The room smells of spices and wood and earth. Against another wall is a desk covered with scrolls, with books and jars lined above it on shelves. A large chair sits in the center of the room in front of a blazing stone fireplace with a strong fire burning within. There's no chimney, no way for any of this to work.
"Hello there, dear, can I help you?"
I jump at the sound and turn to see Matilda standing in the doorway.
The pressure in my brain is building. I don't have much time to find somewhere private. Damnit.
Black spots appear in my vision. Light dances before my eyes as pain explodes in my head. I only have time to say, "Help, please!" my eyes filling with tears as I grip my skull and sink to my knees, a sob escaping my throat.
Matilda rushes over. "Oh, my dear, it's all right, love. Come now." She rests a cool hand on my forehead. "You're burning up!"
I know. I always do when these hit.
And it's not over yet. It's just starting.
She helps me to the chair, supporting my body weight as sweat slicks my skin, and I shiver as if cold. I am both cold and hot. The pain hasn't reached its climax yet and I'm not looking forward to when it does. I won't be able to stop what happens next, and that terrifies me.
"I have to leave," I say between breaths, grinding the words out through the pain.
"Of course you can't leave. Not in this condition."
I reach for my bag, knowing I don't have enough time to get out of here, hoping I still have the leather strip I used to carry just in case. I fumble, my sketchbook falling out, still opened to the page of Sebastian's sketch. Matilda notices it but says nothing as I find what I'm looking for and stick it into my mouth to keep from screaming.
Just in time, too.
The pain breaks my skull open, shattering my mind into a million pieces, undoing me, removing from my consciousness any memory of who I am or where I am. All I know is pain. And I bite down, moaning, muffled screams escaping through the leather.
My body convulses, and I experience a moment of a flash, and a vision so dark and terrifying fills my mind that I let the scream burst forth, spitting out the leather strip in the process, my body thrashing.
Something is pressed against my lips. Hot liquid pours into my mouth, a trickle at a time. It's bitter. Vile. I cough and try to spit it out, but a hand holds my head, and a soft voice soothes me. "This will help, my dear. Drink it all. It will help, I promise. You poor thing."
As more of the liquid makes its way down my throat, I feel its effects. The vision fades. The pain ebbs. The vice-like grip on my brain eases. And I slip into the darkness.
He is always there, in my dreams. In my sleep. In my mind.
This time we are children. Nine or ten years old. I'm in bed, sweat beading on my forehead, the pain in my small body building. Adam is laying next to me, holding my hand, his face contorted in pain as well, but it's not his pain he's feeling. It's mine. "Why is this happening?" he asks our father, his voice a scared whine.
My father places a cool washcloth on my forehead and tenderly brushes away the wet hair clinging to skin. "Every superhero has to go through hardships to come into their powers," my father says, his smile sad, untold secrets living in his dark brown eyes. Eyes my twin and I do not share. We have our mother's eyes.
"When will I go through my hardship?" Adam asks, with equal mixture of fear and excitement.
Adam wanted to be a superhero more than anything. And he felt sure we were meant to be just that.
Our father's smile slips, but he catches it in time and pastes it back onto his face. "Someday, my boy. Someday you, too, will go through your own transformation. In lumen et lumen. Always remember to stay in the light."
I try to cling to the vision of my brother and my father—two men now lost to me forever—to the memories that feel more real than the present sometimes, but consciousness steals him from me once again. When I come to, my head is still pounding, but it's no longer splintering into jagged edges. It's just a normal headache. My mouth is dry and bitter tasting, and I am curled up on a huge chair in front of a fire. It takes a moment for the preceding events to flow back into my mind. When they do, I shift my body and move to stand, but a wave of dizziness forces me back into the chair. Okay then. I have to take this slower.
I've never been hit with a headache that bad before. I'm dreading the recovery length of this one. I don't have time to be laid up. Moving slowly, cautiously, I lift myself upright, using the back of the chair as support. A wave of nausea passes through me, then recedes. I got this. I inch forward on the chair, my nails digging into the leather upholstery.
Voices in the hall give me pause. I strain my ears to listen, then slowly lift myself to standing and creep towards the door, retrieving my bag along the way.
"She's a mundane. She'll never fit into this world. It's not worth the risk!" That sounds like Sebastian, his voice deep and commanding. A voice that leads armies, that men and women will follow into battle and die for.
"She's exactly what we need—did you see who wrote her letter of recommendation? Do you want to tell Richard Dwarvas that his protege isn't good enough for us?" Derek pauses dramatically, and I almost laugh. Rick would have laughed.
"Even if she weren't," he continues, "we are out of time. He'll be expecting us by week's end."
"She is hot-tempered and ill-suited to this world." I think that one is Liam.
"You're one to call someone out for being hot-tempered," Derek says haughtily. "And if any of you have a better idea, now's the time to give it voice. We need her. You know we do."
"The four of you need to pipe down," Matilda's voice interjects. "The girl passed out and is in my office."
"What?" Sebastian says with a fierce growl.
"Oh, calm yourself, boy. She'll be fine. I gave her some tea to help. Poor thing. She'll feel it when she wakes up though."
I don't need to hear more. I just need to get the hell out of this office of horrors. Coming here was a giant mistake, one I intend to immediately remedy.
Slipping out of the office quietly, I head down the hall in the opposite direction of their voices. I see the shadows they cast from around the corner, but can't see them, so unless they have eyes in their shadows, they can't see me either.
I do my best to move confidently through the halls, but I haven't recovered from my episode, and I really need to be at home in bed right now.
I'm forced to pass through an open office space with cubicles, where people in suits are busily working on what looks like important matters. There are law books open, phone calls being made, frantic typing on sleek, modern computers that match the space in which they dwell. I'm at least dressed the part, though my face must look ashen and my eyes sunken. Likely my makeup is smeared as well. I try to touch up my eyes with the pad of my index finger as I walk, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might glance my way.
I wonder what will happen when Matilda and the Night brothers discover I've left. Maybe nothing. I'm surely not special in the grand scheme of things, despite my impressive letter of recommendation. As I walk down another hall trying to find a stairway or elevator to take me back to the first floor, I notice a glass meeting room with what looks like clients and their attorneys. At first my glance is just that, a casual noticing, but then I turn back, slowing my step to reassure my brain I didn't just see what I think I did.
My breathing quickens as I try to stay casual and totally normal. Inside the room, one woman stands apart from the rest, and no one seems to acknowledge her presence. It takes me a moment to register what I'm seeing. She has long silver hair down to her feet, styled into hundreds of tiny braids. Her skin is a deep black, dark as midnight, with freckles on her prominent cheekbones that glow silver like stars in the night sky. Her eyes are wide and large and are entirely silver. And on her forehead is a delicate silver horn.
I know the moment she sees me. The moment we see each other. Her presence washes over me like a waterfall on a warm day, inv
iting and cool and so refreshing. I hear the soft whisper of my name carried on the faintest drift of air, or maybe it's in my head, I can't tell. But as my name enters me, I feel peace even through the pain.
A tear rolls down my cheek and she smiles, revealing large white teeth, and in my mind's eye I see her in a brilliant emerald glade, prancing through the thick grass, but her body is not that of a woman, but a unicorn.
I walk as if in a daze, somehow finding the elevator and making my way to the first floor. The twins both stare as I walk out and hail a cab, my mind spinning with all that I saw, but my heart is full from that brief glimpse of the woman with silver eyes.
The Offer
I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
~ Sara Teasdale
I make a quick stop at the grocery store, tipping the cabbie generously with money I can ill afford to spend, so that she'll wait as I pick up the necessary supplies for my evening plan. It should be sleep, since it's almost two in the morning at this point, but this is New York, a city that's always awake. And I don't sleep much at any rate.
When the cab pulls up to my apartment, I tip once again, mentally counting down how much—or rather how little—money I have left. I slink into the building, hoping the manager isn't around. It was a nice place once upon a time, and the architecture is still breathtaking, but lack of care has worn it down. You can feel the spirit within has given up the fight. Even still, the rooms weren’t cheap to come by. New York is New York, no matter what neighborhood you live in.
At my old job the cost was no big deal. In fact, I had my sights set on something much grander once upon a time.
Now…
I'm just about to make it to the elevator when I hear his voice. "Miss Oliver, I was hoping to run into you. Can we talk privately in my office a moment?" he asks, while placing his hand at my elbow and giving me a pointed stare.
It's not a question, it's a command, and I resent him and myself for the fact that I feel like a misbehaving child as he leads me to his office and closes the door. He sits behind his desk, and I stand, giving me a good view of the balding spot on his head, the light bulb overhead flashing against pale skin. Roger Lemon's parents own this building, which is his only qualification for managing an apartment complex. He's got a skinny mustache across a thin lip that makes him look Hitleresque but without the gravitas to lead a country.
"Miss Oliver, your payments are now several months past due. You have gotten my notices, I trust?"
"Every single one of them," I say, through gritted teeth.
"Then you know this cannot be allowed to go on. We will have to take, dare I say it, drastic measures if you do not get your account in compliance."
Compliance. I've always hated that word.
"I should have the money to you soon. I had a job interview today that looks promising."
His thin lips pinch together, forming a crease between his eyebrows. "I sympathize with what you've been through, but I think we've been patient long enough."
"I'll get you your money," I say. "I just need a bit more time."
His dark beady eyes bore into me. "You have until the end of the week, Miss Oliver. If you are not caught up on all your payments—including interest, you will be locked out of your apartment and all of your belongings will be confiscated and sold to pay your balance."
I seethe with rage boiling inside me, but I can't act on it. Not yet. "I'll get you your money by the end of the week," I say, then I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm, and when I turn to face him, he licks his lips.
He hands me an envelope with a red "PAST DUE" stamp on it. "There are other ways you could work off what you owe," he says.
It's not the first time he's pulled this shit, and it likely won't be the last. I yank my arm out of his grip, knowing his fingers will leave bruises. "I'll get you your money."
I can feel his eyes watching me as I go, and I force myself not to shiver.
Once in my apartment, I triple lock the door behind me, draw the curtains, and head to my bedroom. It only takes me ten minutes to change into my pajamas, scrub my face, and warm up a blanket in the dryer. While the blanket warms, I dig through my bag of goodies and pull out my current romantic threesome. Ben & Jerry. My rebound guys. Always here for me. Never disappointing. I grab a spoon and fill a glass generously with red wine, then head to the couch.
But the past due envelope snags my attention, and I rip it open in frustration, my eyes burning when I read it through once, then twice.
That bastard is charging an insane amount of interest. I owe twice what I thought, which was already more than I know how to get.
Not only will I lose my home, I'll lose everything in it.
Once I have my blanket, I tuck in for a night of watching horror movies as I try to mentally process what I saw, heard, and now suspect about my job interview, and what I'm going to do about this new deadline.
I would move out, if I could. But I don't have the money for a first, last, and deposit. Hell, I don't have the money for boxes to pack my shit. And after the last year, my credit is shot. The only way I don't become homeless in a week is to find a job that will give me an advance large enough to get caught up on my payments.
I think back to The Night Firm. We never got around to talking salary. Even if I was willing to work for them. Which I'm not.
I try to remember why I'm not, but my thoughts are muddled. It's becoming harder and harder to pull out the details of my exchange. I blame it on the wine, the sugar, the haunting soundtrack of the movie I'm watching. My massive breakdown earlier. Speaking of, I should be feeling much worse right now. I don't understand how I recovered so quickly.
Halfway through the movie and the bottle of wine, I've nearly got myself convinced that my mind was playing tricks on me. I've been under tremendous stress for over a year now. I'm exhausted. I'm probably malnourished. That can do things to the brain. I just need to move on. Tomorrow, I decide, refilling my glass, tomorrow I'll go online, search for more jobs, find more interviews. I'll stick to 9-5 listings only!
With that decided, I give all my attention to the movie, and am mildly disappointed when I try to pour more wine and only a reluctant drop comes out. But I planned for this and bought two bottles.
A bit wobbly, I head back to the kitchen to uncork the other bottle, when I'm interrupted by a knock at my door and a ringing of the doorbell.
This shocks me almost more than anything else that evening.
No one comes to visit here, certainly not in the middle of the night. If it's Roger, that slimy bastard, I'm going to sue his ass for harassment.
In my alcohol-muddled mind, it doesn't take me long to convince myself that's exactly who's behind the door. Roger thinks if I'm desperate enough he can have me. He doesn't seem to get I would literally rather be homeless than let him touch me.
I school my face into one of a fierce warrior, then I march to the door and swing it open, ready for battle.
"You can go shove it up your ass if you think I'm going to—"
"Hello, Eve," Sebastian Night says, standing in my hallway with a pissy expression on his god-like face. "I see your outburst in the office isn't a one-off."
"I thought you were someone else," I say, my wine-addled brain sluggish. "What are you doing here?" I cross my arms over my chest, feeling suddenly self-conscious in my cat slippers and matching robe.
He hands me an envelope. "I was sent to give you this."
"What is it?" I ask, taking the envelope. As I do, our fingers touch, and that sense of an earthquake rocking my insides overwhelms me again, though not unpleasantly. It's just intense. Passionate. Buried passion. He flinches at the touch, so I assume he feels something, too, but isn't thrilled with it.
"It's a job offer," he says, ignoring whatever is going on between us.
"Are you serious?" I ask, completely shock
ed. "After that interview, why would I work for you, and why would you want me to?"
He shrugs, avoiding my eyes. "It wasn't my decision." He turns to walk away, then pauses, glancing at me over his shoulder. "But if I were you, I'd burn that paper and pretend you never heard of The Night Firm. Stick to the light like your father said."
I watch until he disappears around the corner, then close my door, locking up once again. Back on the couch, I stare at the thick cream envelope, stamped with a wax seal. How pretentious, but kinda cool, too. I break open the seal and unfold the letter. It's handwritten in calligraphy, so formal it feels like a summons from a king, not a job offer from a law firm.
The Night Firm would like to offer Miss Eve Oliver the job of Manager of Operations, to begin immediately, or as soon as Miss Oliver can avail herself of the position. It is a full time, live-in position, with generous compensation and benefits. We await your decision.
It's signed with each of the four brothers' names and signatures and stamped with an "N" matching the wax seal.
There's a second page, this one indicating a generous signing bonus, salary, benefits and spending budget for wardrobe, food, and more.
The numbers make me gasp.
I sit there in a daze, staring at the letter to make sure it's real and not something I'm imagining.
I Am the Wild (The Night Firm Book 1) Page 3