Ava yelped, covering her head under the covers. How much had he seen before Lawson made sure she was shielded? Her face was so hot she could feel her pulse in her cheeks.
“I know. I know. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t—”
“How many times have I done things alone because you and Kim needed time?”
Stefan shook his head. “Emergency.”
“Fine.” He turned his head. “Ava, I am…”
She held out her hand. “Just go, okay? Please go. Now.”
Stefan nodded at her, and then averted his eyes. “I’m sorry, Ava.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw before Lawson popped out of the room with him, and Ava fell back on the bed. She let out something between a frustrated groan and an outright yell. After punching the bed twice, she gave up trying to do anything with her pent up aggression. If she didn’t know better—and wasn’t the type to think the whole world revolved around her when she knew it didn’t—she’d swear Stefan had it out for her.
But Lawson had told her what his life was like. He hadn’t underplayed his responsibilities. Being interrupted during sex was probably par for the course. Ava pushed her head in the pillow. It was too fast anyway. She needed to know him better. He’d scared Mitchell half to death, and what did it mean that she loved seeing that so much? Was she really a vindictive terrible bitch to go with her worst witch status?
She pulled the covers over her head. They smelled a bit like him. Sandalwood wafted through the room. That seemed also too quick to have happened. He’d invaded the scents in her space like he had her heart. Lawson simply came and went as he wanted.
It was going to be a long night, and even though she was exhausted, she wasn’t certain she’d get any sleep at all.
Tea at her mother’s didn’t prove as humdrum as she expected. When she walked in, she was surprised to see Zoe and Elijah back from their honeymoon early.
She threw her arms around Zoe, holding on to her tightly. She didn’t usually keep things from her sister, but she knew she’d have to keep most of what occurred over the last days all to herself. “What are you doing here?”
“Have you noticed the weird weather? Well, it was even stranger down south. There’s all kind of flooding. Dad doesn’t even understand it. It wasn’t any fun. We decided we preferred to be here. We’re not going to work. Just eat. Drink. Be Merry. As the humans say.”
She nodded. “That’s concerning about the weather.”
“Yes.” Zoe winked at Elijah. “It is. But I’m too happy to care. We figured if we’re just going to stay in bed, we’re not going to pay for a room to do it in.”
Ava held up her hands. “Too much information, thanks.”
What was going on with the weather? They all sat around the couches, listening to her father talk about what was happening in the legislature—funding for this, defunding that. If he cared about the weather—and he had been a weather witch—he didn’t say anything about it. Her mother asked a lot of questions. How had the food been at the resort? Had the air puff spa been as perfect as she thought it would be? Did Zoe feel more powerful than before she’d left?
Ava’s head couldn’t stay in the moment. This was an incredibly familial, ordinary moment. One she’d expected to have with Mitchell. She’d always pictured them around the couches—Zoe, Elijah, Mitchell and herself—while she ate the gross cookie and laughed.
That image brought on another one, Mitchell lying on the ground staring at Lawson like he was a monster. She rubbed at her eyes. Lawson… no one in here knew anything about their relationship. Ava’s gaze flew to her mother.
Lila looked particularly lovely as she bent over and patted her husband on his knee, not at all like the woman who had shown up at Ava’s apartment and demanded she never help the Enforcers again. How would she like to know that Ava was dating one?
Ava decided right there that she didn’t care. Lawson was… extraordinary. And he might be making her slightly crazy, all the popping in and out and leaving right before sex. But he was also chasing down dangerous criminals who would otherwise be causing tremendous harm. She could put up with a little inconvenience.
She inserted herself into the conversation. “I’m dating Lawson Abramowitz.” Her mother dropped her cup, her father coughed loudly, and Zoe grinned from ear to ear. As for Elijah, he did what he always did when he was around Zoe’s family, he stayed very quiet and hardly seemed to move at all.
Now, he looked down at the floor.
“What?” Her mother darted to her feet. “I said not to go near them.”
Ava pointed at her mom. “You told me not to help them. I haven’t. If anything, I’ve kind of made things harder on the Enforcers.”
“He’s really sexy.” Zoe patted Elijah’s leg. “Although not as sexy as you, darling.”
Ava’s brother-in-law side-eyed her sister. “Thanks?”
“Don’t encourage her, Zoe.” Lila pointed at Ava. “You’re just doing this to defy me.”
“I’m twenty-five years old and living on my own. I don’t do anything to defy you. Lawson… gets me.” She wasn’t sure she could explain that any further, nor did she want to. Ava wouldn’t hide Lawson like some dirty secret.
Emilio crossed to Lila and put his hand on her back. “We’re thrilled if you’re happy, Ava. No one deserves it more.”
“Thanks, Dad.” That was the thing about her father. He didn’t speak that much at home. How could he when her mother’s personality took up all the space in any room she was in? But when he did, he meant the words he uttered.
If he said he was happy for her, he was.
“Eat your cookie,” her mother spat out, and Ava obeyed. It was the least she could do, considering she’d just thrown the woman’s world under the proverbial bus. She loved her mother, but she’d tried it Lila Blakely’s way. She’d been just what she should be considering the non-magic situation, and it ended with her standing in a wedding dress with no groom. For the first time since that day, Ava was happy, even with the details she and Lawson still had to work out.
She wasn’t going to let that go. Life was too short and too hard to not hold on to the beautiful moments when they came along.
Three days later, Ava sat back in her shop, watching the screen on her computer. It had turned on automatically as her sister had spelled it to do during emergencies. Most witches would feel the spell that told them to look at their screens.
The mayor spoke to the population about the weather.
“Now,” Randall Allen said, not making eye contact with the machine recording him. He’d never been good at it. Ava had heard her father mention his problem with speaking to electronics more than once. Her father and Randall were close friends. She referred to him as Uncle Randy most of the time. “We recognize there is a problem with the weather.”
Ava looked out of her window as did the two customers she had in the store. The rain was extreme, but given that witches could cover themselves magically so they didn’t get wet—as long as they had warning it was coming—it hadn’t kept people entirely from coming out.
“So far, our tracking indicates the strange weather patterns aren’t affecting human towns. Just our own. Our weather witches are working hard on the problem, and we hope to have some answers soon about how this happened and how we can prevent it from happening again. All will be well, I assure you.”
Just then, a gust of wind knocked the hat off Randall’s head. One of her customers, a man in his twenties, snorted. Ava shook her head. Randall stressed about having to do these things. He was otherwise a pretty good mayor and…
Suddenly, the mayor shouted at the screen. “Everyone take cover. A tsunami is coming. A tsunami wave.”
A what? They weren’t even near the ocean. How could there be a… It didn’t matter. Her two customers burst out the door and took to the sky, flying upward. Ava gasped. A giant wave was headed toward them, and she couldn’t fly.
She rushed out the front door into the rain and screamed
for help. The sound of rushing water assaulted her ears followed by a siren. Any humans around had to be alerted of danger. Ava rushed back inside. No one was coming to help her. She was going to have to figure this one out herself.
There was no time to think. She rushed to the back of the store and grabbed the first herb she could think of. Water hemlock would give her a few minutes to be able to breathe underwater—if it still worked on her. She had to believe she could still be affected by the water hemlock. It was a very powerful herb.
It was violently toxic and would kill a regular human. She had to hope Lawson was right about her not being human. When the water passed and she tried to breathe air, she would convulse and stop breathing if she couldn’t get the antidote into herself fast.
Ava was going to have to be strong. She had to believe. A crashing outside told her she had little time. She shoved what was essentially poison down her throat and swallowed just as the water crashed through her windows. There was something surreal about watching the wave head toward her. It was low at first, but the water didn’t stop. Small amounts gave way to more and more water until it pushed her backward. Glass went everywhere, and the water plowed into her so fast she had no time to think before she was under the wave. The back of her store broke, having not been designed to manage that hard of a hit. She floated for a second before she surged forward.
Ava kicked her legs to try to keep up with the flow of the water. There was something so bizarre about seeing her furniture floating and bobbing around. She had to keep herself under. Once she’d made the decision to breathe underwater—a questionable, too fast thought that she now wondered if it had been a terrible one—she couldn’t let herself float to the top. The air would be toxic now.
Oh no, she hadn’t considered that she’d leave the shop and would be away from what she needed to save herself. Charcoal to make herself throw up… it would be gone, too. If she’d been able to cry she would do so right then. What were the chances she would find a barbiturate wherever she landed? Slim to none.
But she was breathing underwater. That was something. She was not drowning. In a split second, she’d managed to get herself breathing underwater. It hadn’t even hurt. Gary would have been so proud of her. He’d told her she was talented, and he’d been sure that, even without spells, she could be a potion master. She instinctually understood the herbs and which to use when.
It had been instinctual. The wave surged forward, lowering slightly. Something had stopped the water’s rush. She stopped swimming. The water was going to go away, and she was going to encounter the air.
That would be it.
Someone must have spelled the water away. One second she was breathing comfortably, the next she was on the ground. Her lungs were on fire but that was the best scenario, and it wouldn’t last long. She looked around, trying to get air while she still could. In the regular atmosphere, without the addition of the H to the O2, she wasn’t going to make it long. Ava forced herself to focus. This was the hardest things she’d ever have to do, but maybe she wouldn’t have to die.
The water hadn’t taken her far. She was a block down, outside a now soaking grocers. Ava tried to get to her feet. Tried, and failed. Her legs were like landed fish, they flopped around instead of working. That wasn’t a good sign.
Her throat closed up, and Ava knew she wasn’t actually going to be going anywhere. Tears flooded her eyes. This was not how she pictured dying, alone on the street, about to suffocate to death for trying to live through a tsunami that should not have happened in their landlocked city. She’d never know how things could have turned out with Lawson.
The world went black.
Ava woke up to the sound of dripping water. She wrenched her eyes open and realized something very quickly: she was alive. That was as surprising as anything. How and why that happened remained to be seen. Her wrists were tied, her legs bound to a table, and her throat burned.
Ava tried to push down her panic, she hadn’t been rescued. That much was clear.
“You’re awake.” A low, guttural voice sounded in wherever she was. The room was dark. She doubted she’d know where she was anyway since she’d never been in a place where there was a table where her legs could be bound before.
She cleared her throat. Once, then again. Whatever this man, or whoever, had used to save her sucked all the excess water from her body. She needed to quench her thirst. “I am. Where am I? What’s happening?”
“I knew you were like me.”
Ava blinked. She couldn’t face whatever this was until she had something to drink. Terror would come after her basic need was met. “Do you have something I can drink?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Cool water poured into her mouth as the man speaking to her gave her what she most needed—hydration. After long moments, he pulled back his white cup. “Better?”
Not nearly, but it would do. “Yes, thanks. Where am I? What’s going on?”
“I saved you. I brought you here because you’re like me.”
She tried to follow what he said. “Thank you for saving me. I took some poison to breathe underwater.”
“Yes, I know you did. It was amazing. You should have died, would have if you hadn’t been so smart. But that’s because you’re like me.”
There was that phrase again. The terror she’d expected finally formed and settled in the base of her spine. She bet if she lifted her hand right then—if it hadn’t been tied up—she’d find a tremor there. Ava had never been particularly good at hiding her fear.
“How am I like you? What is your name?”
Even in the darkness, she could see him blinking rapidly. “My name is Elmer and you’re like me because we both have the gift. The earth speaks to us. I’ve never met another.”
If she needed any more confirmation that she’d met a crazy person, she got one right there. “The earth doesn’t speak to me.” She raised her hands. “So maybe you can let me go.”
“Yes, it does!” he yelled, so loudly his voice reverberated off the walls. “I can tell. That’s how you knew to take the poison and that it would ultimately save you. The earth told you. I’m so glad to find you. I’ve been so alone. No one else hears it. They locked me up. They put me away. I couldn’t hear the earth there. But now you’re here. I’m not alone. There are two of us.”
Chapter 10
Ava stared at her captor and knew there was no question that was what Elmer was. She was strapped to table, tied up, and entirely at his mercy. Her whole focus had to be on getting herself out of this situation. The rest of it would work itself out.
He thought they were somehow the same, that they could hear the earth. She didn’t have the slightest idea what that meant, but she’d have to play along. “Okay, I can hear the earth, too.”
She hoped she hadn’t made a terrible mistake. Ava had a day of this. Eating the poison, breathing underwater, with no plan for how she’d get out of it. Maybe this would be another example of her lack of sense, judgment.
“Why can’t the others hear it?” He sniffed. “Why can’t they see what’s happening?”
She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure.” What word should she use? “We’re lucky.”
He laughed, a long hollow sound. “Lucky? Lucky they hunt us down and lock us up? How are you still out and walking?”
“I…”
She heard the pop. The sound the Enforcers made when they came and went places. Ava heard it, but Elmer didn’t. Her heart traveled into her throat. She couldn’t know for sure that it was a rescue but…
Elmer lifted off the ground, screaming as he did. It was a wild sound, and then Elmer flailed out in front of himself as though he fought something she couldn’t see. Lawson appeared before her. He snapped his fingers, and the lights turned on in the room. What had felt damp and cave-like was suddenly very clearly some kind of shed.
Lawson’s gaze moved over her, the restraints keeping her bound disappearing from her hands and legs. She let out a sigh.
He ran his hand over her forehead. “You’re not okay. Pale. Sick-looking. What did he do to you?” Lawson brought his hand under the back of her head and lifted her up slowly. Dizziness wafted through her.
Her eyes went to Elmer who still howled near the ceiling. “What did you do to him?”
“He’s hallucinating. He’ll be fine.”
It wasn’t lost on her that neither one of them had answered the other one’s questions. Given the circumstances, she decided it probably made sense for her to go first.
“He saved my life. I mean, he was holding me here, obviously, tied up. I don’t know what would have happened after that, but the truth is that I should be dead, and I’m not because he saved me for some reason.”
Stefan popped into the room, and Lawson spoke to him without turning around. “You’re late.”
“Yeah, well, it took me half a second to track you. All you sent to me was the word hurry. A little more description would have been helpful. We’re not all like you who can just find certain people.”
Well, that answered some if not all of her questions. Lawson pointed at Elmer. “Do something with him, won’t you?”
Stefan walked in a circle around Elmer. “Who is he?”
“I don’t care. Whoever he was he’s not anymore. He took her prisoner. Had her strapped down. I can’t begin to tell you the things going through my head.”
Ava sighed, tugging at his shirt. “He also saved my life.” She’d said that before, but she didn’t think it was registering with Lawson. He was calm, and she realized it was a deceptive exterior front. Lawson was angry. She could tell in the way a muscle ticked in the upper right part of his jaw. It was the slightest movement, but it spoke volumes.
“How did he do that?” Stefan interjected. “You’re going to have to speak to me. Lawson is using every ounce of his considerable control to not kill this man right now. I’m listening.”
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