by Martha Carr
Cheyenne jerked her phone out of her pocket and texted her mom. Although it was almost 3:00 a.m., she had no issues with texting. The woman kept the cell phone in her office and didn’t take it to bed. Urgent calls were to go to the house number, the landline. I don’t wanna talk to her right now. She’ll find it in the morning.
Call me when you’re up. I have some questions. Big ones.
She’d get a call, most likely at 8:00 a.m. sharp. Bianca Summerlin might have retired early from the political spotlight, but she still kept pristine office hours out of her home, having done so the past twenty-one years.
“I need to get out.” Cheyenne shoved her feet into her Vans, grabbed her keys off the counter, and rooted around in her backpack for her wallet. Then she locked the door behind her and headed to the convenience store on the corner.
The gas station was open twenty-four-seven, which had helped her through many a sleepless night. Plus, they carried every single package of junk food and instant meal she’d fallen in love with way more than she should have during her freshman year at Virginia Commonwealth University. She had Ember to thank for most of it. And it’s not like anybody expects grad students to be eating organic, locally-sourced, sustainably-grown meals made by their in-house chef every single day. Nope. I got to leave all that behind me at the Summerlin farm.
She caught her reflection in the glass door of the gas station. I look insane. The last twenty-four hours have been insane too.
The electric bell by the checkout counter dinged when she pulled open the door. Katie looked up from her yoga magazine and jerked her chin up at her latest customer in the middle of the night. “Hey.”
“Katie,” Cheyenne muttered, giving the convenience store’s night-shift employee a nod and a fleeting, distracted smile. She headed for the chip aisle, craving Funyuns.
“Got anything interesting going on tonight?”
“Not really.” Cheyenne didn’t think she could look at the girl who was her own age. Sometimes, she’d spend a few minutes telling Katie about the random programs she was building or the ridiculous things some people thought they could hide on the internet. Not like Katie understood any of it. But Cheyenne didn’t mind someone else her own age, with no connection to her life beyond the fact that she worked at the closest gas station to the half-drow’s apartment, to talk to in two-minute bursts before not having to think about her again. At least until the next time she came in to stock up on food that would make her mom scowl.
She snatched the family-size Funyuns off the shelf and turned toward the beer cooler. It didn’t matter what kind she picked. She didn’t even look. I just need to cool off. Figure out what I’m gonna do next with this FRoE crap.
Katie bobbed her head behind the counter, one earbud stuck in her ear as she pulled the six-pack of beer and the onion-flavored junk food toward her to scan them. “You know Moon Hooch?”
“No.”
“They’re great. Wanna listen?”
“I’m good.” Cheyenne tried to smile again, but it got lost in translation and even felt like it didn’t look remotely friendly.
“You okay?” Katie raised an eyebrow and turned the card reader toward Cheyenne.
“Just a weird night.”
“Weird like you took something?”
“What?”
The girl behind the counter lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and smirked. “Just ‘cause, you know, my brother comes by sometimes after he drops acid. And you kinda have the same look. Not gonna judge. I just didn’t think you were into that kinda thing.”
“I’m not.”
Katie chuckled. “Not what?”
“On anything. Or into it.”
“Okay. Sure. Just curious.”
Cheyenne ran her card to pay for her beer and snack, and the girl’s inability to quit smirking was contagious. Then Cheyenne managed a genuine smile, however small. “Are you?”
“I mean, I guess it—”
The door opened, and a guy in a hoodie with his hands shoved in his pockets and hood pulled up stormed into the convenience store. Both women glanced at him, then Katie pulled down the corners of her mouth and sucked in a breath. “Yikes. Looks like it’s a weird night for everyone.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Cheyenne grabbed her purchases and nodded. “Thanks, Katie. Have a good night.”
The other woman lifted a hand and wiggled her fingers, then glanced from Cheyenne to the dude in the hoodie, who was standing in front of the chips with his shoulders hunched. Nothing too weird about that, except Cheyenne could hear the dude’s heart hammering in his chest. He’s on something, or he’s about to do something stupid.
When she reached the door, she turned around to nod at Katie and push the door open with her back. It gave her a second to look at Hoodie again, and she found him glaring at her from beneath the hood shadowing most of his face. He looked away, antsy, sniffing, and shoved his hands deeper into his hoodie pocket.
She heard a click, then she stepped outside and let the door close behind her. He’s gonna do something stupid.
Chapter Twenty
Cheyenne rushed around the side of the gas station, dropped the beer and the Funyuns, and closed her eyes. This is the part where going drow on command is necessary. Right now. Come on.
She imagined Hoodie pulling a gun on Katie and shouting for her to open the register. She saw the gun that idiot troll had pulled on her. The gun Durg had pulled on Trevor first, then used on Ember.
Too many damn guns.
The searing heat flared at the base of her spine. Cheyenne didn’t have to let it build. She slipped into her anger and her power in two seconds and sucked in a deep breath as her ears tingled at their pointed tips. “People need to stop being so stupid.”
Whirling away from the side of the gas station, the halfling with dark-gray skin and white hair stormed toward the front door. She flicked her hand, the security cameras sparking and sputtering to a lifeless blackout.
She yanked on the handle a second after Hoodie pulled the gun she’d known was in his pocket and pointed it at Katie. Another quick flick of the hand before the cameras inside could record a drow on the premises.
“Empty the register.” Even though his voice was low and he didn’t shout, it squeaked at the end. “Do it.”
Katie stared at the gun with wide eyes and couldn’t move. The electric bell chimed, and Hoodie whipped his head toward the door.
“Put it down.”
The wannabe robber’s chest heaved as he weighed the drow halfling standing with her hands out, palms facing him and fingers splayed.
“What the fuck?” he said.
“I know. Sorry to crash your party. But seriously?” Cheyenne nodded at the gun in his hand, still aimed at Katie but trembling. “Chill out, man. Put it down.”
She sensed Hoodie’s heart going a mile a minute. Katie’s, too.
The guy glanced at the gas station employee, whose face had turned deathly pale, then he put his other hand on his pistol and trained it on Cheyenne instead.
The guy wasn’t a magical, or he’d be shouting something about a drow having no business breaking up his attempted robbery.
“Man, just drop the gun. I don’t wanna hurt you. Well, I kinda do, but I know I shouldn’t.”
“What’s wrong with your face?” Hoodie’s voice cracked.
Cheyenne snorted. “You know, I get that a lot.”
The guy’s hands were shaking so much, it amazed Cheyenne he could hold the weapon. To prove to her that he could, he fumbled the hammer back and swallowed. “Get away from me!”
“I thought you were here to rob the place. Don’t make it personal.”
Hoodie squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.
Panting, he turned the gun over to stare at the safety. He fumbled with it, but before he could finish sliding it off, Cheyenne came at him in a blur. The air popped when she stopped, and the shockwave of her drow speed blew his hood away from his face and sent a stand of giant lol
lipops off the counter to scatter all over the floor.
The guy shrieked as the thin woman with bleached white hair, slate-gray skin, and glowing golden eyes unexpectedly invaded his personal bubble. He swallowed and simply gave his gun to her.
“You gotta cut this out.” She took the weapon, thumbed the safety on, and placed it on the counter. “Grab that,” she told the cashier.
“Sh-sure.” Instead, Katie’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she slithered to the floor, knocking her chair backward.
Cheyenne and Hoodie turned to see the girl pass out, then Hoodie started hyperventilating. He glanced at Cheyenne and barreled past her toward the front door. The bell dinged.
“Huh.” Cheyenne glanced at the gun and shrugged. “That was a little disappointing. Katie? You okay—”
The chime for the open door dinged again. Two guys stepped in, one after the other. Neither bothered to pretend they were looking for snacks. They both pointed guns.
Cheyenne narrowed her eyes. “Your guy didn’t pass his test, huh?”
The men in matching denim jackets opened fire on the drow halfling. Cheyenne ducked and found herself once more moving faster than bullets just to dodge them. Plaster and metal grating from above the cooler and glass from a shattered security camera rained down along the far wall.
She straightened in the middle aisle between the snack stands and unleashed black tendrils of her magic at the closest gunman. The dark coil whipped around the gun and pulled Denim Guy 1 forward, yanking the weapon from his grasp. His momentum sent him head-first into the beer cooler door, and he struck it with a thump.
Denim Guy 2 looked like he’d just woken from a bad dream. He turned toward Cheyenne and saw her in a different spot. He went to aim at her, but she threw purple and black sparks at his face. He howled in pain and dropped the gun to bury his face in his hands. She stepped toward him and glanced around the convenience store for something to tie these guys up with. Prepackaged shoelaces hung on a hook below the counter.
The screeching burglar fell to his knees, clutching at his face. Cheyenne headed for the shoelaces, then spared a quick glance toward the beer cooler. Denim Guy 1 wasn’t where she’d seen him fall.
His running shout came a second before he slammed into her from behind. Cheyenne’s head whipped back as she fell toward the edge of the counter. She stopped herself with her hands and spun to the side as her attacker’s fist whipped through the air where she’d just been. Her hand shot toward his neck, which she caught with the edge of her palm. The guy choked and staggered back, hands to his throat, staring at her in disbelief and desperation.
These are just regular, stupid criminals. No magic. I can’t let everything out on them.
“Just give up, man.” She shrugged. “I’m not even trying.”
Denim Guy2 with the burned face sobbed into his hands.
Then 1 released a choked, garbled shout and charged her again. Cheyenne stepped out of the way and let him run into the beer cooler door a second time. She grabbed him by the back of his stupid denim jacket, both the top and the bottom, and yanked him away from the glass door.
She’d only meant to shove him down the aisle, maybe make him trip on himself or his friend and get them both on the ground. Learning how to stay in her happy place made it hard to gauge how much strength she needed to use, though. The halfling ended up lifting the guy off his feet and tossing him clear over the tops of all three rows of snacks, instant meals, protein bars, and expensive sample-sized packets of over-the-counter pain relievers. He landed on top of the ice-cream cooler beside the door. The glass beneath him cracked, and his flailing feet kicked over a rack of sunglasses.
Cheyenne stifled a laugh. “Whoops.”
The guy on the ice cream cooler groaned.
“Stay there.” She darted around the aisles and stopped in front of him with another crack in the air. It took all the cookie packages off the shelf at the end of the aisle and scattered them around her feet. The half-assed burglar took a swing at her anyway, which didn’t help his precarious balance on the cooler.
She leaned back at normal speed and avoided the blow. “Why?”
He swung again, missed again, and tried to leap off the cooler. His legs didn’t get the memo, and he wobbled and fell on the floor, crushing the packaged cookies.
“Stop.” Cheyenne reached for his shoulder, but he slapped her hand away and grunted. “You probably have a concussion, so…”
He swung at her again and glared at her with glazed, unfocused eyes.
“Oh, boy.” She stepped back a few feet, and the guy kept coming. His foot came down on a knocked-aside bottle of allergy pills, and he lost his already questionable footing. The guy’s chin hit the floor with a crack, and Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. This was not what I was going for, but Katie’s not shot, and nobody got robbed. So there’s that.
She grabbed the back of the guy’s denim jacket and made sure she lugged him with a little less force to where his buddy was now hunched all the way over his knees in front of the counter, sobbing and groaning and still clutching his face. His unconscious partner thumped on the floor beside him, but it didn’t stop his whining.
With a sigh, Cheyenne snatched two packages of extra shoelaces from the hook and stripped off the paper with one quick jerk. When she grabbed the crying guy’s wrists to pull them down from his face, he screamed even louder.
“Hey!” He stopped short at her tone, and she put a little more pressure on his wrists. “You already know what I can do, so cool it.”
The guy held his breath, and she jerked his hands away from his face to reveal a blistered, puckered mess where eyes, a nose, and a mouth should have been. Cheyenne couldn’t help moaning in surprise and disgust…and maybe some sympathy. Maybe.
“That’s what you get for shooting up gas stations like an idiot.” She jerked his hands behind him, wrapped the shoelaces tight around both wrists, and made sure he couldn’t slip out of them. She did the same with the triple-concussed guy on the floor and stood. “Rethink your choices. Or something.”
The guy with the mangled face was still holding his breath. Whatever it was, it lasted long enough to make him pass out—or maybe it was just the pain. Either way, he slumped beside his friend, and Cheyenne blinked at the two beat-up humans in matching denim jackets tied up inside a ring of smashed chip bags and spilled Rolos.
“Yeah. Weird night.”
Katie groaned behind the counter, and Cheyenne hurried toward the door. She couldn’t let anyone else see her like this, and she hadn’t mastered the part of her magic that required turning off the drow whenever she wanted.
The Cheyenne Katie knows left, like, ten minutes ago.
“Oh, my God.” Katie pulled herself to her feet and gawked at the destruction in her place of work.
“You should call the police,” Cheyenne called over her shoulder, and the door shut behind her.
Somebody had already made that call after hearing gunshots and a grown man shrieking inside the gas station. Blaring sirens headed toward the corner. At the side of the building, Cheyenne stopped to grab her beer and Funyuns, and even in the gas station’s low light against the wall, it was obvious she wasn’t human-colored yet.
Blue and red lights flashed at the end of the street, and she strode toward her apartment building. No one’s gonna know what the hell just happened in there. That was ridiculous. Maybe I will leave fighting humans off the table for now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cheyenne would have slept in a lot later if her phone hadn’t woken her up at 8:00 a.m. on the dot. Grunting, she slapped her hand on the bedside table, then on her phone. She grabbed it, eyeballed the incoming call, and accepted it.
“Mom.”
“Morning, Cheyenne. What kind of big questions?”
Rubbing her eyes, the half-drow turned onto her back and blinked at the ceiling. “Great. You got my text.”
“I have to admit it made me curious.” Bianca Summerlin paused on the oth
er end of the line. “Should it have made me concerned, too?”
“I’ll leave that up to you, Mom. ‘Cause I don’t know.” She sat up and rubbed her face. Four hours of sleep again. Awesome.
“I’m listening.”
“You ever heard of the FRoE?”
Another pause was followed by one of Bianca’s sharp breaths that meant she was planning the most level-headed, clear-cut response. Today, it was simply, “I have.”
“How about an Inmate 4872?”
“Hmm. Would you mind telling me where this is coming from?”
Cheyenne rolled her shoulders, stretched a little, and stood. “I came across a few things last night, and you can imagine my surprise when I saw my mom’s name pop up.”
“I see. Well, I’m glad you came to me about it first.”
“That seemed like the best thing to do. So what can you tell me?”
Bianca sighed. While her voice carried a hint of relief, she spoke with her well-crafted, businesslike flair. “What you found is about your father.”
“My father.” Cheyenne paused in the doorway of her bedroom and stared at the dual monitors in her living room. The silence stretched.
“I’m willing to have this conversation whenever you want, Cheyenne. Absolutely. Just not over the phone.”
“Right.” The halfling closed her eyes and nodded. Someone’s always listening. “Okay. I’ve got a few things to take care of today—”
“Like school?” She made it sound like a hopeful request and something of a condemnation all at the same time.
“Sure. What are you doing tonight?”
“I have a meeting tonight I can’t reschedule. How about tomorrow? I’ll clear my calendar for the day.”
Cheyenne leaned against the doorframe and took a deep breath. “It won’t take all day.”
“True. Why don’t you come home when you’re finished with class tomorrow? We’ll have dinner and open a bottle of wine.”
“Wine. It’s that kinda conversation, huh?”