No, I had been stupid for thinking Morgan would allow me to protect myself. He had defended me to Sebastian, and I had been about to thank him. Thank that monster!
Hot anger washed over me, drying my eyes. I had been a fool for thinking he actually valued me. He had never abused me or forced himself on me, and that had lulled me into false security. Standing, I wet more paper towels and cleaned my face again. The only things humans cared about were money and energy and entertainment. Magic was only a means to these ends, never mind the cost. They were monsters, all of them.
My cuffs burned, a moment of heat around my wrists. I sighed at the summons, dried my face, and looked in the mirror one more time. I didn’t look so haggard and downtrodden anymore, just tired. I could live with that. Anything was better than looking beaten and broken. I arranged my long, dark hair around my shoulders to mostly cover the bruises on my neck, resumed my neutral mask, then opened the door.
I grabbed a quick drink from the water cooler to wash the coppery taste of blood from my mouth before heading down the hall to Morgan’s office. Muffled voices filtered into the hall as I approached. I rapped three times and opened the door. Silence greeted me along with two stony stares. The stranger sat in front of Morgan’s desk, while my master sat behind it. I folded my hands in front of me and looked at him.
“You summoned me, master?” My voice was raspy, and my throat burned from the effort of pushing out a few words. I clearly wouldn’t be doing much talking for a while.
The stranger stood, his fists clenched at his sides, the cords in his neck standing out as he faced Morgan. “I won’t be part of this. You shouldn’t be, either.”
“Nick,” Morgan began.
The other man spun on his heel and strode to the door. I hurriedly stepped into the office to get out of his way. His arm brushed mine as he passed, and a little electric sizzle sparked my nerves. He paused in the door frame and glanced at me, as if he’d felt it too. Then his eyes dropped to my throat. His expression darkened, and he disappeared into the hall.
I took a deep breath before turning back to Morgan. It was good the man, Nick, left. He distracted me far too much.
Morgan sighed and ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. Then he stood and opened a cabinet, withdrawing a bottle of amber liquid and a small glass. He poured a bit into the glass and drank it one gulp, then poured and drank again before putting the bottle away. I refused to wonder why he was drinking more than usual.
“Come here, Adira.” He returned to his desk and opened the middle drawer.
He grabbed something out of the drawer, small enough to be hidden in his fist, then held out his arm. I stepped up to the desk and lifted my hand. A flash drive attached to a long, thin cord landed in my palm.
“I need you to deliver this to someone for me.”
“Why?” I rasped, forgetting I shouldn’t speak. Morgan had never sent me on errand alone before. I gestured to the computer. “There are easier, faster ways to send information.”
Morgan glared at me. “Did you not listen to anything I said in the lobby?”
My eyes narrowed at him, my attempts to keep my face passive failing miserably. As if I would ever forget what he done.
He faced me and I tensed, expecting more punishment. But instead of choking or hitting me, his hands took my wrists, his rings clinking on my cuffs again.
“No,” I whispered. I tugged, but he held fast.
“Take this to the Bentley Building on Wilshire Boulevard, suite 404,” he intoned. Hot tendrils of power wrapped around me as the compulsion built. “Knock three times, pause, then knock three times more. Tell the man who opens the door you have a message from me, and give him this flash drive. Do not speak of it. Let no one else see it or know that you have it, defending it with your life if necessary.”
My eyes widened. What was on this drive?
“Go,” he said, dropping my wrists.
My feet started moving before I told them to, carrying me swiftly to the door.
“Adira,” Morgan called, his voice softer than before.
I glanced back, struggling against the order that compelled me to keep going.
He paused, his mouth open like he wanted to speak but didn’t have the right words. My muscles trembled from fighting the compulsion. I couldn’t resist an order for long, and he knew that. Why hold me back now? More punishment?
He sighed and deflated into his chair. “Never mind.”
I stopped fighting and the compulsion rushed me to the elevator doors. As I walked I draped the cord around my neck, tucking it under my collar and sliding the drive on the end down my shirt between my breasts. Without pockets, it was the best place to keep it hidden. I jabbed the down button and waited as the elevator doors slid open.
Standing there was the most rest I would get that night.
If I had known how far I’d have to walk, I would have fought the compulsion and taken a detour to a metro station. Or at least stopped on a curb to hail a cab, which probably would have been easier. Either option would have saved me the better part of an hour and the beginning of a blister on my left heel. The compulsion kept me moving at a brisk, consistent pace, so I couldn’t check my heel or rest my legs—but it also gave me a purposeful stride that kept any humans from bothering me.
The sun hovered on the horizon, occasionally glaring in my eyes when a sidewalk faced due west, but the city was anything but dark. Street-level windows all glowed with light, as did many upper stories, not to mention streetlights, vehicle headlights, video billboards, and a hundred other sources that kept the city bright and bustling.
So much energy polluting the evening sky that I couldn’t even see the first stars when I looked up. And all of it came from djinn.
After about an hour of walking, the power controlling my limbs like a puppet suddenly pushed me into the street. A car horn blared behind blinding headlights as I fought to retreat to the sidewalk. Deliberately planting each step, I forced myself to continue to the crosswalk. Beads of sweat burst on my forehead and my breathing became more ragged. As soon as the light changed, I stepped into the road and had crossed it almost before I could blink, the compulsion propelling me faster than ever.
On the opposite sidewalk, my feet turned back down the block, directing me to the doors of a tall office building. They were unlocked, and I quickly crossed the lobby to the elevators, where I could finally pause to rest my aching feet and trembling legs.
Suite 404 was the second door on the right of the dim fourth-floor corridor. I strode to it as if I’d been here a thousand times and knocked. The three measured beats echoed down the empty hall. I knocked again and three more echoes tangled with the first. Goosebumps rippled down my bare arms.
Finally the door opened, revealing a tall man just beyond his prime. His hair was dark save for the bit of gray at his temples, giving him a distinguished look that was softened by crows’ feet and the rolled up sleeves of a button-up shirt. He looked me over, his gaze pausing on my cuffs and then my neck before meeting my eyes. “Yes?”
I pulled the cord off my neck and held it out to him, the flash drive dangling. “From John Morgan.”
As soon as he took it, the compulsion vanished. I sighed audibly, my shoulders dropping as I swayed on my feet.
The man grabbed my shoulder to steady me. “Are you all right?”
I shrugged his hand off and stepped back, my feet screaming for me to sit somewhere and rest. Without answering, I straightened my shoulders and returned to the elevator. I felt the man’s eyes on my back as I walked away. He watched me until the elevator doors closed between us.
A different kind of compulsion propelled me out onto the street—this had been a strange errand, with a strange human staring at me, and I just wanted to get away from it all.
A cool breeze hinting at the ocean caressed my skin and danced with the ends of my hair, making me stop in the middle of the sidewalk. The sun had set, but it wasn’t late. Morgan hadn’t compelled me to r
eturn immediately, and it was rare to be out unsupervised. I’d walked this far anyway.
Might as well make the most of it.
I could hear the club a couple blocks away, the thumping music a siren call for evening entertainment—along with something more subtle, a sensual undertone brushing my senses. It lured me forward like a lover, made me want to roll my hips and strut past the line of well-dressed men waiting to go inside.
Instead of relaxing into the music, I tensed against it, keeping my shoulders and hips straight. Some of the men glanced at me as I strode to the door, but most of them looked eagerly to the front of the line, anxious to get inside.
The bouncer, a large man with bulging biceps and a buzz cut, stopped me at the door with one raised hand. “Exclusive patrons only.”
Without speaking, I raised my arms and showed him my cuffs, the copper bands glowing a bright orange under the neon lights.
“Didn’t know we were getting a new girl,” he said.
I didn’t correct him as he stepped aside and let me in.
The music enveloped me, the beat sinking into my bones, the sensuality warming my blood like a drug. It was dim inside the club, all the lights focused on various stages where scantily clad women danced and shimmied around poles. On the main stage, an olive-skinned woman danced in front of the pole, using shimmery blue silk as her prop. Silver sequins glittered along the lines of her matching blue bra and the waistline of her mostly transparent skirt. More silver glinted at her ankles, ears and neck as she rolled her hips and twirled until her skirt flared. The only thing about her that wasn’t silver or blue were the iron-and-copper cuffs on her wrists.
That’s where the magic came from, the sensuality that lured in more customers, relaxed them into staying longer and spending more. The djinn belly dancer had orders to seduce the crowd with her power while she danced.
No one noticed me as I leaned against a column and watched. They were all too mesmerized by her graceful undulating movements to pay attention to anything else. She froze when the song ended, her arms in the air, the silver sequins trembling and her blue silk skirt drifting into stillness. The humans burst into applause and cheers and appreciative whistles. The dancer smiled and inclined her head, then descended from the stage, spreading the blue silk prop around her shoulders for a modicum of modesty.
The music started up again as another woman took her place on the stage, but it lacked the enticing undertone of the belly dancer’s magic. The woman in blue disappeared down a private hallway. I caught the door before it closed behind her and followed. Blue silk trailed around a corner, and I hurried to catch up, dashing into the changing room and nearly running into her.
She gasped, wide-eyed, then broke into a grin. “Adira!”
I couldn’t help my own huge smile. “Yasmina, it’s so good to see you.”
We hugged, holding onto each other longer than necessary. It had been months since I’d seen my sister. We were twins, some of the first djinn children born into slavery. Luckily, our parents were married and already expecting us when they were captured, so the humans had allowed us to remain together as a family until we grew into our own power at puberty. We’d then been separated, sold to different masters, on our thirteenth birthday.
Yasmina pulled back first, her eyes glowing. “What are you doing here?”
“Do I need a reason to visit my sister?”
“Of course not,” she said. “Why is your voice so rough?” She saw the bruises on my throat, and her grin fell. “What happened to you?”
“One of my master’s clients got a little frisky,” I said as I sat in a chair in front of a makeup station. It felt good to get off my feet.
Yasmina took the chair next to me, her expression somehow knowing. “I’m sorry,” she said. But she didn’t sound sorrowful. She sounded…resigned.
I considered where we were, what kind of men she dealt with daily, and realized what she was thinking. “He didn’t rape me, Yasmina. I broke his nose and my master did this as punishment.”
She sighed and sat back in the chair, smiling slightly as she pulled one leg up and started massaging her foot. “You’ve never been good at keeping your head down, have you?”
“It was worth it,” I assured her. My grin returned. “For a moment, I felt like Dhat al-Himma, getting revenge on a man who dared to violate her.”
Yasmina didn’t respond. But her smile had disappeared as she continued digging her thumb into the ball of her foot.
“You remember the She-Wolf, don’t you?” I asked. The adventures of Dhat al-Himma, a female djinn warrior who had led men into battle and killed her oppressors, had been some of my favorite stories as a child.
“Of course I remember the stories,” Yasmina said quietly as she started massaging her other foot. “But that’s all they are, Adira—stories. You talk like our parents’ bedtime tales about djinn heroes and kings and the magical world of Kaf are real, but they’re not.”
“How do you know they’re not?” The words came out harsher than I intended. Why was she intent on destroying happy childhood memories?
She stopped her massage and looked at me earnestly. “The Emerald Mountains aren’t real. They never were. They were just something our parents told themselves, told us, to deal with their predicament.”
A chill slid down my back at her callousness. “Their predicament?” My voice rose. “You call slavery a predicament? When you go out there and showcase your body for human entertainment against your will, is that a predicament?”
She pulled her gaze from mine and resumed kneading the sole of her foot. “Their lives changed radically. They knew they could never go back, that life would never be the same. Why else would Kaf be an alternate dimension? They had to tell themselves something to get through each day, and Kaf gave them hope without any promises.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Have you always thought our parents were liars?”
Someone cleared their throat. I glared at the intruder standing in the doorway, another dancer in swaths of purple fabric that revealed as much as they covered.
“Yasmina, he’s here,” she said in a small voice.
“Thank you, Lacey. I’ll be right there.”
Lacey nodded and hurried away.
Yasmina dropped her foot and stood. I did the same, still angry that she could be so cold toward our parents—but I didn’t want to her to leave with this hanging between us. We might not meet again for months, even years, and I hadn’t come here to fight. So I swallowed down the hard words I wanted to say, and took a deep, calming breath.
“I never thought they were liars, Adira,” Yasmina murmured. “Just dreamers trying to make sense of a cruel world.” She pulled me into a hug. “And it was a beautiful dream.”
“I still think all the stories are true.”
“Then you’re a dreamer too.” She pulled back and smiled at me. “I hope you can visit me again soon.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
Yasmina left, her blue silks shimmering around her, leaving me alone in the dressing room. Somehow, I felt more empty after talking with her than I had in all the months I hadn’t seen her.
My cuffs burned. I sighed at the summons and stalked out, my heart aching as much as my feet.
3
The metro security officer watched me with hard, narrow eyes as I approached the ticket counter. It was late enough that I didn’t have to wait in line, which meant the officer had nothing else to glare at. My cuffs burned again, harder and more insistently than a few minutes ago, clashing with the cold flutters in my belly at the officer’s glare.
“Passage to Union Station,” I said when I reached him.
The officer lifted one eyebrow and remained silent.
“What?” I said. “You think I’m a runaway going to downtown in the middle of the night? What would I do, look at all the pretty lights made from energy stolen from my people?” My voice rose and my expression was anything but neutral
. Too much attitude would get me in major trouble, but I couldn’t stop myself. I pushed my cuffed wrists toward him to scan. “Go ahead, call my master. Tell him why you won’t let me return from an errand so he can stop burning my wrists.”
His mustache bristled like he wanted to yell at me. I refused to drop my gaze, or my arms. He glanced down at them, saw where my skin had turned an angry red under the cuffs. His mustache smoothed down again, although his glare didn’t change. Then he opened the gate and waved me through. “Red line,” he muttered.
I pushed past him without bothering to reply, hurrying to the stairs that led down to the platforms. My feet throbbed as I descended the cement steps. A long whoosh and the screech of brakes echoed up from the platform, and I picked up my pace, wincing. It was late enough that the next train might not come by until the morning commute, and I definitely didn’t want to walk all the way back to downtown.
When I reached the platform, the red line train already had its doors open. I strode toward the nearest car, trying not to limp. My lone footsteps echoed in the cavernous space, then doubled and rebounded. I glanced back to see a group coming down the stairs behind me. Apparently I wasn’t the only one taking the late train back to the city.
I stepped through the doors of the train car and collapsed into the second seat from the door, my aching feet still complaining. The car was empty except for a figure in an army green coat in the furthest seat from the doors on my side of the car. With their face down and their hood up, I couldn’t discern their features, but I had the distinct impression they’d watched me come in.
My cuffs burned again, hot enough I gasped. What was so urgent Morgan had to call me multiple times in less than half an hour? I bowed my head and gritted my teeth against the pain. At this rate I’d have blisters on my wrists as well as my heels.
The train’s warning bell sounded, and a second later the doors began to slide shut. Finally. Then something stopped the doors’ movement. I looked over to see pairs of hands holding the door open as a man stepped in, one side of his head shaved and intricate sleeve tattoos all down his arms. More men filed in behind him, all of them with the same buzz on one side of their heads, some with various piercings, others with tattoos, though none as extensive as the leader’s sleeve ink. Their hair cuts and body modifications matched their fierce glares, but it was the pistols shoved in their pants that made me freeze.
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