by Z. J. Cannon
My reasons for not wanting to take the second option, on the other hand, only came down to my own hangups. Which made it an easy choice.
I slipped off my watch and set it gently down on the leather couch.
I didn’t feel the usual exhilaration as the heat of my power spread outward through my veins. All I felt was a cold, sick dread deep in my gut.
I tried to ignore the tightness in my chest and the quickness of my breathing. This wasn’t Hawthorne. I was alone in Eddie Ellison’s apartment. There were no humans for me to hurt.
Except for all the people below me—whoever lived on the floor below Ellison, and the one below that, all the way down to the bottom. A whole miniature city full of innocent human casualties.
Although I doubted many of them could be described as innocent. Hell, if they were all like Ellison, maybe the world would be better off without—
I clamped down hard on that thought as my stomach flipped. No. I was done thinking like that. There was some good in humanity—Lara Delaney had proved it, and so had my own son, who had more human blood than I did. And even tonight, the doorman had shown me that slight bit of kindness, even if he had done it mostly out of self-interest.
And even if the goodness I had seen in Delaney and Lucien didn’t extend to the humans in this building, even if every last one of them was irredeemable, I was done taking lives without a clear cause. There would be no more incidents like what had happened in Hawthorne. I wouldn’t have any more unprovoked murders on my conscience, or any more lost souls screaming in my nightmares.
I reached down to pick up my watch. I stopped before my fingers could close around it. I would grab the watch and slip it back on my wrist before my magic made it past the confines of Ellison’s apartment. But I couldn’t put it back on before then. Not if I wanted to make it out of here. Unless I was willing to put Skye’s life at risk, this was the only chance I had. And I had risked Skye’s life too many times already.
I straightened, closed my eyes, and let my power free.
Not that it was my choice, really. Once my watch was off, my power would do whatever it wanted, no matter what I had to say about it. It might have made me feel better to tell myself I was letting my magic shake the row of frames on the wall in a vicious burst of wind, but the truth was, my control had ended the moment the iron had lost contact with my skin.
Another gust, and the frames hit the floor in a shower of broken glass. The couch toppled. The window wall shook in its moorings. Strips of carpet peeled up from the hallway as the wind howled around the corner.
Wind again. Didn’t my magic remember how to do anything else? Was the part of me where it came from still trapped in the memory of the Hawthorne police station, the day I had brought it and the surrounding buildings down?
“Please remain calm,” the voice from above admonished.
Another gust toppled the couch. My watch disappeared underneath the cushions. My fingers flexed with the desire to reach for it, but I didn’t. As soon as I touched the iron, my magic would die. And it hadn’t freed me yet.
The television fell to the floor with a crash. The screen shattered. At the small bar off to one side, bottles burst, one by one. The thick smell of strong spirits filled the air.
But the doors didn’t budge.
I looked around at the ruin I was making of Eddie Ellison’s penthouse. Then I looked at the walls, and the doors, and that one massive window, none of which were showing any signs of damage. Maybe it was reasonable for my magic not to affect the steel elevator door. But even if the emergency door was equally full of iron, the surrounding architecture should have given way by now. The winds in the apartment were approaching hurricane force. As I watched, the couch leapt into the air, spun to the left, and crashed into the wall. But the apartment was still sealed tight.
“Please do not attempt to leave the premises.” The howl of the wind almost drowned out the voice, but not quite. “You will be billed for any property damage.”
Every bit of glass in the living room had shattered. But not the window. It rattled every time another gust of wind shook the room, but it never lost the fight.
This wasn’t right.
I closed my eyes again. I tried to block out the sound of the wind, and focus on the inner senses that only someone with fae blood possessed. Even a half-fae like me could feel the presence of iron, like a dull pain throbbing somewhere outside of my body.
My eyes snapped open.
I had been so grateful to make it out of the elevator—and so intent on manufacturing the right body language for Ellison—that I had missed it when I had first walked in. Ellison’s apartment was an iron cage, as surely as the elevator had been. It was more subtle than the elevator, if only because of the sheer size of the place. But underneath the smooth eggshell paint lay an uninterrupted wall of iron. It reminded me of the room I had created for myself beneath my house, to give myself a place to safely let my magic loose whenever my wrist needed a chance to heal. What had made it safe was the fact that no matter how hard my magic raged, the iron had kept it contained within those four walls.
And Ellison’s apartment was built to do the same.
Eddie Ellison lived in a magic-proof box. And I didn’t believe for a second that it was unintentional.
So Conley had been telling me the truth about Ellison’s fae involvement after all. I would have to send him a thank-you card. Assuming I ever made it out of this cage.
I frowned at the window. That was the part that still didn’t make sense. The iron in the walls was holding back my magic—but what was keeping the window from breaking? No glass was that strong.
When I walked across the room and placed my hand on the glass, I got my answer. I jerked my hand back like it had been burned—which wasn’t far from the truth. There was iron built right into the glass. Even after I had touched it, I still had to squint to see it—a faint metallic latticework, each individual wire barely visible to the naked eye. All together, though, they held my magic back just enough to keep the window from bursting outward.
I had no way of knowing what Ellison’s intentions had been when he’d had this place modified—whether he had wanted to keep magic contained inside, or keeping it from reaching him from the outside. Either way, it was doing admirably at a job it had never been intended for. Eddie Ellison—the head of Arkanica, I had no doubt of that anymore—had captured the wanted criminal Kieran Thorne.
I bent and fumbled through the debris littering the floor for my watch. There was no sense in doing any more damage, however satisfying it might have been.
The sudden numbness as the iron made contact with my skin used to make me feel cold and bereft. Now all I felt was a sense of relief. I fastened the watch, and took a deep breath. I could already hear sirens in the distance.
I knew what I had to do now.
Skye would want me to do it, I reminded myself as I reached for my phone. She would never forgive me—or herself—if something happened to me and she didn’t find out in time to stop it. But that didn’t make it any easier to dial her number.
I raised the phone to my ear and waited for the sound of her perky voice. She was always much too eager to hear from me, considering that every call from me put her life at risk. But I didn’t hear anything, not even a ring. Only dead air.
I ended the call and frowned down at the phone. No service.
Getting no cell service in a place like this was strange enough. The fact that I had gotten four full bars before I had tried to place the call made the hairs on my arms rise up all over again.
“OmniSafe by Nexegence, the world’s most advanced home security system, has recorded an attempt to place an outgoing call from an unauthorized mobile device,” said the voice—and if that wasn’t creepy as all hell, I didn’t know what qualified. As far as I was concerned, Hawthorne’s spookiness had nothing on Ellison’s technology. “Cellular service for unauthorized devices has been terminated,” the voice continued. “Please wait for l
ocal law enforcement to arrive.”
I resisted the urge to throw my phone at the nearest wall, and shoved it back in my pocket instead. I stood staring at the door, my body vibrating with restrained tension. I was out of options. And the sirens were getting closer.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. I still had one option left. Take my watch off again, and wait for the police to get here, like the voice had told me to. Once they stepped into the storm inside the apartment, they would meet the same fate as everything in Ellison’s apartment. And with the door open, I would be able to make a run for it.
The option was there. But I wouldn’t take it. No more human casualties. I had made myself a promise. And while a promise to myself, in the privacy of my own head, wasn’t binding in the same sense as a spoken vow or a written contract, I still had no intention of breaking it.
I ran through my options again, leaving that one out, and came up empty. Ellison had trapped me neatly the moment those elevator doors had closed behind me—and the most galling part was, he hadn’t even done it on purpose. I had thought I could finish this tonight. Now all I could do was figure out how best to survive the present, in order to get another chance in the future.
And none of the paths that ended in my survival began with me fighting.
I kept my watch on, held my position in front of the door, and waited. It looked like the humans were finally going to catch their fugitive.
Chapter 11
The Boston Police Department wasn’t accustomed to bringing in celebrities. There wasn’t enough room outside the squat brick police station for all the news vans. Reporters jostled each other, fighting over every inch of sidewalk space, as they each tried to get close enough to shout their questions at me.
The two police officers leading me inside tried to hustle me past them, although I didn’t need their encouragement to hurry. I ducked my head out of instinct, but that didn’t stop the cameras from flashing. I didn’t even hear their questions. It was just a wall of sound, punctuated by near-constant repetitions of my alias. Mr. Thorne! Mr. Thorne! Kieran!
When the doors closed behind me, blocking out their voices and their cameras, I let out my breath in relief. Then I remembered where I was.
As the two cops marched me forward, every eye in the place landed on me and stayed there. This was the start of a story I had lived out dozens of times. It always ended with my death, in one form or another. This time wouldn’t be any different, if the humans had their way. I was sure a handful of the crimes Arkanica had pinned on me carried the death penalty.
I was getting out of here, I told myself. But it was hard to make myself believe it, with those steel handcuffs locked around my wrists.
Somewhere between walking through the doors and letting the cops lead me into a small room off to the side, everything in my head just… stopped. All the noise—the fear, the helpless rage, the planning and replanning and searching for options—it all went quiet. Even the cops’ words only reached me as a low background roar, like the crash of waves on a stormy shore. I hovered somewhere above my head, and watched from a distance as a skittish officer patted me down and took my watch and phone away. Not the knife—I didn’t have it on me. No place to hide it, in those pants.
I stared with dead eyes into the camera as they took my picture. One cop tagged and photographed the watch, while another asked me a series of questions about my name, address, demographics, and health status. I must have answered, because he didn’t repeat any questions. But I didn’t hear myself speak, and had no idea what I was saying. I wasn’t even sure what the questions had been.
I was going to make it out of this. That was what I kept trying to tell myself. I had escaped from worse places than this. I had dragged myself out of Arkanica’s lab, and gone back to blow the whole place to hell. If I had gotten away from them, these human police wouldn’t defeat me. Soon enough I would be out of here and on my way to Ellison for answers.
I told myself all that. But deep down, in the part of myself that had made the choice to shut off from everything that was happening, I didn’t believe it. I had been on this ride too many times before. However much I tried to convince myself this wasn’t over, I was already waiting to die.
The only consolation I had was that it most likely wouldn’t be permanent.
Then, with an almost audible crack, I snapped back into my body as one of the cops started to unlock my handcuffs.
“What are you doing?” I tried not to let my panic show. I should have wanted the handcuffs off. That was what the cops would expect. If I raised any objections, they would wonder why. I couldn’t afford that, couldn’t let them suspect I was anything more than the criminal they believe me to be.
But they had taken my watch. If they took the handcuffs off… with me in this state of barely-controlled fear…
No. I would not let myself destroy this place. There would not be another Hawthorne.
“Removing your handcuffs for fingerprinting,” the cop said, too bored to be suspicious.
“My watch. Where is it? It’s a family heirloom. I’d like to keep it on me.” Despite my best efforts, my voice was getting faster, my volume rising. I couldn’t let them do this. Couldn’t let myself do what I knew I would do. “It’s not dangerous.”
“Our forensics team will want to take a look at it.” The handcuffs released with a small click.
“No, don’t—” Too late. The metal had already lost contact with my skin.
Deep in my core, my magic surged to life.
I spun and grabbed for the cuffs. The cop, suddenly jolted from the stupor of routine, leapt back, out of my reach. Alarm rose in his eyes.
“Please stay where you are.” The tense restraint in his voice sounded familiar. I wasn’t the only one barely succeeding in holding back panic. His hand inched toward his weapon.
I cast a frantic look around. No metal in easy reach, not even a pen. Even the chairs were plastic. These places always had metal chairs, one more torture to add on top of everything else, and yet somehow I had ended up at the one police station that was fae-friendly.
Heat spread through my arms and out the tips of my fingers. A warm gust of summer wind swept through the room. A form with my alias printed at the top fluttered to the floor.
The cop looked around. “Did someone leave a window open?”
No time for subtlety. “Put the cuffs back on. Do it now.”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down.” He stepped back. “We need a record of your fingerprints. If you’ll just place your hand on the—”
He jumped as the electronic pad he had been pointing to clattered to the ground. The screen cracked in two. The man who had been filling out the forms stared at it for a few seconds, then quietly edged away, doing his best to blend in with the wall.
“Do it now!” My voice rose to a growl.
He looked from me to the broken fingerprinting device, as if he were trying to figure out how I could have swept it to the floor from halfway across the room. Asking himself questions I couldn’t afford to let him ask. My heartbeat quickened. The wind picked up.
“Going to need some help in here,” the cop called over his shoulder toward the door. The handcuffs dangled limply from his fingers.
Only one thing left to do. It wasn’t as if it would count against me in any meaningful way. Not considering everything they already thought I had done. With a silent apology in my eyes, I crossed the distance between us in two strides, and aimed a punch squarely at his nose.
It never landed. The cop reached for a taser I hadn’t realized he was holding—I had a split second to berate myself for the oversight—and aimed it squarely at my chest. I landed hard on the floor, my body awash with pain. A pain not so different from when my magic punished me for a broken promise, I noted once I could think again.
But the pain was the least of my problems. The electrodes the taser had buried in my flesh must not have been steel, because the attack had done nothing to stop
my magic.
It had only made it angry.
The fingerprinting device slammed against the wall. The already-broken screen shattered into dust. The door groaned under the strain; I gave it a few seconds at most before it burst off its hinges.
The cop hit the wall. The wind held him in place while he stared at me with wide, terrified eyes.
Two more cops rushed through the door. They took in the sight of the wreck my magic had made of the room, and their colleague pressed up against the wall like he was afraid to get near me. They rushed me together, fighting the wind. It probably should have hurt when they wrenched my arms behind my back, but there was no room for pain. Only blessed relief as a set of steel handcuffs closed around my wrists again.
The wind stopped. The two newcomers looked at the first cop, who was still up against the wall even though nothing was holding him there anymore. I looked at him too, and watched the gears turn in his mind as he tried to make sense of what had happened.
He brushed himself off. Then he studied me for a long moment, before shaking his head like he was trying to clear it of the memories that didn’t fit his worldview. “He slipped away from me. Didn’t even go for the door. Just tore through the room like a wild animal, trying to wreck the place, and then threw a punch.”
The other two looked at each other, no doubt trying to square that with what they had seen when they had walked into the room. Almost in unison, they shook their heads, like they were making the conscious choice to forget about the strange wind and what it might mean.
“I’d think twice about trying anything else if I were you,” the cop who had handcuffed me said in my ear as he hauled me to my feet. “There are a lot of people here who would be willing to look the other way if you were to take a nasty fall down a set of stairs.”
His threats were white noise. All I cared about was that the wind had stopped.
The first cop retrieved the form that had fallen. “Stick him in a holding cell,” he snapped. “We’ll worry about fingerprints later. Better yet, we’ll let the FBI worry about it. They’ll be here for him soon enough.”