by Gray Holborn
“That sounds great, let me run in to drop off my books and change.” I looked over at El. “Keep him company for me, please. And be nice.” Then I ran up the steps to hurry the process along; afraid to leave Michael stranded with the wolves for too long. Between Soren and Charlotte, he was on the receiving end of no ordinary amount of nefarious attention.
Unfortunately, with El holding off the troops outside, I’d have to pick something out myself. I loved stylish clothes and makeup, but I wasn’t so great at assembling outfits myself—that was a skill I relied heavily on El for. I settled for simple—faux leather leggings and a distressed black top that cut into a V. Just the right amount of revealing for a date. I threw on a fresh coat of mascara and a light pink gloss. My hair had been up in a bun all day, so it fell in nicely tamed waves down my back. Good enough. I stuffed my feet into a pair of cute ankle boots and was out the door before Char would have time to do any real damage.
Still, when I walked outside, Michael gave me a grateful smile. “I brought my bike so we can take that.”
“I didn’t know you drove a motorcycle.” El looked a combination of shocked and impressed.
“If that’s what you call it,” Soren said under his breath, the disgust clear on his face as he looked at the black bike pieced together by various parts Michael had found at the junkyard. I thought the Frankensteinian bike was cool. I couldn’t even put an Ikea table together, let alone a machine capable of moving people safely from one place to another.
“Don’t be ridiculous, girl. You can’t seriously be considering getting on that deathtrap.” Charlotte waddled up to me, the map of wrinkles across her forehead tight with worry. Underneath her tension, I realized that she was so much paler than I’d ever seen her, her left hand sat trembling by her side while her other looped around the crook of Soren’s elbow to keep steady. My stomach sank a bit. I needed to chat with Sam about maybe getting her a caretaker if it was in our budget. I didn’t remember my grandparents, but I imagine it would’ve hurt just as much to watch them age. Life was cruel sometimes.
I reached out and steadied her left hand, palming it between my own. “Don’t worry Char, we’re only going a few blocks. Besides, Michael drives like a—” I cut myself off at grandma. I’d seen Charlotte drive before. The woman referred to speed limits as ‘suggestions for bad drivers and people with nowhere to be.’
“I won’t go a notch above the speed limit, ma’am. I’m a very careful driver, especially when transporting special cargo.” Michael threw me a helmet before hopping on his bike.
“Ugh, dude, you’re never going to get laid with a line like that. Jesus,” Jax mumbled, his face contorted in a look of disappointed disgust, while El covered her mouth with laughter.
I rolled my eyes at him, but seeing that Char seemed appeased I hopped on after Michael, gripping one arm around his torso and using the other to wave bye to the strange menagerie on my lawn. El and Jax were smiling back and Soren and Char were both sporting identical grimaces on their faces. Char because she didn’t like the ‘medical man,’ Soren most likely because Michael’s bike didn’t reach his standards.
Over the loud thrum of the engine, I thought I heard Jax yell, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Which, in case you’re wondering, isn’t much.”
After the Italian restaurant left us feeling dangerously close to a food coma, Michael and I walked the ten blocks to the bar Kevin’s band was playing at. He grabbed my right hand, drawing lazy circles along the inside of my wrist. “So how long are those guys going to be visiting?”
“Jax and Soren? No clue. They just showed up a couple of days ago and it’s been awhile
since El’s seen them, so they’ll likely be around for a bit.” After a few moments of his silence, I glanced up at his face. There was a small frown creased between his eyebrows and I started to chuckle.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You’re jealous.” I nudged him playfully in the shoulder. “It’s cute.”
His hand tightened briefly on mine, the rough calluses scraping gently against my skin. “I’m not jealous.” When his eyes met my quirked eyebrow he added, “Okay, well I shouldn’t be jealous. It’s not like we’ve defined whatever this is,” he moved his hand between us, “and I know I have no claims over you, and I’m trying very hard to reign in the caveman thoughts running through my mind. But still, it’s a little disarming to find that the girl I really like has just acquired two rather tall, not horrible looking, male roommates.”
“Well, as long as you’re trying then.” I held back a smile. It was strange, when I wasn’t around Michael, I forgot how much I liked him. Usually when I was really into a guy, they plagued my thoughts. Not obsessively, but frequently. With Michael, he was kind of an afterthought. It was only when I was with him that I realized how happy I was to be with him. Maybe El wasn’t the only one who had to give him more of a chance. “Not that you have anything to worry about. Jax flirts with anything that walks and I don’t think anyone holds his interest beyond thirty seconds. And Soren. Well, he’s kind of an asshat.”
“Okay good. Not that I’m happy you are living with an asshat. But, you know what I mean,” he gestured to himself, “caveman.”
“So, the girl you really like.” I paused. “That is me right?:
“Wouldn’t you like to know? I could be talking about Ellie.” He rolled his eyes feigning disinterest, but couldn’t hide the answering grin that took over his face.
Michael handed some cash to the bouncer and after shuffling around for my ID, I looked up and realized we were at Inferno. I hadn’t even realized it until Muscles reached out his hand to stamp the inside of my wrist. “He’s playing here?” I looked between Muscles and Michael, my heartrate accelerating.
Muscles handed back my card and looked up at me with a wide smile. “The klutz. How are you?” He looked behind me, as if to see if I was cloaking somebody with my body. “Didn’t bring Ellie with you tonight? I thought I’d have heard from her by now.” His hand reached up to awkwardly scratch the back of his head and I watched as a red blush formed along his neck and cheeks.
“You guys are back open already? What about the fire?” I asked.
Muscles frowned at me like he was struggling to understand what I was talking about. “Oh, that. Bartender just got a little too enthusiastic about lighting drinks on fire. The sprinklers did more damage than the flames, but they had everything cleaned up and repaired in a few hours. Boss’s brother is a carpenter so it went pretty smoothly. Have fun tonight. And watch out for the glass window, will ya?” He opened the door with a wink.
“Glass window?” Michael looked at me with a wicked smirk on his face.
“Shut up,” I mumbled. “It was a really clean window. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to walk into it.”
“Yeah, I mean the birds in those commercials do it all the time.” He bit his lip, trying to hold back his laughter and ushered me into the club ahead of him—his hand splayed out against the small of my back. “What was all that about a fire?” he asked, his voice serious as the whisper graced my ear.
I ignored him, stunned both by Muscles’ flaming-shots understatement and the fact that the club looked perfectly normal, the bar and floor completely repaired as if nothing had happened here a few days ago.
“You alright, Dessa?” Michael squeezed my hand lightly.
Nodding, I masked my stunned expression and looked up at him with a smile and squeezed his hand back. I’d talk to El about the Inferno crazy later, but for now I needed to play it cool.
It was strange being here on a weeknight, the club had transformed into a completely different venue. Gone were the blue-haired DJ and the scantily clad dancers clogging up the floor. Instead, the room was emptier, filled with people chatting over drinks, throwing casual glances at the instrument-strewn stage to see if the band had started yet. I never understood why people did that—stare at the stage to see if a show was going to begin. As soon as they started playi
ng, you’d be able to hear them. That whole watched pot never boils conundrum all over again, only with drunk people.
Michael snuck up behind me after grabbing our drinks, wrapping a hand lightly around my waist. He timed things well, and we only waited a couple of minutes before his roommate’s band started to play. I had only met Kevin once before, but he seemed like a nice guy. They’d only known each other for a few months and were an interesting duo. Michael’s preppy sweater covered arms decorated with tattoos, making him an interesting mix of clean and edgy. Kevin, however, was only edgy. His long hair had been spiked up into purple triangles, revealing an ear full of rings that matched the half dozen pierced through the skin on his face. Dark kohl lined his eyes and his pants were even tighter than my leather leggings, which was impressive if only because I didn’t think it was possible. Oddly enough, the look worked for him in a way I couldn’t imagine it working for anyone else. More remarkable was the fact that the rest of his bandmates were way more conventional looking—dressed in random graphic t-shirts and jeans. They looked like they could’ve been going into work for one of those yuppie tech firms downtown.
The music was loud and all over the place. Pushing it into any single genre was almost impossible. People in the crowd were trying to figure out how to dance along to the beat; some were headbanging, others were doing an odd mixture of salsa and waltz moves with partners. I tried to focus on the music, but my body was way more in tune with the beat Michael’s fingers were tapping against my hip—right at the sliver of skin left bare between my top and my pants.
He whispered something into my ear, but I couldn’t hear him over the bass. When I turned around to get him to repeat the question, I noticed a glow in my peripheral. Behind us at the bar, were three supes casually nodding along to the music, beers in their hands. At first I expected to see the fire-manipulator from the other night, but I realized almost instantly that she wasn’t one of them. The first was a girl around my age. Short brown hair framed her innocent, doll-like face; seemingly at odds with the stunning, but revealing, black dress she was wearing with a slip all the way up to her hip. Her head was pressed gently into the chest of a male supe. While she looked like an unusual mix of innocent and dangerous, he looked purely like the latter. His blond hair was clipped short and his eyes were a dark shimmery black—the kind of black that reflects your own image back to you before you could even locate the pupil.
Both of them had a soft silver glow, so I assumed they were feeders. The final man was bathed in gold and his glow was more pronounced than the other two. His looks were unremarkable—quite tall but nothing about his face stood out. I was so used to supes being beautiful that he threw me the most. Still, he was the most eye catching of the trio with his bright purple suit that would have stuck out anywhere.
I stopped my blatant staring when Michael teasingly rubbed a thumb against my back, trying to decipher what held my interest. Smiling up at him, I pulled out my phone to text El and let her know there were three supes at the club. The odds that they had anything to do with whoever was after her were low, but since even Jax was taking the threat seriously it seemed better to be on the safe side. Especially since El loved to spend so much time here. I sent a quick follow up letting her know that Inferno looked completely untouched by the Friday night fireganza.
Having done my watchdog duty, I sunk into the music, swaying gently with Michael while we tried to find a beat to the noise that Kevin’s band produced. He had pushed the sleeves of his sweater up and I found myself tracing the tattoos over the arm he splayed across my stomach, which was holding me firmly against his chest. While the supes and being back in Inferno had my heart pounding with fear and curiosity, Michael’s grip helped to settle my nerves. Being in his presence felt comfortable, safe. The transition from friends to more had been relatively recent and undefined, but I found myself increasingly pleased by the evolving relationship.
Halfway through the set, he leaned down to my ear to whisper. “I missed you this past weekend.”
He spoke so softly that his breath tickled the outer shell of my ear. So soft that I was surprised I could hear him over the music. When I turned back to look at him, his eyes were filled with a vulnerable heat. Smiling slowly, I bit my bottom lip. With all of the chaos this past weekend, I never really had a chance to miss him. Still, I was happy to be with him now.
My stomach flipped when his gaze fell to my mouth. One of his hands remained on my hip, the other reached up to my chin, gently tipping my head back. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I almost immediately felt the whisper of his lips against my own. The kiss started gentle and soft at first, until his tongue slowly parted my lips to deepen it. Fingers dug into my hip as his tongue danced against my own. My hands pressed into his chest and I could feel a low groan reverberating against them, even if I couldn’t hear it. Almost as soon as the kiss started, it stopped. Michael pulled back, the heat in his eyes only more intense as he licked his lips, like he was savoring the taste. When he pulled me closer against him, no doubt to start where we left off, his body stiffened against mine.
“Something wrong?” I asked, still in a pleasant daze from the kiss.
He swore softly, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“What? It wasn’t that bad was it?” I asked.
“Isn’t that your roommate’s brother?” His face looked tight, all of the heat that was previously there gone.
“What, where?” He turned me around and nodded his head. My eyes scanned the crowd, which had grown considerably over the course of the band’s set, until they met with a pair of familiar gray ones. Soren was leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the venue, one leg propped up against it and his arms crossed over his chest. His face was tight and almost as soon as we made eye contact, he looked away. “Yeah, that’s him. Hang on let me check and see what’s up.”
I reluctantly detached myself from Michael and started to weave in and out of the dancing crowd. When I reached Soren, his jaw was tight and he was deliberately avoiding acknowledging my presence. Nothing new there. “I take it El told you about the supes?” I asked, looking up at him. “They’re at the bar. Why didn’t you tell me you were here, instead of creepily eye-stalking my date.”
Silence. When I was convinced he didn’t hear me and opened my mouth to repeat the questions, he turned his face towards mine. “Trust me, there are about a million things I’d rather be doing than watching a couple of humans awkwardly maul each other. I just wanted to see if I could find out if they were in the city for El or just their own amusement.”
The bitter tone of his voice sent shivers up my spine. It made sense that he would want to check out the club after my text to El, though I had no idea how he’d be able to decipher their intentions. It’s not like he could walk up to them and ask if they were there to kidnap or kill his little sister, the fairy princess. I nodded my head towards the trio at the bar, trying to covertly point them out.
“Er, right. They’re over there, two feeders and a manipulator if I had to guess. The guy in the ugly suit is the manipulator. I think so anyway, his glow is gold and that seems to be a consistent indicator from my very limited experience with supes. His glow is stronger than the couple, so I’m guessing that means he’s more powerful, but it isn’t an exact science or anything.” I paused, my eyes lingering on Soren’s annoyed expression. “Don’t give me that look, I kind of make up these interpretations as I go, I don’t really understand all the nuances of what exactly I’m seeing and this sense didn’t exactly come with a rule book or instruction manual.”
“Clearly.” He kicked off the wall, towering over me, his gaze bouncing from me to where I left Michael standing. “I’m going to grab a drink and see if I can overhear anything. Let me know if you sense any others walk in. Otherwise, you should get back to your date.”
“I can help, just give me something to do.”
“You’re human, Black. Not exactly ideal backup material. Besides, I’m not looking for a
sidekick.”
“Human-ish,” I mumbled.
Without a further look or word, Soren pushed his way smoothly through the crowd of dancers. He was leaning against the bar before I had even processed the fact that I was categorically dismissed from whatever midnight operation he was running.
Chapter Nine
The rest of the week flew by in an exhausting whirlwind. For the most part, I found myself training with Jax everyday, which meant that my body was in a perpetual state of pain. Oddly, I was starting to enjoy the feeling—and not in a masochistic way. After only five days of training, my body felt stronger even though the workouts left me feeling weak; almost as if my body was being broken down to be built back up again—stronger, better. Between grueling morning workouts, class, The Tavern, and another date with Michael, I was spent. Everyone was stumped by Inferno’s quick rebound from the fire. Apparently while supes did not, in fact, have their own version of the Men in Black to clean up after them, it would’ve been possible for the fire-manipulator to control the amount of damage she inflicted to some degree. But that didn’t explain Muscles’ poor recollection of what actually happened. It was like the reality of the event had been completely erased. According to Jax’s pre-workout rambling that meant someone went to extra, unsolicited lengths to make the whole thing blow over so quickly. I also hadn’t noticed any new glows at The Tavern, Walesh, or anywhere else which, coupled with the knowledge that the fire-manipulation incident was quelled, sounded to me like things were starting to go back to normal. Jax said Soren was convinced of the exact opposite.
My crazy schedule meant that I didn’t see Soren or Sam much, though I was only bothered by the latter. In fact, with training several hours each morning, I ended up spending more time with Jax than I even did with El. Soren was fairly certain that the trio from Inferno wasn’t interested in her, but he had been keeping an eye on them anyway. So much so that when he wasn’t gracing us with his growly presence, he was stalking the house they were staying in—the one he’d found by unapologetically following them home from the club.