Stepping inside her apartment, she shed the useless electronics on the little table next to the door and headed directly for the kitchen. Anything in the fridge was deemed edible and she consumed all of it so quickly that she barely took the time to breathe.
The food helped. Food always did. Something about using her ability for long periods of time drained the blood sugar in the body, which was why eating had such a rejuvenating effect. No longer feeling like she would pass out, she headed for the shower, taking ten minutes under cold spray to gather herself again. The coolness of the water on her overheated skin felt like bliss. She just stood there and let it pummel her until she was afraid that she would fall asleep standing on her feet.
As tempting as collapsing in her bed was, she couldn’t do it, however. She had to replace a phone first.
Struggling out of the shower, she threw on the only clean uniform she had left—Noriko simply had to do laundry tomorrow—and shoved her feet back into her shoes. She did take two minutes to program the door with a verbal password, as putting it off any longer was dangerous, and then she was out of the apartment and in the stairwell.
Seriously, this day felt like it had been a decade long already. And to think she’d woken up with plans to study during their ‘lunch’ break and catch up on some assignments. Maybe she could do that tomorrow.
She turned the corner and nearly plowed right into Cameron, who was coming up. In his hands rested a pizza box and a 2 liter of soda. “Take-out?”
“Yeah, want some? I had no food, so I had to order for delivery, but it’s a little big for just me.”
Even though she had eaten her fill, the smell was wonderfully enticing. Regretfully, she shook her head. “Can’t. I need to head into the station.”
Cameron’s eyebrows twitched together. “Cap said we’re to stay home and recoup.”
“I know, but I fried my phone and radio band earlier,” she explained. “I have to go in and requisition another one.” And boy that wouldn’t go over well considering they’d now given her two phones in a single month.
His mouth formed a silent ‘ah’ of understanding. “Ouch. I guess with what happened earlier, it’s understandable that happened. Next time we’ll have to make sure to leave them in the car. At least the phones.”
Truly, she would make sure to do that in the future. “Remind me if I forget.”
“Will do, partner. But save the forms for tomorrow, yeah? You’re beat, go sleep.”
Before he could even get the sentence out, she was shaking her head. “I need to replace them today.”
Cameron gentled his voice, ducking his head a little to the side in a charming lilt. “No, Spidey, you reaaaaaally don’t. It can wait for tomorrow. You’re swaying, okay? Swaying people should not be on stairs. Go to bed.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head again. “I need to replace them today. If something happens, they won’t be able to reach me.”
Growling, he ran a hand over his face, clearly exasperated. “Listen, you little rule-maniac, they are NOT going to call for us before tomorrow. We are literally at the end of our ropes, everyone knows that, they’ll call for other teams before ours. Go. To. Bed.”
“I made a promise that no matter what, I would always have a way to be contacted, on or off duty!” she snapped back. “So I need to get a new phone. Move.”
He didn’t. Cameron did the exact opposite and planted himself firmly in her way. “Screw the rules. You’re in no shape to do anything, alright?”
“It doesn’t matter if I am, and it doesn’t matter if nothing actually happens, that is not the point!” Heavens, why was she yelling?
“Then what is the freaking point?!” he yelled back. “Because I don’t get it!”
“No, of course you don’t,” she growled to herself as much as to him. Frustrating, frustrating man. Why couldn’t he just let her go in, fill in a simple requisition form, get a new phone, and come back to bed? He was taking up more of her time arguing about it than it would take to actually do it.
Cameron’s eyes took on a glow, power sparking a little in the air around him. “And what does that mean?” he snarled between clenched teeth.
“Regulation Four, ring a bell? ‘All members of the Gældorcræft Forces shall have a means of communication on them at all times, regardless if they are either on or off duty—”
“Yeah?” he cut her off, taking another step up so that he could glare at her eye-to-eye. “How about this one for size? ‘When in the field, the captain’s orders to his team take precedence over regular protocol, especially in the cases of injury. The captain’s commands to his teammates are to be followed to the best of his team’s abilities unless it would endanger the team or the surrounding area.’”
Noriko’s temper sparked and burned. How dare he suggest that it was she, and not him, that was breaking the rules! “What is wrong with you? I did obey that order!”
“You’re not obeying it right now!” he shot back, volume climbing.
“All I’m trying to do is obey regulations and replace a phone!”
“Injured personnel—and news flash, we count right now!—are not supposed to be available as a response team in any emergency! Hang the stupid phone, Noriko, and go rest like you’re supposed to!”
“I will after I replace the phone!” she yelled back at him. Seriously, what was wrong with him?! She wasn’t in the best of shape right now, even she could admit that, but it was just a short walk. The station was at the end of the block, it wouldn’t take her twenty minutes to walk there, fill out the right form, get a replacement, and walk back. “Why am I even arguing with you?”
“Good question,” he sniped, pushing past her. “If you want to blackout on the stairs and break your neck all for a phone, go right ahead.”
She turned to watch him blaze up the staircase and yelled after him, “An injured person wouldn’t be able to spring up the stairs!”
What he yelled back wasn’t exactly repeatable.
It had been years since she had been so mad at someone that she had ended up yelling like this. To make matters worse, she wasn’t entirely sure what had made their argument escalate so abruptly into an actual fight. There was nothing wrong with obeying the rules, and yet he had made it sound like she was committing treason. Upset and shaky, she continued down the stairs and slammed her way out of the building.
If he thought she was going to meekly retreat to her apartment just because he told her to, he had another thing coming.
14th Merlin
Sam found her hunched over the requisition forms crying and muttering curses to herself. She’d been sitting there for who knew how long, not a single word written on the form, and with everyone actively skirting around her. Which was funny, really, because she was sitting in the narrow hallway just outside the IT office, and there wasn’t any space to be had, but they were almost gluing themselves to the wall in order to avoid her.
Sinking into the chair next to hers, Sam slid an arm around her shoulders. “Okay, honey, put this down.”
Stubbornly, she clung to it. “I need a new phone.”
That made her friend really look at her. “You fry yours earlier?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Give it to me, then, I’ll fill it out for you.”
See? Sam understood that when her phone was broken, the right thing to do would be to replace it. She surrendered the clipboard without a fight and watched as Sam easily filled in the form. It took her less than two minutes. Two minutes, and she’d spent at least fifteen arguing with Cameron.
John popped his head cautiously out of the office. She’d met him before because of the last phone she’d fried. He’d been sympathetic (after laughing) and helpful as he set up a new phone for her and copied over all of her data. He was Vietnamese, although born in the States, rather like she was. “Ah, everything okay out here?”
“John, if you could replace a phone?” Sam smiled and handed him the form. “She fried hers while fixing th
e exposed ley line earlier.”
He was a smart man and didn’t ask any questions. “Sure thing. Noriko, want it set up like I did last time?”
She gathered herself enough to respond to him. “Please.”
“Okay. Just hang tight for a few minutes.” He took the form and disappeared back into his office.
“Now.” Sam focused back on her once more. “I doubt that frying a phone, which you’ve done dozens of times, has made you cry like this. So what happened, honey?”
Noriko tried to formulate the words to explain only to pause and frown. Even in her head, the explanation seemed inane. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” Sam repeated doubtfully.
“I was on my way here to the station and bumped into Cameron on the stairs,” she started, with no idea how to end the story. “And he told me to go back to my apartment, the phone could wait for tomorrow.”
“He was likely right?” Sam offered, gauging her reaction as she spoke. “I heard your team was given temporary medical leave until Friday.”
“We’re supposed to be accessible 24/7,” Noriko maintained obstinately.
“Ah, well, I suppose. Anyway, go on.”
“He didn’t want me to come here. He had all sorts of reasons.” Some of them dead on, although she could only now admit that. “We argued about it. I ended up yelling at him.”
Sam rubbed at her lips, with something that might have been laughter glinting in her eyes. “Haven’t seen you argue or yell in a while. How did he take it?”
“He yelled back.”
“I see.”
Morosely, Noriko slumped further in on herself. “It was a stupid fight.”
“With you, they always are. You never seem to argue about the things you should argue about. Want me to play mediator for you?”
Noriko shook her head and took a swipe at the drying tears on her cheeks. “Captain Banderas told me the first day that if Cameron and I couldn’t get along, he would find me a new partner, that it was alright to do so.”
Sam’s eyebrows climbed into her dark, curly hair. “You really think you should break off the partnership with him? Just because of a fight that you yourself admitted was stupid?”
“It’s not that we don’t get along,” she sought to explain. “But Cameron’s the type that can get along with anyone. It’s just that, at the end of the day, we’re polar opposites in personality. We approach almost everything differently.”
“On a power level, you told me that your work together seamlessly.”
That was true.
“You also told me that he has a great work ethic, it just doesn’t look like he’s working on the surface, sometimes. And I know how important a work ethic is with you.”
That was also true.
“Nor, I know from painful and personal experience that decisions made when you’re strung out and tired are never good ones. You are so exhausted that you’re trembling, your magical core is twitching, and you can’t even sit up straight. This is clearly not the time to make decisions that will affect you long term.”
While emotionally, Noriko didn’t want to agree to any of that, her mind could acknowledge that Sam’s argument was a valid one. “So you think I should sleep on it.”
“Sleep is a very good first start. Then sit down and think about the argument again, and figure out why Cameron was arguing with you in the first place. He’s a fun-loving guy, your Cameron, and a jokester, so if he’s serious enough to get in a screaming match with you, then maybe you should think about why. Also consider that he’s also extremely exhausted, strung out, and not thinking clearly. He might be overreacting like you are right now.”
While all of that might be true, she wasn’t in the mood to think about any of it.
“Sleep first,” Sam advised. “Now, I’m going to fetch your phone from John, and then I’ll take you home.”
“I can get myself home.”
“Honey, if you can get out of this chair without passing out, I’ll be very surprised. Just sit tight, I’ll get your new phone.” Sam was out of the chair and in the office before she could get a full protest out.
She tested her balance a little by half-rising out of her chair. Her vision went a little grey around the corners. Maybe Sam had a point about her physical wellbeing right now. She sank back into the hard plastic and brooded.
It might not matter what she thought about their argument or whether she wanted Cameron to be her partner or not. He, too, had the right to choose to stay with her or switch to someone else. And after tonight, his choice might not be her.
A police blue uniform stopped in front of her and a man knelt, asking tentatively, “Everything alright, Noriko?”
She slowly brought her head up to stare fuzzily ahead. Conrad. He was a cop she had met on her first day. He was one of those men with the all-American boy next door look to him and a nice personality, so she’d had a good first impression of him, although they hadn’t seen much of each other since the world had gone upside and sideways. “Conrad.”
“She’s dead on her feet,” Sam informed him bluntly as she came back out the door.
“Then I’ll drive her home, yeah?” He gave them both a charming smile.
Noriko thought about arguing. It was only a block to her apartment, she could make it just fine. But the truth of the matter was just sitting there was draining her energy. And if she tried to walk home, she was sure Sam would put a stop to it, and she didn’t want to argue a second time tonight over something pointless. So she said, “Sure.”
It was amazing how much clearer the mind could function after properly sleeping. Noriko floundered awake with the sense that she had been lying in the same spot for a very long time. Flopping over, she picked up her phone and blearily read the glowing numbers on the band. 12:45. Seriously? She’d slept straight into the afternoon? That meant, what, that she’d slept for nearly sixteen hours?
Alright—maybe she had been more done in than she had realized.
Rolling out of the bed, she staggered into the shower. Somehow—no one had ever explained to her how—showers had a magical effect on her. Maybe it was the massaging motion of shampooing her head, maybe it was something about the spray itself, but showering always woke her up and gave her insights.
Sam had been dead-on last night. Breaking off her partnership because of a stupid argument was a very bad decision. Was she convinced that they should remain partners for decades and decades? Of course not—she’d only known him a short time. There was no way she could make that judgment call now. But it was precisely because she was still learning about him that she shouldn’t make any rash decisions.
This did beg the question, though, of what to do next.
Noriko just didn’t know Cameron well enough to predict what he would do next. She’d only seen his jokester side, really, on a day-to-day basis. It really had to hit the fan before he got serious. As soon as the emergency was over, though, he went back to his usual cheerful self. Did he even argue with people? Noriko was inclined to agree with Sam’s analysis, that their fight was more because of strung-out nerves and exhaustion than anything. Did it take pushing Cameron to his absolute limit before he got in a fight with someone? If that was the case, it likely didn’t happen often, so he might not know how to forgive and forget.
She herself had only limited experience with it outside of her family. With siblings, she of course got in squabbles with them, but it was different arguing with family than with friends.
Her phone beeped. Twisting her arm about, she punched the little messenger icon. It was from Sam: You up yet?
She sent back the reply: I’m up. How are things with the ley line?
Back to normal, no worries. Still trying to find the cause.
No leads on who’s pulling this insane crap?
I wish, she texted back. That was the most worrying point, actually, that they still didn’t know what the cause was. Or more accurately, who was behind it.
The m
essenger binged again: Head’s up.
Head’s up? What was that supposed to mean?
There was a knock at the door, sounding like the beginning steps to a tap dance.
Noriko frowned at the door. Who would knock out a particular rhythm that way?
A voice, one she was growing to know well, spoke something in a low rumble and the door clicked open. Cameron had somehow learned her door password to be able to open it like that. Noriko wasn’t quite sure how to feel about him having such easy access to her apartment, but that wasn’t the immediate concern. She got half to her feet, not sure what to brace herself for. A continuation of the fight? Some awkward reconcile? An announcement that Cameron had thought things through and didn’t want to be partners with her anymore?
But Cameron didn’t enter. The door opened perhaps a foot, and a plastic ‘silver’ tray was pushed inside. Then it promptly shut again, although not entirely, as she didn’t hear the lock re-engage.
Noriko stared in astonishment at the tray. How in the world had he discovered that her one weakness in life was icing shots in chocolate vases? There were six of them in a rainbow of hues, and just looking at them made her mouth water.
Eyeing the door cautiously, she sidled up and picked up the tray, then retreated just as cautiously back toward the table. Sitting next to it, she picked up one and bit it in half. Ahhh, bliss. Sugar was exactly what she needed this morning. Afternoon. Whatever. But what was he playing at, shoving her favorite treat into her apartment and not showing his face? Was he that scared of her right now?
A few minutes passed, and the door opened again. This time, it had a new radio band on it, in GF red. It was the thing she hadn’t thought to requisition last night, as her main goal had been a phone. And how did he know that? It was clearly hers, she could see her initials inscribed on it even five feet away.
She waited for him to appear, but he didn’t. Having a sneaking suspicion what he was waiting for, she crawled the short distance over and picked up the band before retreating to her spot.
Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1) Page 14