"Thank you," Amari said and entered his bar.
Though the fire was contained to the loft, everything in the downstairs bar was soaked. Holding hands, we walked through an inch of water and fire-retardant liquid to the hidden staircase, both afraid of what we would find.
There was no buildup. The loft door, sooty and swollen with heat and water, stood open. All the destruction was in plain view as we climbed the steps, one heavy foot at a time.
Heavy. That was the word for it. My heart was heavy with loss. Not just at the things that were gone, but for all the memories that were burned away. For all the time and effort and energy it would take to get things back to normal. For the loss of income and business Amari would suffer. All of these things weighed on me, burdening me with their mass.
I stole a glance at Amari as we entered the loft. His calm brown eyes surveyed the destruction without attachment, without emotion.
"How can you be so removed? So unaffected?" I asked.
Amari smiled and pulled me into a great bear hug. "It's just stuff, Z—replaceable, meaningless stuff." I pulled away to look him in the eye. "If something had happened to you," he said eyes on the ground and voice low, "then I wouldn't be so calm."
I held Amari's face in my hands and kissed him. "I love you," I said.
Amari grinned in response. "Come on," he said, "let's see if there's anything worth salvaging." Amari bee-lined to the kitchen, probably to see if his expensive copper pots made it unscathed.
I looked around the space. All his beautiful, thoughtfully chosen things were waterlogged and gray with soot. My gaze settled on Amari's blackened desk. The laptops were melted in a comically Dali-esque way. I doubted anything could be retrieved off the hard drives. Aside from some scorching, the behemoth typewriter made it through just fine.
I patted the manuscript in my bag. It wasn’t leaving my side until it made it to the post office.
I stepped away from the rubble and let out the sigh I didn't know I'd been keeping.
"You OK?" Amari called from the kitchen.
I was about to say yes, but suddenly I wasn't. I was not OK at all.
It was hard to breathe, and not because of the soot and ash floating in the air. My chest felt tight like there was a fist around my lungs.
I stood in the middle of Amari's loft, struggling to breathe, and so angry. This was no accident. Someone had done this on purpose. Someone tried to destroy my manuscript and had taken Amari's loft with it. I knew it.
56
Every wall in the space had scorch marks, some more than others, but they all had a particular randomness in common. Except behind the computer desk. That wall was black. Entirely. As if the first flames had started there.
I squeezed my eyes shut and looked at the loft with my inner vision. Without electricity or Wi-Fi, it was easy to pinpoint the unusual energy. Green like grass, it circled the entire loft then crisscrossed from back to front. The largest concentration of the sickening green light was around Amari’s desk.
"GUNNAR!" I screamed. I knew it was him. He hadn't sent someone to do this for him; he'd come here and done it himself! There was no mistaking his refined, masculine energy.
"He did this!" I roared and paced the length of the loft. "He came here and he did this!"
"Are you sure?" Amari asked, putting himself between my habitual pace and me.
The look I gave him must have been deadly because Amari shrank away from me. "Look," I said, pointing at the green energy he couldn’t see. I tried to keep my arm from shaking as I did. I tried not to let myself become consumed with rage. I tried to calm down. I failed at all of it.
"OK. I trust you. But I know what you’re thinking and it's not a good idea. We need to plan—"
"Fuck planning!" I screeched at him. I was going to storm Gunnar's office now, demand answers, and order him to stop this!
"Think about it. If you go over there all hot and ready to explode, you'll give him the upper hand. Take a beat. Get yourself together. We'll work it out, OK?"
Damn it. It made sense. But I wanted Gunnar to pay; I wanted him to know exactly how angry I was. I wanted him to feel it, and I couldn't do that if I was forced to cool off.
"Why don't you call Brody and get a second opinion?"
I didn't need to call Brody to know Amari was right.
For the second time in a week, I caught a glimpse of my sooty, red-streaked face, and knew I was out of control. Without Brody's compound emotions. I'd gotten there all on my own. Maybe that's why I liked having control in the bedroom so much because in everything else, I so easily lost it.
Whatever; I wasn't going to feel sorry for myself for getting angry. "Collect what you want to save and let's get out of here."
While he did, I pulled out my phone and looked up Lucy's number. I couldn't find her cell number on any search engine, but I was able to find her office number.
"Lucy Steig's office, how can I help you?" said Lucy's assistant.
"I need to speak to Lucy, please."
"Ms. Steig is unavailable. Can I take a message?"
"No, you cannot. This is what you can do. Find her, pull her out of whatever she's doing, and tell her Zora is holding for her. I'll wait."
"I'm sorry, but—"
"I don't want to hear it. FIND HER and tell her I'm on hold."
"Ma'am, I'd really like to help you, but I can't just—"
Oh for the Gods' sake! I could not deal with this woman not doing her job. I pushed at her. Envisioning the room she was in, I pushed jarring, anger-laced energy to her.
It took a minute to get to her. I knew I'd made an impression when she yelped. I didn’t know if she was a non or not, and I didn’t care, but I assumed since she worked for the Corporation, she understood exactly what I’d done. "That's just a taste of what I can throw at you. Now get Lucy and quit pissing me off."
"Please hold," she said, and my ear was filled with elevator music.
I watched Amari sniffing his clothes as I waited. All of his beautiful clothes had somehow been untouched by the flames, but judging from his crinkled nose, they all smelled like fire. They'd all have to be professionally cleaned, and even then, there was no guarantee the smoke smell would come out. My heart ached again for him.
"Zora?" It was Lucy, but something in her voice was off.
"Lucy, I’m—"
She cut me off. "You need to prepare your endgame," she said and ended the call.
57
Endgame. The final move. The winning hit. I had no idea what mine was.
Amari boxed the last of his clothes while I pondered what I could do. "I think I'll have a week's worth of clothes cleaned for now, and move the rest out of here so they don't soak in more fire smell. Do you have a storage unit in your building?"
"Yeah, an empty one. You're welcome to it."
"Great. All that's left are the few salvageable pans and we're done.” Amari stacked half-a-dozen copper pans on top of his clothes and closed the box. "I take it we're going to see Gunnar now?"
"Yes. I mean, no. We're not."
"I thought you—"
"I was. But you were right. A plan is better. And in lieu of an actual plan, I can at least look like I have one." I pointed to my sooty face and humidity-induced frizz-ball hair. "We'll drop your stuff off, go back to the condo to clean up, and then see Gunnar."
"Sounds good."
Amari was silent the whole ride back to the condo. I wouldn't say he was sad exactly, but he was certainly feeling something.
"Are you OK?" I asked when we got back to my place.
"Yeah." He smiled at me. "Just thinking about the logistics of insurance and repairs and how long it'll take to get the bar open.
I didn't believe his silence was because he was focused on logistics, but if he didn't want to share, I wasn't going to push.
"Shower with me?" I offered once we made it inside.
"Absolutely."
My bathroom wasn't nearly as big as Amari's, but the tub w
as big enough for us to comfortably shower together. I watched as he adjusted the water and stripped out of his clothes.
I took off my smoky clothes and joined him.
“I called Lucy. She said to prepare my endgame," I said and ratcheted up the hot water.
“You called Lucy?" Amari asked as we lathered the soot and fire smell off each other.
"Yup."
"The neighbor that keeps stealing your manuscript?"
I smiled to myself. "Yup."
"Why would you trust calling her, let alone believe what she says?"
"Our dynamic is strange. I can't really explain it, but I trust her."
Amari shrugged in an "As long as you're sure" way and dumped half a bottle of shampoo on my head.
"Amari! That stuff's expensive!"
"I'll buy you more. Your hair stinks," he said, and carefully lathered my coarse curls. I had to hand it to him: His hands never caught or accidentally pulled my wet ringlets once.
"You did surprisingly well with that," I said as I dried my hair.
"Don't look so surprised. You're not the first curly-headed girl I've been with," he said with a smirk.
"Is that so?" I said and snapped a towel at his butt.
Amari caught the end of the towel and yanked it. Surprised by the force, I crashed into his bare chest.
All traces of playfulness were gone from Amari’s eyes. He met my gaze with a dark and serious look.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, forearms still pressed against his chest.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
Nervous butterflies fluttered in my core. “OK.”
Amari sighed. “You asked before what I’d learned as an initiator when you came to power.”
I nodded. “I remember. You brushed over it.”
“It wasn’t the right time, Z.” His dark gaze faltered, and, for a moment, Amari’s eyes were filled with sadness.
He looked away.
“Is now the right time?” I asked in a voice so quiet, it was more breath than sound.
He nodded.
We stood there holding each other, looking into the other’s eyes. Amari seemed to be searching for the answer to some unnamed question in mine.
I stayed completely present, and let him have all the time he needed.
“I know how this ends.” Amari’s words were quiet but sure.
“What do you mean?”
“In the weeks before your initiation, I was having terrible headaches. They became so debilitating; I closed the bar for a week.”
I had no idea.
“As soon as I met you, the headaches were replaced by something more unsettling. Precognition. That’s what I gained, what I learned when I became your initiator.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Every time a practitioner initiates a newling, they gain something. Sometimes it’s a deeper understanding of their own practice, but sometimes it’s a new ability.
In the weeks before I met Brody, I could smell a pregnant woman from a hundred yards out. After he’d initiated, it turned into full-blown sex magic.
The same had happened with Amari. But did I want to know what his new talent had revealed?
Amari told me before I could decide.
“You win, Z. But not everyone walks away from this.”
58
It’s the space between where things happen. Like the space between a kiss that builds tension, or the space between words where arguments form.
In the space between Amari’s words, I grew cold.
“What? Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I won’t go,” I said flatly. I refused to be the reason someone I loved died.
“Z, you don’t understand. I’ve seen this play out every possible way. Every scenario, every time, someone dies.”
I wouldn’t accept that.
But maybe I could reverse-engineer a solution.
“Was there a point when there was a different outcome?” I asked.
Amari nodded.
“When?! Maybe there’s still something…”
“There isn’t,” Amari said.
“There has to be!” I searched his face for the answer he wasn’t giving me.
A sadness so deep and so painful reached Amari’s eyes, that I stopped searching. Oh, Gods. I knew what the tipping point was.
“Zora,” he started.
“Don’t,” I said. “This is my fault. If I had listened, if I’d written a different book like you suggested, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
Amari’s downcast lashes gave me all the answer I needed.
A loop of every time Amari had gently suggested I write something different played through my mind. Each time I thought he was being selfish, but he was trying to protect me.
“You still have to go.” Amari’s voice was distant and hollow.
No. I didn’t. I didn’t have to go, and I didn’t have to be the reason someone died.
This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to end. I absently threw on some clothes and tried to work it out.
OK, I haven’t mailed the manuscript yet, so I could just give it to Gunnar. Right?
“Z, you’re not hearing me,” Amari said, louder this time. “You have to go. You have to see this through. The consequences are so much worse if you don’t.
“What do you mean?”
“Zora, if you don’t go, not only will everything you’ve been through have been for nothing, not only will the Corporation win, but they hunt down anyone who had any knowledge of the book. Anyone. No one survives it.”
The weight I felt in Amari’s loft, surveying the fire wreckage, was nothing compared to the heavy suffocation his words brought now.
I couldn’t believe it. “NO! You’re wrong!” I yelled.
“I’m not,” Amari whispered. He took my hand gently in his. “You know I’m not wrong. You know I’m not lying.”
I looked at my hand, wanting so badly for it to hum or buzz. Anything.
Please!
Nothing. Amari was telling the truth.
Keeping practitioners and myself safe from accidental energy abuse had been my goal. But, discovering the fix to our needless segregation wasn’t intended, so maybe I could use it as a bargaining chip.
I hoped it would be enough.
59
The drive to Gunnar's office ramped up the anxious dread to a pounding stiffness in the center of my chest. Amari pulled his car into the parking structure and killed the engine. Neither of us got out. "Do you know what you're going to say?"
"Nope." My voice broke, strangled by the tightness in my chest.
Amari took my hand. He smiled with his mouth but his warm eyes were dark and serious. "I'll be there the whole time. Whatever you need."
I nodded and tried to will the fist in my chest to unclench. Tried to forget that each time Amari gently suggested I write a different book, and I argued it was what I wanted, he’d always concede with the same phrase: “Whatever you need.”
Hot, bitter tears welled, but I refused to feel it. I couldn’t go in there like that. Gunnar would sense it and immediately have the advantage.
I couldn't act like prey or I'd get treated like it. The only way around it was to be the bigger predator. I touched the smallest bit of my ancestral magic, bringing it to life within me. It rumbled deep in my core, ready, waiting. It didn’t erase the anxiety in my chest, not completely, but it was easier to focus on.
"I think you’re ready," Amari said and pointed to my skin, aglow with untapped power.
I only nodded.
This time, the thirty-floor elevator ride didn't make me queasy. My stomach was ironclad with power.
We exited the elevator and walked right by Gunnar's pinch-faced receptionist. "Excuse me. Excuse me! You can't go in there!" the woman squawked as I pushed open the double doors and walked through.
"Mr. Ahlstrom, I'm so sorry," the receptionist said, following close behind us.
Gunnar stood behind his desk, a small smile stretching his lips. "It's OK, Molly. I was expecting them. If you'd be so kind as to close the doors behind you."
Molly didn't move.
"That will be all, Molly," Gunnar said.
"Of course, sir," she said and walked backward out of the office.
I took half a second to evaluate the situation. Gunnar stood, proud and confident as always, in the center of the room. Lucy was seated on the couch to the left. She did not look well. Physically she was fine; she bore no bruises or marks, but something in her demeanor, and eyes said she'd been rattled. Hard.
When our eyes met, I shot her a quick thread of gratitude. A sad smile crossed her features as the energy reached her.
"I don't think we've been properly introduced," Gunnar started and held a hand out to Amari.
I put myself between them. "Always the picture of social etiquette, aren't you, Gunnar?"
"I can't help my upbringing," he said with a wide and infuriating smile.
"You set Amari's loft on fire."
Gunnar chuckled. "Right to the point, as always. Glad to see some things stay the same."
I responded to his pleasantry with an icy stare.
"Right, well…it will be impossible to prove, but I'd be happy to compensate you for any loss you may have experienced." Gunnar opened a desk drawer and pulled out a leather-bound checkbook. "Of course you'll have paperwork to sign, a standard non-disclosure as well a statement releasing myself and the Corporation from any and all liability."
My jaw dropped.
He was trying to pay us off! Neither of us had expected that. Amari was the first to recover. "That's what insurance is for," he said with smooth diplomacy.
Gunnar's smile faltered. "Why are you here, then?"
Why was I here? What had I hoped to accomplish by a confrontation? The hold I had on the thin cord of magic slipped.
60
"I'm tired, Gunnar. Tired of it being so hard, tired of struggling, tired of fighting just to do my job. Leave me alone and let me write in peace. That's all I want."
Enthralled Magic (The Circle Series Book 1) Page 20
