I didn’t know what she was talking about. I stared at her, drawing a blank for a moment before her irritation crackled against me to the point that my skin was starting to feel raw.
“Well,” I offered, unsure what else she expected of me. I’d told her about the werewolves on the other side of a closed door. What other use could I be? Did she need to know exactly where they were so she could shoot them with lightning or balls of flame? “You’re feeling pretty annoyed right now. Is that what you want?”
“Your sucking thing! Do your sucking thing!”
“I suck at a lot of things. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Be more—“ She cut off, a shudder of frustration running through her. She waved her hand spastically at me. “Take their emotions!”
“And do what with them?”
She watched me for a moment, outraged realization dawning, whipping out of her in a storm. “Do you not—?” She didn’t finish the sentence, though her mouth kept moving for a few moments, spitting out breathy sounds of disbelief.
“What?”
“Are you telling me I brought you for no reason?”
“Um. I mean.” I shrank back, not sure why I felt guilty. “I’d like to think I’ve been good company.”
Leaving the key in the door, Wren shoved into my space, poking me hard in my chest. “I’m not paying you for this!”
“But—“
A gust of wind hit me, lifting me off my feet and tossing me back onto my ass. She moved like a cheetah, shoving at the door and lifting both hands to toss twin balls of flame up into the air. I caught sight of the fire moving before the back of my head hit the linoleum and I let out a grunt of pain. By the time I scrambled into a sitting position, Wren had made it through the back door and into a bright room full of chaos.
Instantly, I wasn’t sure why Wren had ever, for even a second, felt she needed me there. She had everything under control, from cowing the werewolves with flames attacking their faces like horse flies to flicking bursts of lighting at the three humans who were yelping and flailing. I rolled to my knees and crawled closer, curious despite the pit in my stomach that was threatening to grow to the size of a sarlacc and consume me whole.
Regardless of her apparent skill, she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the collateral damage she was causing. Fire had grasped onto a pair of jackets draped over seatbacks and started chewing. Before long, it was likely to reach the cheap wooden chairs beneath and then we’d have a problem.
I eyed Wren, figuring she was unlikely to be included in the ‘we.’ I wasn’t even sure she’d take me with her when she left.
Maybe three minutes passed with me cowering just outside the doorway and Wren flinging power around before the action died down. The werewolves surrendered, the humans lay on the ground, drooling and twitching, and Wren glanced back at me.
“You could have prevented this if you’d just explained yourself.”
“So this is my fault?” I demanded, horrified. She rolled her eyes, moving further into the room to toss a bundle of metal at the werewolf she’d ordered onto his knees.
“Put those on you and your buddy over there.”
He eyed her unhappily for a moment and, despite the fact that his anger hurt me as much as if I was one of the burning jackets, it wasn’t a bad look. He was pretty foxy, all things considered. Wren watched him calmly as he did as she said. Once both werewolves were cuffed—though, I’d seen werewolf strength and I couldn’t figure out how they’d be stopped by a few skinny chain links—Wren moved to crouch down next to one of the other guards. She fished around in his pockets before muttering, “jackpot” and pulling a key out of his pants.
“You can’t just open the door with a tap of your finger?” I asked, pushing to my feet to step into the room.
“Enchantment-proof locks, sister,” she explained, before moving to the back of the room and trying the key on a door that looked to be no more secure than some teenager’s bedroom. As soon as she turned it in the lock the whole thing rumbled, the sight of it making me dizzy. I groaned, wincing and squeezing my eyes shut as a wave of sickness overtook me. By the time I opened my eyes, I found that the door wasn’t just a plain, white wooden rectangle as it appeared, but a very large safe set into the wall. Wren was crouched in front of it, ear pressed to the metal as she turned the dial on the lock.
“This is nuts,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “Are you picking the thing?”
“Hush,” Wren chastised, shutting her eyes. All in all, it took her maybe ten minutes to figure out the combination and I edged closer without thinking about it as she worked. As soon as she got the door open, the fire behind us hit a point where the sprinklers up ahead could no longer stand by and do nothing. I yowled as water sprayed down. I was wearing a rainproof coat, but hadn’t been expecting a downpour inside.
“Almost done, don’t worry,” she said, pulling open the door and reaching inside to grab a tall, violet box the perfect size for gifting a bottle of wine. She tucked it under her arm and stood, turning to grin at me. I glared at her through the falling water, realizing as she approached that it wasn’t hitting her. Nothing stopped the rain or deflected it, that I could see. It was like the water just abruptly decided to go a different way, the droplets avoiding her to plop to the floor instead. “Let’s roll.”
***
“Shouldn’t we be going?” I asked as Wren sat silently in the driver’s seat typing something into her phone. “Before the fire engines come roaring in?”
“No way that place would alert the cops. This,” she tapped the stolen box, “wasn’t the only thing in there that was supposed to remain hidden. But we should go before the werewolves get free.”
“Free?” I squeaked, whipping my head around to watch the pet store nervously. My experience with werewolves lent itself to me believing they’d sooner hit on me than hurt me, but these two had been pretty unhappy with us both.
“We’ve got a few minutes. Let me finish this.”
I fought the urge to cross my arms and indulge in a pout. She hadn’t done anything explicitly offensive—other than talk me into a situation where I’d been drenched, nearly burnt to a crisp, and now possibly attacked by werewolves—but I was grumpy. I should have just sent her off on her own and not let curiosity and money get in the way of my good sense.
“What’s in the box?” I asked after a moment, half out of petulance and half because I really did want to know. Wren was quiet, watching her phone for maybe a minute before turning to look at me. She seemed to consider her options for a few moments, before grabbing the box and setting it in my lap.
“Open it,” she said as she started the car. I suddenly didn’t trust her. The last thing I needed was to expose myself to a deadly neurotoxin or some foul odor.
“Will it kill me?”
“Not by itself,” she said, putting the car into gear.
I didn’t like that answer, but she wasn’t lying. I gave it another moment, before aiming the box at the dashboard and gently sliding off the lid. It was hard to see in the dark car, but the box looked to contain just a cylinder of coarse pebbles.
“What is it?” I grabbed the lid, sliding the whole thing out into the strobe of the passing streetlights. “Rock sugar?”
“Bones.”
I rolled my gaze to her, sure despite my empathy that she was joking. “Bones?”
“Bones,” she confirmed. I dropped the container abruptly, yanked my hands away from the box as if it might bite me.
“What the hell, bones? Like dog bones?”
“Dogs don’t use soul magic, so no. Probably an empath or two in there, though.”
“What?” I demanded, twitching in horror. I didn’t want the thing in my lap anymore, but I didn’t want to touch it. “What?”
“Relax, it was probably no one you knew.” Wren laughed at her own joke, reaching out to grab the box lid and slide it back on. Still watching the road, she grabbed the whole package by its
top, muttered something under her breath, and then tossed it unceremoniously into the backseat. I jerked forward as if it might explode and tried to pry my gaze away from her to make sure it didn’t. I couldn’t stop staring, though. She didn’t seem to have any trouble with having ground up, dead person in the back seat.
“Why bones? Why—why did you—human bones?”
“Probably fairy bones in there, too. I don’t know. I didn’t grind’em up.”
I wanted to ask why again, maybe toss in another what or a few hows—no, I realized after a moment. I didn’t want to know how. “But bones! Who needs bones?”
“All of us, technically. You’d just be a squishy mess without’em.”
I glowered and when she realized I wasn’t entertained, she laughed again, shaking her head. “Relax. They’re not being used for any spells now that I’ve got them. I was assured they’d be stuck in a locked, iron cage in a locked back room with a redcap to guard them at all times. Guy up in Vancouver keeps this sorta stuff stashed all the time.”
I didn’t know what a redcap was, but the rest of that sounded pretty reasonable. I continued to watch her for a few more seconds, parsing her emotions for any minuscule trace that she was lying, but found none. I relaxed slightly, glanced once more at the box in the back, and gave a jerky nod.
“Okay. I guess… that’s… well, people still died, so that’s not good, but it’s better than…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I wasn’t sure it was better than anything. I went quiet, but Wren didn’t mind.
***
“I wasn’t kidding about not paying you,” Wren said as I unbuckled my seatbelt out in front of my office building. “But here. To make up for the candy dish.” She reached across to open the glove compartment and pull out a candy bar. It was the king size and everything.
“Ooh,” I said before I could stop myself.
“You warned me about the werewolves, at least.”
I put off tearing into the candy wrapper to meet her eyes. “You swear the bones aren’t being used for anything bad?”
“Scout’s honor,” she said with a smirk. Despite the sleazy expression, she was being truthful. “Now get back to work, doc. Plenty of nutjobs to medicate.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that I wasn’t that kind of therapist. She likely didn’t care and I had a candy bar to eat.
Thank you for checking out the first Free Read in the Empathy in the PPNW series! If you liked it, consider checking out my website at http://OliviaRBurton.com and grabbing the other books: Mixed Feelings, Business with Pleasure, and the second Free Read Flesh and Blood. You can also follow me on Twitter @OliviaRBurton or just say hello.
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