by Sadie Moss
“Sir, take some deep breaths, okay?” Logan says. Off to my left, I can see Nick fiddling with a device, glancing between whatever tech is in his hand and the man in front of us. “Can you tell us your name? Why you’re here?”
The man’s face contorts again. Around us, I can see other people starting to notice what’s going on. They’re inching away or staring.
“I don’t know,” he whines. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know.”
“That’s okay,” I cut in quickly. We have to keep him calm, whatever it takes. “That’s all right. You’ll remember eventually. And we’re going to be right here supporting you until you do. That’s why we’re here. To help you.”
The man throws his head back as if someone’s yanked his spine wrong, as if he’s contorting, and he gives a wild laugh like a hyena.
“That’s funny,” he scoffs, like I just made a joke. “I don’t need any help.”
Not gonna lie, his laugh is creepy as fuck. It makes my stomach twist, and I feel kind of like throwing up. I’ve never seen anyone behave like this before. It’s like what we saw in Mary and the other mage, except dialed up to eleven—even more intensely crazy than they were.
“I’m glad we can amuse you.” I can’t quite keep the dryness out of my voice. “Do you think we could find a place to sit down and talk?”
Saint’s almost completely behind the guy now, his shoulders hunched, his body crouched and coiled like a tiger about to pounce. Everyone’s staring now. People are whispering and pointing. I can feel my face heating up with embarrassment. I didn’t want any kind of attention at all, really—the hard work and the knowledge of a job well done is its own reward for me, and yes, I know that sounds nerdy—but I especially don’t want attention while this is going down. I have a feeling this is all about to get ugly.
Logan nods, as if at the guy, but I know he’s really nodding at Saint. Nick’s got his finger hovering over a button on his device, and I feel a rush of pride at how well my guys—well, they’re not mine, but the guys—how well they work together.
Seeing Logan’s nod, Saint leaps forward, ready to pin the man.
The man turns… and the sidewalk splits, cracking with a great, terrible noise that has me instinctively covering my ears. I see Saint wince—the sound must be physically painful for him with his enhanced senses—and then the concrete shoots up into the air as the ground explodes, the grass expanding, growing, becoming huge like vines.
What the hell?
The man seems to be controlling the platform of concrete he’s on, hovering in the air. I’ve never seen anything like this. Plant manipulation, sure, but the ability to make plants grow that quickly? To infuse them with so much magic that they become gigantic? And then to also somehow be able to control the concrete and make it levitate?
How many powers does this guy have? Did he have them before and this new magic is making him use them for harm? Is the magic amplifying his powers? Or is it gifting him new ones?
“So…” Nick drawls, deadpan. “This is new.”
“Get everyone out of the way!” I yell, summoning up every bit of magic I’ve got.
Usually, I use my telekinesis to shove things around. But I can’t just shove everyone back out of the way—they could get hurt.
I stick my hands out, concentrating, and carefully but quickly pick up all the bystanders, pushing them back out of the blast zone. People start screaming as they realize they’re being moved without their permission.
“Stay calm!” I yell. “I’m trying to keep you safe! Stay back!”
A gigantic piece of grass lunges for me, and Logan grabs it as Nick grabs another device out of his pocket, frantically typing on it.
“I’m creating a force field that should keep this fight contained just to our area,” he calls.
“Hurry up!” I can’t use my telekinesis on this many people, this carefully, for much longer. Already I can feel my head pounding and my fingers shaking. If I do this for too long, I’ll pass out.
Nick sets the device on the ground and activates it, and immediately a blue dome appears around us, flickering in the sunlight, surrounding the five of us.
The moment it activates, I feel my telekinesis cut off from the objects I was using it on. I can’t reach the people I was holding before, since the magic is now contained within the force field.
Good.
“Cute,” the madman sneers. He makes the ground burst up right where the device is set, knocking Nick off his feet and sending him flying back. He lands hard, smacking his head on the sidewalk.
“Nick!” I run toward him, grabbing his shoulders to make sure he’s okay.
He blinks, his gaze focusing on me as he opens his eyes. But before I even have a chance to feel proper relief that he’s alive, the device is crushed beneath a piece of concrete, and the force field gives out.
All around us, people start screaming and running.
Shit!
“Subdue him!” I yell, helping Nick to slowly sit up and feeling the back of his head for any blood or anything. “You okay?”
“Kiss it better?” he asks, wincing even as he gives me a little wink.
“Yeah, you’re fine.” I can’t help but laugh though. Only Nick could jokingly flirt at a time like this.
He chuckles, then groans as he stands up. “Ah, maybe no boxing for me for a bit.”
“Incoming!” Logan yells, and Nick and I dive to the side as another gigantic piece of grass lunges for us.
I back up to get a running start, then dash forward, using the momentum as a takeoff to launch myself into the air and turn into a falcon, aiming right for the strange man. I angle myself downward to dive bomb him, tucking my wings in, and shift into a green anaconda. They’re the world’s biggest snakes, growing up to thirty feet long and weighing about five hundred and fifty pounds.
If anything can restrain him, it’s going to be a damn anaconda.
I drop hard onto the guy, sending us both crashing onto the concrete block, which then drops the ten feet from where it’s been hovering and crashes into the ground. I slither around the guy quickly, before he can recover, looping myself around and around and around his limbs.
“Holy shit. This is fucking insane,” I hear Nick say, sounding impressed.
“Let go of me!” the man hisses. “Let go!”
He’s supernaturally strong. It’s a struggle to keep him restrained, taking everything in me. I’m thirty feet of pure abdominal muscle like this, so I’m not exactly a slouch, but he’s giving me a run for my money. I can’t use my telekinesis and my animal shifting at the same time, which is annoying because that would make this way easier. I just have to squeeze and hope for the best.
Saint appears, shoving the guy farther down into my coils, his eyes flaring with anger as he helps me hold the guy.
But I can’t stay like this forever. How do I let my team know that they need to find a new way to restrain him when I can’t talk?
The man’s babbling, yelling, laughing hysterically. It’s so creepy I want to let go of him and get as far away as possible, but I have to hold on.
“We need proper restraints,” Logan says, and I hiss in relief. “We don’t know how long Rae can hold him like this.”
Not super long, thanks.
“Let me see what I can enchant.” Nick starts digging through his pockets.
“People are watching,” Saint growls.
“I know.” Logan looks around. “Fuck. They’re recording. They have their phones out.”
“Their phones won’t record anything,” Nick mutters, his face flushing. A moment later, I hear cries of dismay and I realize that Nick’s just enchanted—or rather cursed—all their phones to not be able to record what’s happening.
It looks like it took a lot out of him. He’s paler now, and sweating, but he pulls another small object out of his pocket. “Okay, I think this’ll work.”
“You think?” Logan shakes his head. “We need better than that.�
�
“I will destroy you!” the man is yelling, his voice strained and muffled. He’s trying to claw at my scales and ow, ow, that hurts.
And then that blue magic appears in his hands. Oh shit.
I’m too big. I can’t slither away in time. When he unleashes the magic, I get blasted right through the concrete, turning human again, rolling and landing with a painful thump in the grass. I think I scream, but I’m not sure. Everywhere hurts.
“Rae!” Someone’s running toward me. The sound of their footsteps hurts my ears.
I blink slowly, the world coming back into focus, and see Logan hovering in front of me. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two.”
Behind him, I can see Saint getting to his feet, having clearly been thrown just like I was. He’s glaring at the man, who’s got his hand splayed, pointed right toward Saint’s chest.
Shit. He’s going to fire at Saint!
“No!” I yell, grabbing onto Logan for support as I stagger to my feet—but then the guy brings up the large section of concrete again, moving it up over his own head, hovering about ten feet.
Without another word, without a single sound, he drops the concrete on himself.
Logan yanks me into his chest, burying my face against his hard pec, but I can still hear the awful, horrible crunching sound. It’s not even a crunch, but that’s the closest I can get to describing it. I’ve never heard anything so horrible in my life. My body convulses. I’m definitely gonna barf.
“Fuck,” Nick says weakly.
“Don’t look,” Logan orders.
I hear movement, and then a grunt, and the sound of stone crashing against stone. Saint moving the concrete. There’s a heavy pause, and I hear gasps of horror all around from the people. A child screams. Someone starts crying. Someone else throws up.
“This is wrong,” I whisper to Logan. I’m clinging to him, in public even, but I don’t care. I just feel so sick. “Something is very, very wrong here.”
Chapter 12
We have to call an IUM cleanup crew for backup to handle the fallout from the mess in the park, so I have the guys deal with that while I call Stone and update him.
This is the third death related to this strange new kind of magic, and it’s the second one where the person committed suicide. This just isn’t right. And I don’t mean from a moral standpoint, I mean—something’s out of place. Something’s disjointed.
We’re missing something.
“There’s a team of Circuit investigators on their way,” Stone informs me after I finish telling him everything. Sure enough, I can hear the sirens in the distance. They sound just like non-magical police sirens, but there’s a pulse of magic that they let out that only other magic users can detect so that we know it’s the Circuit.
“I can hear them.”
“Cooperate with them. This is now unfortunately a Circuit matter as well as an IUM one. Were you able to talk to the crowd?”
I look around. Everyone’s standing around and staring, which frustrates me, making anger stir up in my stomach. They shouldn’t be here. There’s nothing that they can do to help. Are they just going to stand and gawp at this poor man’s body all day? It’s sickening.
“Not really, not yet. Logan’s setting up a perimeter. But Nick was able to scramble their phones so nothing was recorded.”
“How is your team doing?”
“The fight took a lot out of us, but we’re still standing. This guy had powers we’ve never seen before. And he was powerful—Elliot Sinclair or Roman levels of powerful.” Possibly even more so, but I’m not sure about that, and I don’t want to alarm Stone any more than I already have.
“Understood. I’ve sent some IUM agents your way to help coordinate with the Circuit team. Try to clean everything up and follow proper procedure, get witness statements, and keep the crowd calm.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I hang up and look around. Saint’s kind of hovering, not sure what to do, while Nick and Logan are busy with the crowd and the Circuit people who’ve just arrived, so I head over to make sure the gruff man is okay. This is all probably bringing up bad memories for him. After all, the last time he was in a situation like this… cops, a dead body…
It was likely when he was getting arrested.
I don’t know the details of what happened with Saint. I know he killed someone, but that’s it. His case was a pretty big deal, or so Nick’s told me, so I could’ve looked it up, but that felt… wrong. I want to hear Saint’s story from him, not from anyone else.
“All right,” one of the Circuit officers says. “I’ll start taking statements. Please remain calm and wait your turn.”
“We all know what it was,” someone yells. It’s a man, but I don’t know who, I can’t see him through the crowd. “A rogue Unpredictable.”
There’s a flurry of noise from the crowd.
“We should’ve known they were crazy!”
“They were framed last time, how do you know it’s not this time too?”
“Just because a few are okay—”
“Just because they didn’t do it last time—”
“Wasn’t he an Unpredictable last time too?”
“They’re dangerous!”
“Hey!” Nick snaps, his expression turning hard as his hazel eyes flash. I’m surprised to see him of all people stepping up and losing his temper. “What the hell is wrong with all of you? This guy clearly had something wrong with him. And it was three Unpredictables fighting him that just saved you all. So show a little damn gratitude, huh?”
Everyone quiets down, but I doubt it’s because Nick’s changed their minds. More like they don’t want to get in a fight with a genius billionaire who could buy the entire city if he wanted to.
“Saved us?” a man snorts. He points at Saint. “That one’s a murderer!”
Shit.
I step forward quickly to stand in front of Saint. “This man is working as a valuable consultant to the IUM on this case matter as a part of his parole. We’d appreciate it if you have any concerns to contact IUM, where we can have one of our customer service agents talk to you.”
“Damn. Why is that so hot?” Nick mutters from beside me, and I can feel my cheeks heat a little. His gaze on me warms my skin.
I fold my arms and glare at the man, doing my best to ignore both Nick and my response to his comment. The man backs down, glaring sullenly at the ground like he’s a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
I turn around. Saint’s also staring at the ground, but he looks like he’s been slapped. I put my hand on his arm. “You all right?”
“Fine.”
He’s clearly not.
I can’t hug him here. I certainly can’t kiss him. But I want to. I want to comfort him. My stomach is still twisting. I feel awful.
“Okay, move along,” Logan tells the crowd in a firm voice. “If you’re done giving a statement, then go. And we don’t need statements from all of you. I’d think real hard about whether or not you’ll be contributing anything valuable to our report.”
Between him and the Circuit police, everyone finally clears out. Even though it’s quieter now, and we’re no longer being gawped at, my stomach doesn’t unclench. This whole mess is awful. No wonder Stone wanted to keep this under wraps. People are already panicking and ready to blame Unpredictables, and they have no idea what’s going on or any proof whatsoever that this is related to Unpredictable powers.
But they’re scared. And when people are scared, they do stupid, dangerous things.
I look at Saint and squeeze his arm. “It’s going to be okay,” I promise him.
I’m not sure if I can keep that promise though.
Chapter 13
We head right back to IUM after everything’s taken care of at the park. I still feel like I’ve eaten something wrong at dinner, my stomach all queasy and unsettled.
Saint has completely closed off.
He isn’t talking or e
ven looking at anyone, and when Nick tries to bump their shoulders together in a solidarity kind of way, Saint steps back so they don’t touch. I don’t know if this is a coping mechanism of some kind or something else, but it worries me.
Stone called an emergency meeting of all IUM employees to brief them on the situation, so the large complex is bustling when we return. My team’s still handling this case, but it’s clearly something that the entire organization needs to know about, so everyone dutifully files into the large assembly room.
It’s the same room where I first met my fellow recruits and we learned about the tests that we’d have to take to become official IUM agents. Most of us didn’t make it and were assigned to jobs as non-agents. But Logan and I made it through.
I was so excited then. So full of confidence, ready to tackle whatever was thrown at me. Now I feel lost, confused, and worried as hell. I’m a little concerned that I actually can’t handle this. That I’ll mess it up—that maybe I’ve already messed it up.
Those new recruit tests feels like a world away. Like a piece of cake compared to his.
I like to sit in the back, especially now that we’re going to kind of have the spotlight on us, but Stone has us sit in the front. Saint doesn’t seem to enjoy that any more than I do, his expression blank and his gaze hard as he slouches in his seat. Nick’s lounging like this is a perfectly normal day, and maybe for him it is, with his crazy life. Logan has a pad and a pen at the ready to take notes, bless him.
Everyone files in quickly. I see Lito with his arm thrown around Ben’s shoulders, their heads bent together as they talk in low voices. Stone’s secretary comes in after them, followed by several more IUM agents.
And Elliot Sinclair.
My eyes widen. I want to slide down into my chair and turn invisible. Maybe I can turn into a fly or something, so that nobody can see me. Especially not the woman I admire so much. Elliot took on the biggest threat to our magical community that we’ve seen in decades, perhaps centuries, and she won. And now she has to sit there and see how I’m handling it, and I bet I’m handling it poorly compared to her.