Sounds good to me.”
That made two of us.
Fearless
BY RACHEL VINCENT
“Sabine, look at me.”
Not likely. But staring out the car window wasn’t much better. All I could see was the building—long, low, and squat with tall windows arranged in pairs. Better than correctional custody, but not by much.
The brick-backed sign to the right of the sidewalk read “Holser House,” but that was a lie. “This isn’t a house.”
“Sabine...”
“Houses have yards. This is a parking lot.”
May as well have a barbed wire fence or a metal detector at the door; the effect would have been the same. Everyone knew about Holser House, and the Holser girls. Whores, junkies, and thieves in training, biding their time till they turned eighteen and were officially booted from the Texas Youth Commission with a sealed record and a prayer.
“It’s only for six months.” Navarro insisted, and I rolled my eyes at his optimism. Six months was the minimum stay, the maximum to be determined by the director. “Better than the alternative, right? You can wear your own clothes and go to public school when the semester starts. And when you turn sixteen, they’ll let you get a job, if you’ve been playing nice.”
But I would only be there when I turned sixteen if I decided not to play nice. So much for optimism.
Finally, I turned to look at him, my fingers curling around the door handle. “Can I go in alone, or am I still under escort?”
He gave me a strict, parole officer frown. “There’s paper work...”
There was always paperwork. You know you don’t really exist when you’re known by a case number, instead of a name.
“Sabine, do not run away from Holser. This isn’t prison, but you’re still in state custody. Running away is considered escape, and you do not need an escape charge. Next time it’ll be Ron Jackson.”
The Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex. Navarro says it makes the detention center look like kindergarten, and four days in juvenile detention was plenty of time for me to remember that I hated orange jumpsuits and institutional food.
“I didn’t run away.” I’d just missed curfew. By seven hours. Evidently a grievous violation of my parole, even without the additional status offense—underage drinking.
“David reported you missing.”
That’s because David was a dick. “Whatever.”
Navarro sighed. “Look, Sabine, I’m trying to help you. I had to call in a favor to get you placed here. They don’t usually take violent offenders.”
“I’m not violent.” But Navarro only frowned. We’d agreed to disagree on that one.
“If you don’t take this seriously, there’s nothing else I can do for you.”
He wanted to help me. He might even have believed me if I’d explained about missing curfew. That Jenny was out of town, and I didn’t want to be alone with David because he might decide to do more than look, and if that happened, I’d have to hurt him. Then I’d be in Ron Jackson for sure. With the actual violent offenders.
Because even if Navarro believed me, the rest of the system wouldn’t. They’d never take the word of the troubled teen parolee over the upstanding foster father.
“Promise me you’ll stay here. Just ride it out for a few months, then you can go home.”
Assuming the Harpers would take me back. Not that I cared about them, but a new foster home meant a new school, and then I couldn’t see Nash. But I refused to follow that line of thought.
“Promise me, Sabine.”
I looked up, meeting his dark-eyed gaze, studying him for the millionth time. “Why do you care? For real. You’ll still draw a paycheck even if I puke up my well-balanced, state-mandated group dinner.”
Navarro sighed again, and the weight of the world slipped a bit on his shoulders. “I don’t want to see you waste your life.”
It was a lie, yet very close to the truth. He wasn’t afraid I’d never reach my full potential, but that he would fail me. Or one of his other girls. That he would drop the ball, and one of us would wind up dead.
Oddly enough, his was a fear I’d never felt the need to exploit. At least, not while I was the one benefiting from his efforts.
“You ready?” Navarro asked.
I opened the door and stepped out of the car. Fort Worth was sweltering, even at ten a.m. on an early June morning. Navarro slammed his door and circled to the back of the car, where he popped the trunk and lifted out my two suitcases. I took one, then followed him inside.
Holser House felt sterile and blessedly cool after the blinding heat outside, and my sweat quickly gave way to chill bumps. When my eyes adjusted, a long white hallway came into focus, the tight throat of the beast that had swallowed me whole.
It would choke on me, sooner or later. Just like the holding houses, foster homes, and the detention center. I was indigestible by the Texas Youth Commission and social services. Eventually, they all realized something was off about me. Fortunately most humans lacked the ability to interpret that feeling of wrong
ness.
At the end of the hall, I saw a waiting room-style couch, and the corner of a chair. The room flashed with the bluish white glow of a TV screen. Though if anyone was actually watching it, I couldn’t tell.
“In here.” Navarro extended one arm toward a door on the left. He led the way without touching me, like all well-trained employees of the state. Care from a distance. From across that vast gulf where lawsuits breed.
The office was lit by fluorescents and the glow of a computer screen, while the window was tightly covered against the Texas heat. A large woman sat behind the desk, but she stood when we entered. The nameplate on her desk read, “Anna-Rosa Gomez, Director.”
“Cristofer, you’re early!”
Navarro smiled and shook her hand. “We could come back later, if you want...”
“Of course not. This must be Ms. Campbell?”
Good guess. Might have something to do with the edge of my file, which was sticking out from under the pile on her desk, where she’d probably slid it as we’d walked in the door.
Navarro nodded and gestured for me to shake the plump hand the director held out.
I studied Gomez first, taking in dark eyes, the firm line of her jaw, and the patient, steady hand waiting to grip mine. She looked decent enough. But you can never really know a person until you’ve seen what scares them.
I set my bag down and took her hand reluctantly, bracing myself for the sensory onslaught.
A white wall. A tall amorphous shadow. The darkness coalesces as I cower, lost in her terror. The silhouette becomes a man with a tightly clenched fist. The shadow arm rises, and I recoil. I know this horror. It has dozens of variations, and I’ve felt them all.
The fist swings, and I flinch. Shadows have no substance, yet the first blow breaks my rib. I scream, awash in pain. The second blow fractures my skull. The hits keep coming, bruising and breaking me, but there are no words. No explanation, because I don’t deserve one. He is mad, and I am there. That’s all the logic there is.
Then there is only darkness.
Time moved forward again, but I could only stare at the director with her hand clenched in mine, her fingers warm against my suddenly chilled skin. “Sabine, are you okay?” she asked, wariness peeking from beneath her mask of concern. I’d made her uncomfortable two minutes into our relationship. Might be a new record but probably not for long.
The things that make most people’s blood run cold make mine burn with anticipation. They light a fire deep in my soul, which can only be quenched by a deep drink of their fear, left vulnerable during the dream phase of sleep. But Gomez wouldn’t want to know that. She couldn’t understand it, even if I told her.
“Yeah. I’m good.” But she wasn’t. She was terrified he’d beat her to death next time, if he ever got paroled. She was right.
I pulled my hand from hers and dropped my gaze to keep her from seeing the lingering horror in my eyes. The reflection of her own fear. If she thought something was wrong with me, she might change her mind about taking me, and there were no other residence spots open. It was Holser Not-Really-A House or Ron Jackson, and I would not go to jail.
Not just for breaking curfew.
“Sit down,” Gomez said, sinking into her own seat. I dropped onto one of the two chairs facing her desk, one foot on the cushion, hugging my own knee. Navarro sat next to me. “I have your file here somewhere...”
“On the bottom,” I said, and Navarro glared at me. I ignored him.
“Yes, thank you.” Gomez opened the folder and scanned the first page. “Says here you pleaded guilty to breaking and entering four months ago...”
“I didn’t break,” I insisted. “I just entered.”
“Sabine...” Navarro warned, and I rolled my eyes. The details might not matter to them, but they mattered to me.
“Look, the back door was open, and I only went in to grab
Tucker’s bat.” Unfortunately, the state of Texas considered that proof of my intent to commit a crime. And they were absolutely right.
Navarro sat up straight, looking like he’d like to throttle me. “Remember what we said about your right to remain silent? That applies even when you’re not currently under arrest. Ms. Gomez has all the facts she needs.”
I shrugged. “She has the facts, but she doesn’t have the truth. Don’t you think she should know what really happened, if I’m gonna live in her ‘house’?” Especially considering she’d never really know what I was. Neither of them would. They’d probably never heard of a mara.
Navarro sighed, then waved one hand in a “be my guest” gesture.
I glanced at Gomez. “What else does it say in there?”
She studied the file again. “You pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism.”
It was originally felony vandalism, but the prosecutor gave me a break. I was a first-time offender.
“It says you beat in someone’s taillights, fender, and rear passenger side window with a baseball bat, resulting in more than two thousand dollars in damages.” Gomez looked up at me with one brow raised. “Isn’t that a little cliché for someone as smart as you’re supposed to be?”
What, did she have my test scores in there too? I shrugged. “I’m fifteen. I have limited resources. Besides, I used his bat. That’s, like, poetic justice, right?”
Her brow rose even higher. “Justice for what?”
“Tucker...” In my head, I spelled his name with a capital F instead of a T. “...gave me a ride home from school that day, but he pulled over half a mile from my house and said I couldn’t get out unless I worked off the gas money he’d wasted on me.” The prick had unzipped his pants and tried to shove my head into his lap.
“And how did you handle that?” Gomez closed the file and crossed her arms on her desk, focused on me now. She was good. She should have been a social worker.
“I punched him in the junk, then ran all the way home while he puked.”
I thought I saw a flicker of satisfaction on her face before the director remembered she was supposed to be firm and generally disapproving. “Did you report him?”
“I fight my own battles.”
“So you went back that night for his car...?”
I nodded, though actually, I’d gone back to give him a nightmare he’d never forget. But he wasn’t home. Fortunately, both his bat and his vehicle were. “That car was his weapon, and someone had to disarm him. I was doing society a favor.”
Navarro groaned. Evidently I wasn’t showing enough remorse.
Gomez cleared her throat and tapped her pen on my file folder. “You know, we have a system in place to deal with people like Tucker. But it can’t work if the crime isn’t reported.” She sat straighter and opened the file again. “It sounds like taking justice into your own hands was your first mistake.”
No, my first mistake was getting caught.
“But clearly not your last.” She spread her arms to indicate all of Holser House, and my presence in it. “You got probation on breaking and entering, and misdemeanor vandalism, which you violated last week with a missed curfew and underage consumption of alcohol.”
