by Louisa West
She guessed a little to-ing and fro-ing made it all worthwhile.
But Rosie’s admiration of her handiwork was short-lived. The tell-tale growl of noisy motorcycles on the road out front set her heart racing. One Harley came into view around the bend, stout and imposing, and it chilled the blood in her veins. It was followed by several more.
Randy had found her.
She leaped to her feet as they pulled up, and though inside she was terrified, she refused to show it. Several large, tattooed men with long hair got off the bikes and began to stroll towards her like they owned the place. The one most in front was smaller than the others, grayer, and had a potbelly, but the rest of them didn't seem to care that he was the least physically impressive of the bunch.
“Well now here you are, Rosie,” Randy called across the lawn. He leaned to the side to spit tobacco onto the jonquils she had just grown beneath her shiny new mailbox. “Good to see you’re keepin’ well. Been awful worried ‘bout ya.”
She gave a disbelieving snort and tucked her arms across her chest so that he wouldn’t be able to see her balled fists. With all the brainpower she could muster, she prayed that Maggie would stay inside, but it was unlikely. A herd of Harleys pulling into a place was sort of hard to miss.
“Find that a little hard to believe,” she shot back with false bravado. “Only thing you ever cared about is who’s cleaning up your messes.”
“Suppose that’s why I'm here,” Randy growled. “Don’t like having no unfinished business trailin’ me.”
“I’m not unfinished business.” Rosie squared her jaw, watching them get closer. “I’m none of your business at all. Not anymore. And neither is Maggie.”
Randy grinned. “Now, now, babe. We both know the sooner you collect up our baby girl and get on back to Atlanta, the easier this’ll be on everyone.”
The men were all standing at the front of the property, and Rosie wondered if it was because the wards prevented them from venturing any closer. She didn’t want to take the chance and was desperate for cover. Taking a slow step back, she tried to calculate the distance between herself and her front door.
“Y’know,” a familiar lilting voice called out then, ringing out from behind Randy and his crew. “I’ve never seen apes wearing leather before.”
Declan was leaning against the side of Randy’s motorcycle. His arms were crossed, his broad shoulders giving him the appearance of a Viking, with biceps that looked like they needed their own zip codes. His huge boots planted in the dirt with authority, and he squinted at the men, taunting them with an arrogant smirk.
“I wouldn’t say it’s altogether flatterin’, lads.”
“Who the fuck are you?” the biggest biker, a man with a long bleach-blonde mullet snarled, “and where the hell d’you come from?”
It was an excellent question—Rosie was looking in that direction, and she hadn’t seen Declan arrive either. Declan’s answer was a slow, measured grin.
“I’m ya worst fuckin’ nightmare,” he replied, “and that’s all you need t’know ‘bout it.”
“This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, Red,” Blondie warned.
“That’s where ya wrong, mate,” Declan’s grin seemed calm, but he looked past the bikers to meet Rosie’s gaze. There was something in that look that made her want to hold her breath, and she tried to call out to him that it wasn’t worth it, but he beat her to the punch.
“It’s got everythin’ to do with me.”
With that, the men charged back down the lawn at him and away from the wards. He remained perched on the seat of the bike, casually watching them pelting his way. The big guy was the first to reach him, lunging for Declan as soon as he was close enough.
Declan’s leg shot out like a snake striking its prey, his huge boot crunching into the middle of the guy’s face. Incandescent blue light sparked between them as Declan’s foot came away. Rosie gaped, wondering if she had seen that happen. She didn’t have to wonder for long, though, because Blondie had grabbed Declan’s arm and yanked him off the motorcycle.
The huge Irishman hit the dirt with a pronounced thud, but he didn’t let the fall hinder him. He swept his right arm wide in a long arc, connecting with the side of Blondie’s knee. A sickening crack reached Rosie on the porch, and she flinched as Blondie cried out in pain. Another bolt of electricity zap between Declan and Blondie as he tumbled to the ground. Pain and instinct should have seen the guy cradling his knee, which Rosie had no doubt was broken. But instead, he lay on his side in the fetal position, convulsing.
Declan had sat up on the lawn, his eyes seeking her out. His gaze met hers as she watched on from the porch, and though he looked fine—even as though he was enjoying this a bit—she could tell that he was worried for her. And then the third biker, the guy who had been closest to Randy, reached him and put him in a chokehold.
“Hey!” she yelled, leaping off the porch and running across the lawn towards Declan. But Randy got in her way, and this time he had pulled out his massive handgun.
Rosie skidded to a halt, her eyes darting to the mailbox and then back to Randy. She was still inside the wards.
“What the hell do you want?” she asked, her worried gaze darting to Declan, who was struggling against the biker’s hold around his neck.
“I want my family back, Rosie,” Randy cooed at her. “Ain’t that obvious? I want my house in Atlanta to have my kid in it. I want my favorite meal cookin’ on the stove, and I want my wife there to suck my dick when I fuckin’ tell her to!” The last four words were screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
“I’m not comin’ back,” Rosie said, forcing herself to take a deep breath and standing her ground even when Randy swung the gun to aim it at her head. “And neither is Maggie. I’m done letting you treat me like a piece of meat and letting her see it and think that’s what marriage is. I’m done letting you ignore her. I’m done letting you put your shit on us and think you can get away with it.”
“Well, that just breaks my heart, darlin’,” Randy said. “I guess that means we’re through.”
He reached forward to grab at Rosie, but she stood her ground. She let go of the breath she’d been holding, and as it flowed out of her in a strangled cry of “You asshole!” something else flowed out of her as well.
A long bolt of that same crackling electricity that she’d seen coming out of Declan sparked from her fingertips. She stretched out her arms in front of herself to reach through the wards, and when she connected—the skin of her palms pressing to the skin of Randy's neck—it was like nothing she had ever felt before. A rush of energy broke the banks of her doubt, flowing like a torrent through her and into him. It was like an orgasm but a million times more sensitive and edging on painful. It jolted her as though trying to pull every bit of itself from her body.
Randy flew backward away from her, and he must have squeezed his gun, because it went off, a bullet disappearing into the woods around them as he hit the ground. The bikers on the lawn let go of Declan, who rushed to her side to face off against them together. The other bikers now had their handguns drawn, and while some of them pointed them their way, the others helped Randy to his feet.
Rosie knew Maggie would have heard the shot. Please, please let her stay inside, she begged.
“Well, what the actual fuck,” Randy said, out of breath, as he came back to the front of the group. He breathed heavily but didn't seem eager to let his men know what his eyes said: he was frightened.
“Seems to me we got ourselves a live one now, don’t we?” He said more to his men than to her. “Didn’t know you had it in ya to push me like that, darlin’.”
He looked at Declan but nodded at Rosie. “She’s a firecracker alright—long as you don’t let her feel all washed up and useless. Cos then she’s drier than a week-old hotdog bun.”
“You fuckin’—” Declan growled, moving to slip past Rosie so that he could attack Randy.
“Whoa there,” Randy laughed as the bi
kers leveled their weapons straight at Declan’s chest. “Who the hell are you, friend?”
“I’m Rosie’s King,” Declan said coolly, staring him down. “Who the fuck are you?”
Randy whistled. “Her King?” He tilted his head to look at Rosie. “That’s some messed-up Paddy-kink you got goin’ on there, honey.”
“Don’t ‘honey’ me,” she spat. “You lost that right a long goddamned time ago, Randy.”
Randy laughed, and the sound grated on Rosie just like it had every time Randy had done something unkind or cruel in the years they had spent together.
Randy lifted his chin. “Take it away, boys.”
Randy's bikers fired their guns.
Rosie heard the click of the bullets in the chambers and felt the vibration of the sound as they left the barrels as though she was in some strange, underwater state. She braced herself for the inevitability of impact, but it didn’t come. Instead, she felt the gentle embrace of energy surrounding her – her wards and Declan’s protection – and then she heard the clatter of the bullets against magic.
But the magic couldn't hold.
As the bikers kept firing, the shield of energy began to falter. Rosie felt the strength of her wards starting to fail and looked to Declan with panic in her eyes. She reached for his hand, intending to run for the relative safety of the cottage, but she was too late. A single bullet managed to pierce the protective blanket of magic around them. He stumbled backward, looking down at his shirt as a bright red stain began to spread outwards from the bullet wound.
“No!” Rosie cried, lunging for Declan as he fell to the ground. She pressed a hand to the wound in his chest, and he met her gaze as the bullets continued to pepper the quickly fading wards.
“Get—Maggie,” he grunted at her, worming his fingers beneath hers so that she could go. And then he turned his attention back to the bikers. Rosie could feel him starting to gather energy from all around them, and she knew in that instant that he meant to stay so that she and Maggie could get away.
This was it. She knew that now. This was the penultimate moment when she had to decide whether to keep running or accept her fate.
“Mom!”
Maggie’s panicked cry from way behind her on the porch helped her make her decision in a heartbeat. Rosie turned back to the bikers and began pulling in energy much as Declan was, but she wasn’t wounded. She threw the full force of her magic forward in one sudden blast. It passed through the wards and knocked Randy and his men to the ground in one fell swoop.
“What the fuck?” Randy yelled, scrambling back to his feet. He was breathing hard again, staring, white-faced. He gestured at her with the gun, but she didn't feel afraid at all.
“My guys,” he stuttered, taking stumbling steps backward. “They had some wild story about what happened at your place that day they came up here, but I didn’t—”
“What? Think it was true?” Rosie finished his thought for him. “Well, it was true, Randy. All of it.”
She fixed a slow, menacing smile onto her face and began to stalk toward him. She didn’t know what Randy’s men had experienced when they had come to vandalize the cottage or burn down Declan's camper, but she would claim it all. It had all been her in origin, after all.
“I ran off those sonsabitches and let them live so that they could warn you away from coming up here yourself. But, of course,” she barked a laugh, “you’re too damn slow to take the hint.” She held up her hands as though it would illustrate her point.
“I’m a witch.”
Randy had been taking two steps back for each Rosie had taken forward, his gun dangling from his hand as he tried to maintain some distance between them. But when she finished, he stopped. He started a spluttering laugh that the other bikers joined in on, horrible high-pitched laughs like hyenas in a kids' movie.
Rosie felt hot all over, and like she’d eaten an entire turkey with all the trimmings. She was so full, and so warm, that for a moment she swayed on her feet. She felt power surge from her bare feet in the grass and from the sun beaming brightly up above.
In one massive intake, Rosie summoned all her arcane energy and then threw her hands forward straight in the direction of Randy to release it.
Every insult he had hurled, every bruise he had caused, every flash of anger she had felt over the last two decades came out in the energy she shot at him. It was as though she worked backward in time: His shooting on her new cottage, with Maggie inside. His threatening her. His burning down Declan's camper, to scare her if not to harm Declan. Pulling her by the hair and throwing her into bed. Keeping their money in his own account, so she couldn’t have access to it. Telling her that they weren’t the type of people to raise kids and that she should ‘get rid of it.’
The bikers convulsed on the ground as she poured every heartache out, until other things started to come out of her. Late-night conversations about dreams which would never come true. The way he used to smile at her when they were kids, before drugs and bad choices had turned him from a bad boy into just plain bad. The moment Maggie was born, and the look of pride on his face when he held his child for the first time.
She felt a small hand on her forearm.
“Mom...” Maggie was by her side. Her daughter’s softness and gentle spirit felt so different from the white-hot hatred Rosie felt for Randy, and she realized it was Maggie’s presence in her energy field that had brought the less painful memories to the front of her mind. Rosie kept her magic focused on Randy, but listened to the small, sweet voice beside her.
“If we do bad things like they do,” she said, “then we’ll deserve all the bad things that have happened to us.”
Rosie felt Maggie’s grip around her arm tighten. She kept her other arm outstretched, fingers pointing at Randy. But Maggie’s face tore at her conscience.
Grey eyes like Rosie’s but flecked with brown like Randy’s gazed up her, brimming with tears. “You said it, remember?” Maggie tugged on her arm, trying to break her concentration. “No more bad things from now on!”
Her magic was almost spent. She felt it ebbing away, but it was still strong enough to finish the job she had started. At the very last moment, when Randy was just about to slip into pale, redeeming death, Rosie relented. She fell to her knees beside Declan on the ground. With one hand on the lawn in front of her for balance, Rosie slipped her free arm around Maggie and drew her daughter close.
“You have your daughter to thank for keepin’ your life,” she told Randy, glaring at him where he lay curled up like a worm in the dirt. “Now, you’re finally gonna do right by her.”
Instead of focusing on the world around Randy and removing him from it, Rosie focused on adding to Randy instead. She pushed her thoughts out, surrounding Randy until he was covered in a speeding whir of bright green light. As the energy grew smaller and the magic diminished, there was nothing left of Randy except a pile of dirty clothes, moving on the lawn.
Maggie gasped beside her. “Declan!”
Rosie spun to look and regretted it instantly because her vision continued to spin long after she had stopped. When she managed to focus, she saw that Declan’s eyes were half-closed, and his face was beetroot red. What if he was dead? Oh God, please don’t let him be dead.
Shuffling closer on her knees until she was beside him with Maggie hovering nervously next to her, Rosie placed her hands on Declan’s chest. She could still feel a heartbeat, but it was faint and getting fainter by the second.
”Mom, you're a witch. Can't you help him?”
Rosie closed her eyes and summoned whatever energy she had left. She thought about the butterflies she had felt in her stomach when he had texted her, asking if she needed a ride home from work. She thought of the way he had enlisted Maggie’s help to repair the porch deck. And then she thought about how they had kissed each other in the meadow, surrounded by fireflies and moonlight.
Repairin' things is all about findin' a little love for it.
Her energy po
ured from her splayed hands straight into him, spreading through his veins, healing as it went. She felt his heartbeat getting stronger, slowly at first, and then with an intensity that increased as her magic dwindled. Rosie took a deep breath and then pushed the remainder of her gratitude toward him through the connection. She fell back against the ground as Maggie looked into Declan's face.
“You did it!” she declared.
The three of them sat in silence for what felt like forever. Rosie could feel tears of exhaustion and emotion streaming down her face, but underneath them was a smile. Proud and relieved, she pushed the tears away. She did it. She took Maggie's hand.
Declan sat up, holding onto his side as though it pained him.
“I’m so proud of you,” he murmured. He reached to cover their hands with one of his.
Rosie was vaguely aware of Randy’s cronies picking each other up, their motorcycles rumbling as they took off down the road. Maggie helped her to her feet, and then together, they worked to do the same for Declan. She was glad he could stand because she was fading fast. She stumbled, and his arm tightened around her waist.
“Whoa,” he murmured, adjusting his grip. “You alright there?”
“I’m just glad we’re all okay,” she smiled up at him, her eyes finding it hard to focus. She felt so tired, so spent that even the effort of blinking was almost too much for her.
“But what about Dad?” Maggie asked, pausing to look back.
“He’ll keep,” Rosie said, her voice dipping into a flat tone before she corrected herself and met Maggie’s confused look. “Why don’t you go see for yourself, Pumpkin.”
“What have you done?” Declan grinned, brushing her bangs to the side of her face as Maggie dashed back toward the pile of clothes.
“No less than he deserved,” Rosie muttered, then smirked. “Figured it was time for him to stick his neck out for his kid.”
“Mom!” Maggie’s excited voice cut across to them, and she came running up the lawn holding a small round thing in her grip. “He's a turtle?! Can I keep him?”