by Emma Hamm
“Wren.” Exasperated, he took a step towards her. “This is ridiculous.”
“Sure.”
But she still pushed herself out of the tub by herself. Her knees were shaking, and her arms felt like they weren’t made of flesh anymore, but she managed well enough.
“Turn around,” she directed.
“Excuse me?”
“Just do it.”
Burke turned on his heel, and she slipped the sodden velvet from her skin. Shivering, wet, and naked, she turned towards her bed and slid underneath the covers.
“So cold. So cold.” She kept saying over and over as she yanked the blankets towards her.
“Can I turn around yet?”
“Cold. Ice cold.” The nest around her grew until she was buried underneath mounds of colored fabric.
“I’m turning around,” he said as he spun. Wren was not where he had left her. His eyes searched the room when he couldn’t immediately find her underneath her mountain of blankets. “Really, Wren?”
She glared at him. A blanket was pulled up to her chin and covered half of her face, which likely made her glare significantly less powerful, but she could feel the welcomed heat crawling up her body. “Yes.”
He rolled his eyes but dragged the stool from her tub over to her bed. He settled his weight onto it once more and leaned forward to place his elbows against his knees. Her eyes fixed onto the strong lines of his fingers as they tangled with each other.
Wren pushed pillows behind her until she could sit up. She swung her legs towards him and wiggled her feet under the blankets. He leaned forward and grabbed one of her feet. Wren didn’t think he was even thinking when he started to rub her toes through the blanket.
A lock of hair had fallen across his forehead. He was trying to keep her warm.
“Domestic,” she murmured. His hands stopped moving for a moment before they continued. The worried expression on his face nearly made her reach out to touch him. But this wasn’t him taking away her worries. He wasn’t here for that.
“Excuse me?” He wanted her to repeat those words, she just knew it.
Wren shook her head. “What did E say?”
“About what?”
“About why I can’t remember anything. I know you were talking to E while I was waking up.”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“It’s my body, Burke. I deserve to know.”
But she didn’t know if she was ready for the truth. Wren didn’t know why E had taken over her body, but if E was blocking it out so that she didn’t experience it… Well. It was safe to say that Wren wasn’t certain that she wanted to know.
“E said that it can take control over your body if it wishes. Were you aware of that?”
She nodded.
“Well,” he paused to take a deep breath and continued. “It appears that’s what E did. You weren’t able to fight, but E had the knowledge to do so. I’ve never seen anything move the way you…E did. Frankly, its skills are impressive, but it was concerned how you would take this.”
“Is that why E’s not talking to me?”
“I suspect it’s resting.”
“Why would it need to rest?”
Burke shrugged. “It expended a lot of energy to force you out of the way, Wren. I don’t even know what it did, but even E wasn’t doing so well by the time you made it out of that alley. You passed out in front of me, and I took you home.”
“I heard you talking to E.”
“Just before you woke up. E woke before you.”
“E was still in control of my body?” That had never happened before. Wren didn’t like how things were changing right in front of her. One moment, she was able to have complete control over her limbs, and the next, she couldn’t manage to blink her own eyes.
“It was explaining that pushing you aside like that was a little rough for your mind. You needed rest.”
“So E forced me into a sleep, in my own body, and then it decided to let me keep sleeping? It’s not possible for E to be awake without me!”
“A dreaming mind can be separate from its creature.” Burke leaned forward. “Listen, Wren. I think E wants to ensure your safety. I don’t agree with its choices for you. Not in the slightest. But it does seem to care about you.”
“It cares about the body we share,” she growled.
“It cares about you. And you know that.”
Wren grumbled, but she knew he was right. What she wanted to know was why E had panicked and taken control. And why it wasn’t talking to her at all. The confusion, frustration, and fear turned to anger within her chest.
“Why are you here?” she asked Burke. “You’ve been shadowing me for this job, and it’s ridiculous at this point. You have to know that I’m not going to stay yes!”
“I still have hope.”
Burke wasn’t about to tell her that the Five disagreed with him. He thought that they should give her time to come to terms with her destiny. They wanted results immediately. Wren wasn’t giving them that. He had a few more tricks up his sleeve, but eventually, she was going to be on her own.
He looked around her barren apartment with a soft sigh. She did live in a dreary place. The overgrown plants that hung from the ceiling made it look like a jungle. He could barely see her kitchen from where he sat, but he could see the tub with its curtains that trailed the ground next to it.
The last time he had come here, she had been attempting to relax within the warm waters. Glancing down at her, he thought it likely she needed the same thing now. Her arms were wrapped around her waist and her toes were curled between his feet.
But how to ask her? He couldn’t force her back into the tub he had tried to freeze her in. Nor could he justify asking her to take a bath in front of him.
“Would a bath warm you up?” A sheepish expression crossed his face before it was wiped away.
Wren stared at him. Her brain worked overtime as she tried to make sense of the words. She was fine in her cocoon made of brightly colored woolens and crumpled linen. Why was he asking her to get out of that and into the tub? Her confusion must have shown on her face.
He nodded towards the tub. “A bath.”
“You would need to leave for that,” she responded instantly.
“I don’t plan on leaving. Malachi might still be hunting you.”
“Then no bath,” she muttered. As though to punctuate her words, Wren wiggled deeper into the fabric around her.
He hadn’t expected her to argue quite so much. Wren could see the confusion that crossed across his face before he carefully wiped it away. The poor man didn’t know who he was dealing with. She would be fine, just as she was always fine. As long as E came back, as long as her heart rate slowed down, as long as her mind would stop giving her flashbacks of running.
Maybe she wasn’t handling this very well.
He sighed and leaned forward once more. His hands were stronger than most. Fingers, which were almost graceful, curled around each other. She could see the callouses on the tips of most of them.
He had strong hands. Comforting hands. Hands that were now rummaging through the quilt that was tangled around her legs to grab them once more. Her eyes drifted shut as his thumbs dug into the arch of her foot.
“How did you know to do that?” she whispered.
“Because I used to have three sisters,” he responded. “They used to make me do all manner of things.”
He had sisters. Of course he did. Wren hadn’t thought he would have a family because she hadn’t really been thinking of him as a person.
Tears pricked her eyes. Wren always had a certain stern quality about her that originated from many years alone. She had withdrawn so firmly into her mind that she was responding mechanically to everyone around her.
But he had a family. Sisters. People who loved him, and he was still protecting her. Wren couldn’t imagine doing that when there were other people worried about her.
She refused to be embarrass
ed about her reaction. Rather than letting him know she was upset, Wren tried to hide a sniffle by itching her nose.
“Come now.” He didn’t look up from his hands. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
“How can you be sure? The world’s going to shit around me. Some monster is coming out of his grave, and I’m supposed to be part of some prophecy? I don’t know how to help. I don’t want to help. I like my boring life with my simple shop.”
“And when it’s over you’ll return to that simple life.”
“But I won’t.” She wasn’t certain that she could. Life had always had a way of changing on her at the worst times. “Pitch is bringing something new onto the market that’s going to be stealing customers away from me. I’ll have to change my career. I’ve always been a Juice maker.”
“Even when you were little?” He looked up at her.
“I suppose. It was what I was good at. E started training me when I was very little.”
“E trained you?”
“Like any teacher.” She wiggled slightly until one of her arms popped free. “Making Juice wasn’t hard. E does all the work really.”
“I wonder if it’s a witch,” he murmured.
“There aren’t any witches or warlocks left.” She shoved her hair away from her face. “They were all wiped out when the dimensions first combined.”
He should know that. Everyone knew that. When the world’s had first smashed together, there had been a lot of turmoil. Many creatures were destroyed by humans that had overpowered their creatures. Any human using magic was a dangerous thing.
Wren didn’t want to think about what was going to happen now. It always seemed as though someone was trying to end the world. She’d heard the legends more than enough, as had everyone.
She needed to distract herself. “You said you had three sisters?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Had?”
“That’s a sad story. You don’t need to hear any more sad stories today.”
“I’d like to.” Her hand plunged back into the heat of her blankets. “I don’t know who you are, Burke. And I’d like to think that one can understand a person from their past.”
“And you won’t be sharing your past with me?”
“You show me yours, and I”ll show you mine.” A ghost of a smile tilted the edges of her lips.
“Ah, such a tempting deal.” He twisted his lips for a moment as he stared at her. The story was not one that he readily shared, but one that he was willing to bargain with. “Alright then. Where would you like me to start?”
“From the beginning.”
“The beginning is that I used to be an Agent of M.O.M. I was part of an elite task force that hunted down those who opposed the government. There were eight of us, five men and three women who did what we were told. They made us into machines.”
“That’s very sad,” she whispered.
“It was. But it was a job, and none of us realized how sad it truly was. I had three sisters, two who were married and one engaged. The two married had three daughters and two sons between the two of them. They were beautiful children.”
He paused then, becoming lost in his own thoughts for a few moments. She watched the expressions dance across his face. He truly was a beautiful man. Not handsome, but beautiful in the way only statues could be.
“What did they look like?”
“Blonde.” His hand raised to brush over his own curls. “Little dandelion puffs that danced around me whenever I visited.”
“Five children must have been a lot to handle.”
“They kept themselves entertained. There was barely any room in their homes to walk without stepping on toys.”
“You had such a large family. That sounds wonderful.”
Burke nodded. “It was. They were good kids and my sisters good women.”
They allowed silence to fill the space between them. He appeared to no longer wish to speak, but Wren had never been able to let stories drift away without an end.
“So what happened then?” she asked slowly.
“They were discovered to be part of a group that were attempting to overthrow the government. They called themselves the Liberators. They believed that M.O.M. was trying to control things that a government had no right to be controlling. They met every Sunday and Wednesday for four hours and helped to provide intelligence and support to those who were actively rebelling.”
Wren’s nose wrinkled as she watched him. “You didn’t have to…”
“Yes.”
He waited for her gasp before reassuring her. “We were ordered to make the necessary steps to extinguish the problem. I declined. I stepped down from my position, but I was too late to protect them. They were publicly executed for their rebellion.”
“I’m so sorry, Burke,” she whispered. His expression was so hard, so dark, that she refused to see him in such pain. Wren scooted forward until she could reach out to touch the hand that rested on his knee.
“The children were not given the chance to choose me as their next of kin. They were sent away to live with their grandparents. I haven’t seen them since. As you can imagine, the family had no reason to speak to me again.”
“But it wasn’t your fault.” Indignant anger made her words sound sharp and jagged.
“No, but I was part of it. I was part of the problem that my sisters were smart enough to see. And then I didn’t try to prevent their execution.” He released the delicate arches of her feet. “That’s my sad story. Now what is yours?”
She didn’t want to tell him her story. She didn’t want to tell anyone her story. But Wren realized she owed him.
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. The movement did little more than rustle the blankets around her. “There’s not a lot to say really. It’s always been E and I.”
“Even when you were little?”
Obviously he wasn’t going to let her get away with not saying much. Wren hated telling people how she grew up, because the reality was that they would pity her.
“I grew up in an orphanage,” she began. “I don’t know who my parents are and never will. People think growing up like that adds a little bit of magic to the story. But it doesn’t. It’s not a romantic story of being found on the orphanage steps with a ribbon tied to my bassinet. I was found wandering the streets when I was three, covered in mud and God knows what.”
Burke remained silent, his eyes watching her face with a severity she did not like.
She took a deep breath and slowly let it out between her teeth. “It’s wasn’t an easy life. E used to take over a lot more. It would give me a break from the other kids, from schooling, from everything that made me upset.”
“So E became your crutch,” he said.
“Not really.” She didn’t like to think of E like that. “It just gave me an opportunity to not grow up as a bitter child and into an angry woman. Instead of having to prove myself constantly, E made it so that I always had someone.”
And she had. No matter how many times she had screwed up, E had always been there for her. She had a best friend inside her head that never let her down. That kind of support was rare to find in this world.
“How long were you at the orphanage?”
“You mean was I ever adopted?”
Burke nodded slowly, but she could see he didn’t know if it was rude to ask.
“No.” She shook her head firmly. “I wasn’t. I left when I was sixteen and lived on the streets for a while. E kept me safe while I was asleep on the nights when things were… dangerous. It took control over my body while my mind rested.”
“But your body needs sleep.”
“You’d be surprised how long a human body laced with magic can stay awake.”
Two weeks was the answer. Two long weeks of groggy existence and fear that made her see shapes within shadows.
“E’s always watched over you.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.
She nodded. “Of course.
It was mother, father, sister, and brother for so many years.”
“And it taught you Juice making?”
“Yes.” A broad smile spread across her face. “I was terrible at it on my own. Herbs are involved, chanting, symbols, magic in its purist form. I’m far too human for that. Eventually E just took over when I slept, and I’d wake up to new bottles of Juice.”
Burke made a snorting sound. “So you’ve been guided here by your creature.”
“Absolutely. And you?”
“My creature is what brought me to the Five.”
She paused to think about that. His creature had no reason to trust the Five. But neither did she. The opinion of a Dream Walker was not enough for her to give her life over to a group of people that had no right telling her how to live her life.
“And you’re trying to convince me that joining the Five is the best option for me?”
“Of course it is.”
“You don’t think that the Five are exactly like M.O.M.?”
He seemed to be offended that she would even suggest such a thing. “They’re nothing like M.O.M.”
“You’re working for the same kind of thing, Burke. A group of people telling you what is right or wrong. I can’t live like that. I make my own decisions.”
She shifted and wrapped a blanket around her. Wren’s legs weren’t particularly steady underneath her, but she managed to wobble over to a cabinet where she kept odds and ends. She had to think. Had to do something that would put her head on straight.
The only thing that did that was changing something about her environment. Her mind was in a constant state of uncertainty. Changing something meant that she had a little bit of control.
Inside the cabinet were many vials of liquid that seemed to chime as soon as the light hit them. Bubbles burst in bright colors as she lifted one in her hand. Peering at the color, she nodded firmly.
She could feel Burke’s eyes on her as she tossed the liquid back and made a face as she swallowed. Her hair changed from root to end in a slow crawl of color. Pink turned to lavender as the wave slowly devoured the darkness. The lighter color suited her well, in her opinion, although it wasn’t the red he so often spoke of.
Burke slowly stood from the stool and walked towards her. His hand raised to touch the new color. The candy color wasn’t lighter than normal hair or softer, but it was still magic. The curls bounced against his hand and tangled against his callouses.