“It’s Washington D.C., Dexx. What the hell are they going to do?”
“Anything they damn well want!” He slammed his non-clawed hand onto the desk. “They’re the fucking government. What can’t they do?”
This was not the time to get into a debate on government. “I’ll be okay. The kids will be fine. If we get into trouble, I’ll get us out of it like I always do.”
“No. They want to ki—”
“We need to show them that we’re safe!”
“So you’re going to masquerade our babies around the media like circus pets?”
When he said it like that. “No.” Yes, but maybe not like circus pets. “We need to educate these people, to let them see that we’re normal… people.”
“They don’t care,” he growled.
Paige didn’t want to admit it out loud, but she knew he was right. How many other groups had tried the same thing, appealing to the human nature and the hearts and souls of others? Sharing pictures of their babies who had been shot or killed while in their own yards or while watching TV on their own couches?
People struggled to remain empathetic. The news or the society or whatever had made it easier to turn themselves like as if their empathy was a switch. They might care. They might not care. They could invest in others. They could save their energy stores and invest in themselves.
“This might not work, but I have to try.”
He gave her a cool glare, working his jaw. “Do I have any say?”
Paige swallowed. The right answer here was yes, but she’d already made up her mind. She wasn’t going on a mission without her babies. The same babies she’d literally just pushed out of her frelling body not even a week ago. “I love you.”
Dexx growled and glared at his desk. “Yeah.”
The conversation was done.
Paige hated leaving it like this, but she knew they’d be okay. And maybe she wasn’t right. Maybe he was.
But she was done leaving her kids behind in order to save the world. At some point, she was going to have to stop sacrificing her mom time.
She just wished the world had waited to explode for another month. Or year. Or… ever.
It didn’t (feel?) like the world was really into the wish granting arena, though.
7
Dexx made it really hard to stick with her plans, though. His bad mood was rather pervasive and he wasn’t giving it up.
The mayor had decided to call a town hall meeting before Paige left so that Paige had a “better understanding” of the town’s need before she went to Washington D.C. Paige still didn’t believe she might actually meet the President, but Merry informed her not to worry. She had that under control.
It was easy for Merry to say. She wasn’t the one about to meet the President and provide the demands of the entire paranormal nation.
Which…what the hell was she thinking? Who did she think she was? She was a nobody. Okay. A powerful nobody, but still. She was a police detective from Texas. She didn’t know everyone.
But she was starting to realize that perhaps this was exactly what the Elders had been grooming her for when they’d been sending her across the United States to talk and deal with the paranormals when issues arose.
She definitely had a serious case of imposter syndrome. That was for sure.
She tried talking to several of the paranormal leaders, trying to talk them into going in her stead.
They’d all shut her down pretty fast.
Which just meant that this was the job no one wanted. It didn’t feel like her neck was in a noose at all.
Excellent.
While the town was busy with their meeting, a few key people were already at work getting the town the supplies Suzanne West had said they needed. Paige didn’t need to be a part of that, which felt really weird. She was used to being the person who did the things.
And now she was the person who came up with the ideas and let other people do the things.
What had her life become? She thought on that all the way to the school. She was on rotation to pick them up.
Leah called navigator, but Mandy already had the back door open.
Tyler shot at trees with his voice.
They left the school in search of Danny Miller, the reporter who’d kind of been following her since Denver. She’d promised to investigate his sister’s murder, but had never followed up. She’d gotten a lot busy with other things and she felt like she was three steps in debt for this conversation.
He didn’t seem to mind, though, as he held Ember’s sleeping, furry form. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you. We need to get to the word out. We need to make sure that the real news is getting out there.”
He nodded, his dark-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose a little. “They offered you a position in government?”
As if government positions were like royal titles that could just be handed out—not that they were done that way in reality. She knew that. But… Whatever. “No. I don’t know the first thing about politics.”
“Then why are you the one leading the charge?” He pulled out his phone.
“Is this an interview?”
“Maybe.”
She wasn’t ready for this. What if she said the wrong thing? Which she did on a semi-regular basis? “Look, I’m just a normal person trying to do what’s right.”
“And why you?”
“Because everyone else said no.” Shit. She shouldn’t have said it out loud like that, throwing everyone else under the bus. But… “They have people they are responsible for. I… I mean. I don’t have a coven. I don’t have a pack. I don’t have a police force.” Anymore. “I have a family, so I have the time.”
“Even though you should be on maternity leave.”
“Ha— we’re in the United States of America where we pride ourselves on our slavery of service. Who gets maternity leave? Canadians. Canadians get maternity leave.”
He snorted and ducked his head. “Are you taking them with you?”
She released a long breath. “Yes, but can you keep that to yourself for now? I—” She shook her head. “Dexx is a bit pissed about that.”
“Does he havee good reason?”
“Yup.”
“But you’re doing it anyway.”
She didn’t say she was being rational. “Yup.” But her mommy hormones weren’t going to allow her to leave her darling little terrors behind.
Paige had called Mario and told him he was free to come into town to talk to the people. He’d been pleased to hear from her, but his tone let her know just how well she’d played right into his hands.
She decided she wasn’t going to warn him about their wards. She’d let him figure that out on his own.
The “town hall” was actually out on the street. There were too many people who wanted to see this and be a part of it. Similar to the last time they’d had a meeting like this to discuss how the town was going to handle Sven. The mayor had a microphone set up by the museum at the end of the street. The shop keeps had little tables out on the sideway for passerby’s. It wasn’t that they were trying to make money, but they offered things the townspeople needed.
Like coffee and donuts.
And spells in bottles and soaps.
You know. The basics.
Suzanne greeted Paige on the flatbed she’d had set up. It was very impromptu and well-thought out. Well… well-thought? Maybe just very workable. It was amazingly very workable. “I hope we can calm the crowd. They’re very nervous. Don’t forget that a lot of humans stayed behind to create a life living with your kind.”
No pressure. “I won’t.” She stopped herself midway to the podium. What the hell was she doing? She didn’t have what it took to lead these people? All of them. They looked to her—well, they were mostly facing her, but looking just about everywhere except for at her, which was okay—but they were expecting her to know how to answer the th
reat against them.
And she just didn’t know.
Neither did anyone else and that was the problem. No one had trained for a day like this. And she had.
Unfortunately. She composed herself and stepped to the podium. Confident on the outside.
She glanced at Mario who looked rather pleased with himself. She wanted to hear what he had to say, so she introduced herself. “Look, guys, I know we’re all scared. But we’ve got someone from the agency who started this. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Mario looked a little surprised and then he climbed up on the flatbed and smiled down at everyone. “Good evening, everyone,” he said in his slight English accent. “I just have a few words for you.”
Half an hour later, his few words were still going. The President had issued a warning to all paras throughout the nation. They needed to register with the government, like sex offenders, so they could be monitored. They’d be given a device to keep their paranormal powers at oppressed to keep their neighbors safe.
The more he spoke, the more uncomfortable the people in the town got. And it wasn’t just the paras who were showing concern.
Paige gave the crowd a tight smile and gently pushed Mario out of the way. “He’s certainly given us something to think about, hasn’t he?”
“What are you doing about this?” a woman shouted at her.
“I’m going to D.C. to talk to the President. I’m hoping this is just a simple misunderstanding, that once she realizes we’re not horrible people, that things will settle down again.”
“And what if it doesn’t?” a man shouted from the front. “What if they decide shooting is easier?”
Paige didn’t want to have that discussion in front of Mario, but she had no way of politely getting him out of there.
Luckily, Eldora did. She took Mario’s arm, opened a door to ink-black nowhere, and pushed him through.
Good enough. Paige just had to hope that there weren’t any other ears, even though she knew there would be. There had to be. That was just the law of averages.
“Then we’ll face it like we have everything else.”
The man looked more irritated.
She could understand that. “There’s something you don’t know. My family have been fighting bad guys for generations. My grandma—the woman who died saving all of us just—” She couldn’t continue past the lump in her throat. It had only been two weeks since Alma had died fighting Sven. It was all terribly too soon to be this flippant about it. “She fought evil during the World War. My sister and I have been fighting evil since we were in high school. My kids? Her kids? Since they were in grade school.”
The worry on the looks of the faces of the people she could see was stagnant. She wasn’t able to focus on everyone. She was too overwhelmed to be able to.
“Can I promise you that things are going to get better, that we’ll be able to return to normal? No.”
A couple of people raised their faces to her.
A few turned away.
“They’re not going to stop hunting you,” someone shouted from somewhere in the middle of the street.
He wasn’t wrong. “I know, and none of us wanted to drag any of you into this fight with us. We just wanted to live normal lives.”
“What if we can’t?” Dexx demanded. “What if they come in here and take us, our kids? What if they try to force us to submit?”
She heard the underlying of previous conversations. He hated big government and he wanted to simply overthrow it. “Dexx.”
He looked at her, his green gaze solid and unmoving. “This is our chance.”
She shook her head. “We have to try peace first.”
“And when that doesn’t work?”
She looked out over the crowd, not wanting to utter the next words out loud. “Then we may have to go to fight. Go to war.”
He shook his head. “You know we’re going to war. It’s what they want.”
A few people throughout the crowd cheered this. The ones she saw were human though, and it didn’t feel like they were cheering the idea of war.
They were showing their support of his idea, that this was the only play.
“We don’t have to give them what they want.” She had to find a way to end this peacefully.
“So, then we surrender.” Dexx gestured to the crowd. “And the nation follows our lead. Then all the paranormals will be tagged and rounded up, herded into jails and detention facilities. Tested on. Beaten. Tortured.”
She hated him sometimes.
“Our kids.”
He knew that if they had to fight, she wouldn’t back down. “We’re trying peace first.”
“And when it fails?” he asked again.
“We’re going to war,” she growled.
The crowd growled with her.
But not everyone.
Most everyone was just as terrified as she was.
One way or another, they’d find a way through this.
8
Paige explained that they’d rigged the wards to protect the people from people doing anything bad. She didn’t go into great detail to explain what would happen to people who tried something harmful, only that they wouldn’t appreciate the outcome.
That made a lot of people feel safer.
Until Paige stated that meant that those living under the ward couldn’t do anything harmful either. They could discipline their kids—because a good thunk on the head did work better than time out—but they couldn’t beat their husbands.
And then the crowd went a little wild. What was she doing invading their homes with her promises of “safety?” Who did she think she was to force her brand of “good” on other people? She wasn’t even a Christian.
Yeah. She wasn’t taking that bait.
She tried talking to Dexx afterward, but there were a lot of people intent on talking to her and reminding her that she didn’t understand the careful nuances of all of their lives. She knew that already. And while her first instinct was to put her hands up and cover her face, she relaxed and listened.
She had a lot of people in her town she didn’t even realize she had.
Elders who couldn’t move to a safer place because they couldn’t afford to and no one to take them. They had an entire retirement community filled with retirees she never knew about. And they were all gloriously human. Not a lick of magick in them. They wanted their medications—which they each had a laundry list of—and internet. Not so they could do a lot on it, but so they could Skype. And they wanted the cable TV turned back on so they could watch the news. It was the only way they could keep their finger on the pulse.
And a lot of them loved Fox News. A few even knew that it was false reporting, but it was like watching a soap opera called news. And they loved that.
Paige hoped that in some alternate dimension of their world, Fox News was a real news station with unbiased reporting.
But she knew that with the laws of averages—that again—there were probably just other dimensions with Presidents worse than their own.
She couldn’t think that way. She’d voted for this President. This was a misunderstanding. That’s what this was. She’d go and talk—if she could even get in—and they’d find a solution. A real solution.
She couldn’t let her fear get the better of her.
And she wasn’t. Not really.
She was letting the irritation of Dexx not calling her back get the better of her.
He was at the house as she gathered the twins who were both sleeping, but he was absolutely silent. No jokes. No attempts to make the situation lighter.
Which only made it worse.
She put Rai’s carseat down on the ground and went up to Dexx, trying to kiss him.
He accepted her lips. He didn’t give his in return.
Ouch.
“I’m sorry, Dexx. I just can’t leave them behind.”
He nodded, his lips quirked down
.
She could almost hear his words as if he’d spoken them out loud. She went into dangers when she was prego, but she always had left the kids at home where they were safe.
Except they weren’t always safer at home away from her protection. “Do you remember the time DoDO came and shot up the house not even knowing where the kids were?”
“Do you remember how I handled that situation?”
“Do you remember the time you invited our enemy to a BBQ and he nearly killed us?”
“He didn’t even come close.”
No. That’d been later, like the next day. “They’re in danger no matter where they are because they’re our kids.”
“Yeah.” He finally looked at her, stabbing her soul with those brilliant green eyes, his lips so temptingly close to hers. “Our kids. But I never purposely tossed them into the lion’s cage.”
“Hey, Mom,” Leah said as she bounced down the stairs. “I’m packed.”
Dexx’s hackles rose. Technically, Leah wasn’t his daughter, but he treated her like she was and that mattered more. “Veto. Put your stuff away.” He more growled than spoke.
This was one she couldn’t refute. Taking babies into a potentially dangerous situation? Yeah, okay. She was a horrible mother. Taking her teenaged witch daughter to Washington D.C.? No.
He shook his head, seeing the answer on her face. “And Bobby?”
That was their other adopted son, a little older than the twins. “Staying.”
“Why? Because he’s the one you don’t care as much about?”
Oh, spicy. “Because I only have two arms.”
“Leah brings another two.”
“Those are the two I was talking about.” He needed to understand that she wasn’t stupid. The mother in her just wasn’t allowing her to consider leaving her week-old babies behind. That was all. And, besides, she didn’t care what woman she was talking to, President or no, their little hearts would melt at the sight of babies. And their babies were adorable.
She was taking any weapon she could.
But she had a terrible feeling in her gut. It might be that she had to poop. Her hormones were still wildly out of whack. But she knew that things weren’t going to be good. She just hoped she could figure it out.
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