“Shayna, if you’ll come with me, we’ll get these horrible pictures out of the way so you can get out of here.” The female officer held a hand out to me and I walked towards her, feeling my mother following closely at my back. I knew that, because she had to be present during the identifying of Jeremy, she would have to be present during the next uncomfortable part. Officer Brown, as that was the name on her name badge, walked us down the hall until we came to an interrogation room where Jodi and another female cop were waiting for us.
I found out that Jeremy had shoved Jodi so hard that her arm had struck a bookshelf hard enough that she already had her own bruise blooming over her left tricep. Jodi didn’t have to take off her shirt to have her pictures taken, so I was a more than a little annoyed that I had to, especially in front of an audience, even if they were all women. Officer Brown took over a dozen pictures of the bruising from every angle imaginable before she would let me put my shirt back on and leave. Jodi was surprisingly sensitive about the whole thing. Jodi had more body issues that even I had. I always felt I was over-endowed and she always felt she was under-endowed and, every time she was reminded of our differences, she took her bitter anger out on me. But not this time. This time, after I had my shirt back into place, she just gave me a careful hug and walked out with me, arm in arm.
Chapter 9
Jodi’s father wanted her to go home and my parents wanted me to come home with them, but neither of us wanted to be separated; we had much to talk about and needed privacy to do so. If we went to my house, with Jensen with us, my parents would make me leave my bedroom door open, completely negating the privacy we were seeking. We could go to Jodi’s house, but her room was so small and cluttered it would be more than a little uncomfortable. I made the command decision to take everyone to my house, knowing there was one last place for us to hide out. My tree house in the back yard was completely warded against magical or psychic attacks and full of our magical working supplies.
We were all walking out to the parking lot when we saw Jeremy’s parents walking towards a dark SUV. Because of his star athlete older brother, we all knew who the McCormacks were. Mr. McCormack looked like an older version of Jimmy; sandy blonde hair, chiseled features, and lovely hazel eyes that bled from brown to green and back again. He was as tall and broad shouldered as Jimmy was and, unlike most fathers, he hadn’t gone soft around the middle in his later years.
Mrs. McCormack, however, was the clear explanation for where Jeremy got his genetics. She was smaller than her husband by almost a hundred pounds and nearly a foot shorter. Her hair was a pretty chestnut brown that I remembered Jeremy’s used to be in elementary school before he dyed his hair that awful shoe polish black. The only difference was that Mrs. McCormack’s skin wasn’t so much pale, like Jeremy’s, but fair and almost luminous, the color I suspected Jeremy’s could be if he took better care of himself.
“I just can’t believe this bullshit,” Mr. McCormack’s voice came back to us from across the parking lot, which let me know he was yelling just for the sake of yelling. “He is going to earn every penny of that bail money back!”
I turned back towards my parents’ car and started walking towards it. When I realized no one else was walking with me, I stopped and looked over my shoulder. Jeremy’s father was walking across the parking lot towards us. My stomach knotted up against my spine and my hands tingled with nerves. I closed my eyes and caught my breath so I could reinforce my shields against the anger I felt rolling off of Mr. McCormack in waves of heat that stung my face, even at this distance. I felt a press of fingers in one of my palms and a familiar warmth; I wrapped my hand around Steven’s hand, interlacing our fingers. He’s a fire sign, that’s why it feels like that, Steven’s red thoughts eased through my mind like a warm fire on a cold winter’s night. His own inherent Fire abilities helped me shield tightly against the other man.
“Hello,” Mr. McCormack said in a voice roughened by yelling as he held out a hand to my father who took it for a firm handshake between the two large men. “I just wanted to apologize for this whole thing,” he said carefully, but I could taste the metallic anger of his voice on my tongue.
“Well, we appreciate that,” my father said, releasing the other man’s hand first and stepping back half a step to stand next to my mother. Mr. McCormack crossed his arms over a very broad chest and looked back over his shoulder to the jail. If he could have burned a hole through the cement and glass and scorched Jeremy, I knew he would.
“I just don’t understand how this happened,” Mr. McCormack said, more to himself than to my parents. “I just want you to know there’re no hard feelings between me and my wife and you all. We completely agree with the girls pressing charges.” He nodded towards Jodi and me behind my parents. “I would’ve let the boy sit in a cell over night if it wasn’t for his mother,” he said the last with a shake of his head, “but she wanted to post bail, so here we are. At least the paperwork will take a while and he can cool his heels in the cell until then.”
“Well, that’s between you and your wife. I appreciate your understanding, but the officers told us not to discuss this further with your family, so if you don’t mind.” My father held his hand out for another handshake to be polite before breaking off the conversation. I watched Mr. McCormack stare at my father’s hand for a moment as if he wouldn’t take it, but finally he reached out and the two men grasped hands and said good-bye. I was thankful that the awkward conversation was so short.
Fifteen minutes later, we were pulling up in front of my house and making our way into the backyard. We grabbed some sodas and a few snacks to take with us as we passed the kitchen. My body was growing stiff with pain from my injuries and Jensen had to help me climb up the ladder and through the trap door into the tree house. I was breathing faster than a quick climb up my tree should have warranted. I grabbed one of the large pillows I had up there for seating and laid on it.
Steven was pulling on a rope that was attached to a limb outside the window on one end and to a basket on the ground at the other; it was how we brought up supplies or food without having to carry it up the ladder. Jensen was sitting by my knees with his legs crossed and had pulled my legs into his lap, keeping us close together and giving Jodi and Steven as much room as possible. Although my father had built me a rather large tree house, as tree houses go, now that we were all adult size, once you had more than two of us in here at a time it started to feel a little cramped.
“Okay, so what now?” Jodi asked, settling herself against the opposite wall from me. Steven took the wall between us that connected the two walls, leaving precious little floor space between the four of us.
“I have no idea,” I said with an exhale of breath, shaking my head at the ceiling.
“I can’t believe they’re going to let him out,” Steven said, cracking open a soda can and taking a sip.
“Dude, they let wife beaters out if they make bail, why not a teenager?” Jodi said.
“But it’s not like he’s a minor. He turned eighteen in January, that makes him an adult,” Steven said.
“Still made bail though and will be released into the custody of his parents. That’s all they care about,” she finished with a shrug.
“So he’s free to hurt Shayna again,” Steven said, anger coloring his words and, though my eyes were closed, I could see an aura of red pulsing in the direction Steven was sitting in. It made me smile. Jensen was rubbing my leg gently under my jeans, massaging the calf muscle. I had a feeling it was as much for my comfort as it was for his own.
“Maybe if she just stays away from him, he won’t do anything to her,” Jensen said quietly. I opened my eyes and looked down the length of my body to him. He was carefully avoiding looking at my face, watching his own hands.
“You think this is my fault, don’t you?” I said, careful to make sure I didn’t sound too defensive.
“Well, he only attacks you when you confront him,” Jensen said, finally looking up at me. Both
Steven and Jodi had gone completely quiet and still, afraid to move and bring my attention to them.
“I don’t confront him, Jensen. I’ve tried to talk to him, tell him that we can help him if he’d let us.” I was surprised to hear how calm I was, not jumping into an argument with Jensen. Probably because I knew he was partly right, not that I was going to admit that to him.
“Okay, but he doesn’t see it that way. Maybe you just need to leave the poor bastard alone,” he said, looking back down at my leg.
“I can’t do that, Jensen.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice finally sounding as strained as I knew he was feeling. I hesitated to answer him for a moment until I felt both Jodi and Steven’s emotional push to just explain it to him. I told him about the visit I’d had with Iris the Faerie Queen and the warning she’d given me. Jensen had stayed quiet through the entire story and remained so now that I was finished. His face betrayed none of the emotions that he might have been feeling. I waited, not wanting to press him before he was ready. Although he knew what I was and what my friends were and what we did, he was still coming to terms with it and his own growing abilities. I tried not to shove the magical side of my life in his face too often, but I couldn’t help it this time.
“More faeries?” Jensen finally said, his face finally breaking the mask and showing his skepticism.
“I know, I know, there are no such things, right?” I said, propping myself up on my elbows, watching him.
“Right,” Jensen said, as if it was stating the obvious, despite our conversation after our date. I smiled at him and knew it wasn’t entirely friendly. He wrinkled his brow at me.
“Tegan?” I called out clearly; suddenly knowing he would just answer my call, even though he had left me after helping with the store earlier.
“Tegan?” Jensen made his name a question, looking all the more bewildered.
“You called?” Tegan’s melodic voice rang through the silence of the tree house before he appeared on the window ledge above my head. I tilted my head back, stretching my neck almost painfully to look up at the window and the beautiful little man now with rich, dark fall leaves for wings. Tegan was standing on the window ledge, leaning against the side of the window at complete ease.
“What was that?” Jodi asked, looking from me to the window where I was looking. I saw that the neither of the boys seemed to be able to see what I was looking at either.
“Whoa, you can’t see him?” I asked, sitting up too quickly for my bruises, wincing and hissing in pain. As long as we had known each other, we had been able to see the same faeries the other could see, even though sometimes she had to help me see the Air faeries and I her the Earth faeries. And that made me remember; I couldn’t see Tegan at first this morning either. “Come here,” I motioned her over to me with my hand, propping myself up with my other hand.
“What am I missing?” Jensen asked, even as Jodi crawled over to me. I knew she realized she had heard a faerie’s voice, but just couldn’t understand it and had come to me unquestioningly.
“In this the late afternoon light, I give the gift of second sight,” I whispered to Jodi as I covered her eyes with my hand, pulling it away and watched her eyes open and seek out Tegan immediately. I watched as a smile curled her pale pink lips and a sparkle lit her blue eyes. It warmed my heart to see that smile. It was a smile she had when we were six years old sitting under trees surrounded by the tiny creatures.
“Well met, I am Jodi,” she said to Tegan, her voice a little breathy when she said it.
“Ah, and you an Air Spirit, you should know just as well as our Earth Mother not to lie to the fae folk,” Tegan said, pushing away from the edge of the window and crossing his arms over his chest, looking down into Jodi’s face.
“Did you hear bells?” Steven asked and Jensen shook his head.
“I don’t under-,” Jodi began, but I stopped her with a hand on her wrist.
“He knows me as Terra,” I said quietly to her, realizing for the first time that none of us had revealed our elemental names to Jensen and, here I was, outing us without asking the other two if it was okay. But here we were and Tegan wasn’t going to accept our mundane names that our parents had chosen for us. Jodi’s mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ as understanding came over her.
“Fae, I am Fae,” she said more clearly when she had returned her attention back to Tegan.
“Well met, Fae. I am Tegan,” he said with a bow that was more graceful than anything I could do.
“What is going on?” Steven asked, frustration leaking out of his voice as he looked between the two of us.
“You know, I can’t believe we call me Fae and you’re the one who made it possible for me to see and understand him,” Jodi said, pain clear in her voice. We called Jodi Fae, short for Faerie, because that was the first elemental of her magic that had come to her.
“I couldn’t see him, either. I couldn’t understand him at first. I just had a gut feeling there was a faerie outside my window and I had to invoke second sight before I could see him too.” That made the pain leave her face, replaced by confusion.
“Here, Jodi, try to give Steven the sight. That’ll prove you’re still Fae,” I said, motioning towards Steven with a bob of my head. She reached over to Steven and covered his eyes and whispered the same spell I had just done on her. When Steven blinked his eyes open, I watched them go wide and round and I knew he could see Tegan as clearly as I could. I tried the same spell on Jensen and it didn’t work. Jodi tried as well, but it still didn’t work. All that happened after I laid my hand on his eyes was that the light that Tegan just seemed to emit from his body became slightly visible to Jensen and he could pick out some words from the sound of bells that he heard when Tegan spoke. But Jensen was a psychic and, although many people think that’s part of magic, it just isn’t and nothing I could do right now could make him see Tegan like we all could.
Surprisingly, Jensen didn’t seem as disappointed as I would have been if someone told me I didn’t have enough magic in me to see a faerie. In fact, he almost seemed relieved. I had to remind myself that Jensen saw his abilities as a burden. When they only manifest themselves when something is going terribly wrong, I could almost understand. Almost.
“Well, even though you can’t see him clearly, do you believe Shayna now, Jensen?” Steven asked in a tone of voice I seldom heard come out of him. It was both defiant and very deeply masculine.
“Of course I do,” Jensen said, almost angrily. I put a hand on his wrist to stop him from rising to Steven’s bait.
“Steven,” I said carefully, “Jensen’s not used to this kind of thing. Most of what is normal to you and me is fantasy to him, more like a faerie tale that your parents tell you when you’re a child. You can’t hold what he doesn’t know against him.”
“I can hold it against him if, every time you share something with him, he acts likes you’re crazy or making it up.” The color in Steven’s cheeks was rising and I realized he was trembling a little. I held shields in place against most of the world all day long, but between the three people around me right now, I allowed channels between us to remain opened so I could always find them. I realized his magic was starting to bubble like boiling water beginning to roll in a pot.
“You know, Jensen, he’s right.” I turned my face back to Jensen, my legs still cradled in his lap and my body stretched out over the large pillow to ease the pain in my side. “I know you’re trying, but you could really try harder. I know most of what I tell you sounds impossible, but after last fall, I’d think you’d be more receptive.” Jensen kept his face schooled, but I could see and feel the internal desire to squirm under the weight of all three of our gazes.
“I am trying,” Jensen said.
“I know, I said you were, but we need you to try harder,” I said, keeping my voice easy and level, not wanting this to turn into a fight.
“We need? Not you need? I’m not in a relationship with them.” He nodded towards Jodi
and Steven and I felt the air crack and tingle with their energies. He’d offended them.
“And we aren’t in a relationship, we’re just dating. But unfortunately, when you date me, you date all of us. Kinda like a single parent. Same goes for their boyfriends.” I shrugged. “I know it’s weird, but we’re so close and so involved in each others’ lives that when we bring someone else into the mix, the other two are affected. I told you that when we started dating. I wasn’t kidding, Jensen. It’s also a big part of why I don’t want us in an exclusive relationship.”
“I guess I didn’t realize how serious you were.”
“Are you okay with it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do, we can end this right now.” I didn’t mean for it to sound as flippant as it came out, but I was being honest. I had no illusions that this was forever, but for right now I was happy.
“I don’t want to end it,” he said softly and I realized that the world had narrowed down to the two of us in those few seconds when I wasn’t sure what his response was going to be.
“Then you need to try harder to understand me, us, and our world. I know it’s hard to undo nearly eighteen years of beliefs, but all we’re asking is that you try harder. Don’t laugh every time something mystical or magical happens. Don’t shut down every time one of your abilities comes to light. We want to help you as much as we can, but if you keep picking at me, at us, then it’s going to turn ugly.” I reached out and took his hand in both of mine, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. “Just think about how amazing the world would be if we all knew that magic wasn’t only real, but entirely possible for us.”
“Okay,” he said and nodded, looking from me to Steven to Jodi and finally back to me. “I’ll try harder.”
“You’ll need to remember that seeing isn’t always believing, Jensen,” Jodi said. “As you can see, you can’t see Tegan like we can, but you can’t deny that something is there in front of you.” She pointed to Tegan, who smiled at all of us.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 39
