by Rose Wulf
What if whoever had stolen her purse decided to come to the address on her license to steal more stuff? Or do something worse? She would be all alone.
I’m not defenseless. She might be alone and frightened that night, and that would probably cost her some sleep, but she was not defenseless. Any might-be intruder would quickly come to regret pushing their luck with her.
“Well,” Grandma said hesitantly, “if you’re sure.” She scrunched up her lips. “I’m coming back tomorrow to check on you, though. I don’t want to hear a lick of complaint about it.”
Ophelia smiled a little easier this time. “I’m okay with that.”
“Then we should get going,” Keith said. He’d since released her shoulder and for a fleeting moment, Ophelia had forgotten he was standing beside her.
She looked over at him, confused for a moment. Then she shook her head at herself. “Sorry for freaking out on you. Don’t worry about me, I’ll—”
“Oh no,” he said, interrupting her firmly. “Don’t even think about walking. I’ll take you home.”
That screamed bad idea, but Ophelia didn’t have a good way out.
“Would you?” Yvette asked, placing a hand on his elbow. “Oh, that would give me a great peace of mind.”
Keith smiled. “Absolutely.”
It was decided, then. Because Grandma really needed to get on the road and Ophelia couldn’t exactly tell Keith she wouldn’t be walking the entire distance home. Technically, it was smarter not to risk being seen using her powers like that, anyway, but in this kind of circumstance, she’d have done it without caring. Except now her Elder knew she had another option.
They walked together to the parking lot, watched Grandma climb into her Buick, and bade her goodnight. Ophelia frowned sadly at her car, knowing she’d have to risk it being towed by leaving it overnight in the public lot. Then with heavy reluctance, she followed Keith to his car.
The weight that bogged her down as she ducked into the passenger seat was foreign to her. Being a creature of the air, she was used to being light on her feet and feeling a certain sense of freedom. Unburdened by things that were silly to her people, like gravity. She wondered if that was what this felt like. If that was why she could hardly lift her feet, why her hands felt as though they were tied to dumbbells, why her chest seemed to be crushed beneath invisible bricks.
This is wrong. But it was just a car ride. Surely, she was overreacting. More likely, her panic was due to the loss of her purse and the possible fallout yet to come.
“All right,” Keith said as he eased to a stop at the exit of the parking lot. “What’s your address?”
She glanced at him and belatedly realized he had pulled up his car’s built-in GPS feature. That was the easiest way to go about it, she supposed. It also meant he wouldn’t forget the address later. Wondering if she’d regret this more than she’d have regretted disobeying, Ophelia rattled off the information and watched him type it in. A few seconds later, the automated voice told him which direction to go and he pulled into traffic.
“I’m really sorry about your purse,” Keith said after a minute, his voice subdued. “I feel bad.”
Guilt joined the churning emotions in her chest. Why do I keep reacting like he’s the enemy? Once again, he was behaving properly—even gentlemanly—and she was reacting as if he’d done something horribly wrong. Out loud, she said, “You don’t need to, it wasn’t your fault. It was just my bad luck.”
He was silent for a moment. “Well, I’ll write down my number for you, and when you get access to a phone, if you need anything, give me a call. I’m happy to drive you anywhere you need to go.”
Her lips twitched despite her conflicted, swirling emotions. “That’s very generous.” She would call Alice, or a cab, if she got hold of a phone that wasn’t Batson’s, but she didn’t need to tell him that much. He could probably guess he wouldn’t be her first call. Actually… Was going to a neighbor a reasonable action in a situation like this? Perhaps in the morning, if Batson was home, she could go around to his front door and ask him for a ride to her car. A perfectly normal, neighborly favor thing. That wouldn’t be too weird. Would it?
Then again, he wasn’t likely to be home that early. She shouldn’t get her hopes up. The most she could hope for was using his phone later.
“This might be an unwelcome thought,” Keith started, “but … well, your license was in your purse I’m assuming?”
Ophelia turned blinking eyes toward him. “It was.”
He glanced at her briefly before returning his attention to the road, sliding into the necessary turn lane as he was prompted. “I’m worried about you living alone, without a phone, when someone just stole your purse and knows you probably don’t have a way to call out or escape.”
She shivered, as much at the voiced prospect as the fact that he’d gone there, too. “I’ll admit I’ve thought of that,” she said. “But I’m not as defenseless as I look. I’ll be fine.”
He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “Of course, it’s up to you,” he said. “But if you’d rather, I could wait for you to get what you need and take you to a friend’s house. Or a hotel.” He didn’t offer his own place and Ophelia appreciated and respected him for that.
She considered, briefly, accepting his offer. “Thank you, but no, I’ll be okay.”
He was silent a moment. “If you’re sure.”
She nodded, which was dumb, and turned her attention out the passenger window until they finally reached her street.
A strange combination of relief and guilt twisted her stomach when Ophelia spotted Batson’s truck in the driveway ahead. She certainly hadn’t done anything wrong, but she knew how it might look when she stepped out of another man’s car. This whole thing is a mess. Really, how had she managed to get stuck in this position? Regardless, she had to deal with it now. “This is me,” she said, indicating the empty driveway before them.
Keith obligingly eased to the curb, not bothering with pulling into her spot. The gesture surprised her, but she appreciated it all the same.
“Thank you,” Ophelia said, offering him a sincere smile as she released her seatbelt. “It was nice of you to go so out of your way to take me home.”
He returned her smile, but after a second, his attention sidetracked to something beyond her and his expression fell to neutral. “Is that him?”
“Huh?” Ophelia turned, her sweeping gaze easily spotting Batson unloading something from the bed of his truck. She didn’t see anyone else in the vicinity. But Keith’s question made no sense. Why would he care about her neighbor?
“Is that your husband?”
Ophelia’s stomach plummeted and her head spun, making her feel faint as she twisted around again in her seat with widened eyes. “What? Why would you—”
Keith met her stare again, this time with a frown curving his lips. “I’m sorry. I was supposed to play dumb, but … the whole idea is absurd to me. I don’t get why you’re playing along with it.”
Sweat broke out along her brow and Ophelia fought to keep her breathing steady. How…? “Keith, are you hearing yourself? You’re not making—”
He sighed, unbuckled, and adjusted to better face her. “You don’t have to lie to me, Ophelia. Yvette told me everything. I know you’ve been married since you were eighteen and that you’re not allowed to talk about it for some stupid reason. But it’s just us in this car, you can talk here.”
Her mouth fell open. Grandma … told him? “She … what?” Ophelia could barely understand what he was saying at this point. Why—why—would her grandmother do that? But what other explanation was there? She shook her head and began fumbling with the door. “I-I need to go,” she muttered. “I need air. Thanks for the ride.”
“Ophelia,” Keith called, reaching out for her arm as she finally popped the door open. She slipped from his touch, unable to speak, and stepped from the car on wobbly legs. There was so much to process, so suddenly, it was probably a good thi
ng the walk to her front door was a straight line. She wasn’t prepared for Keith to catch hold of her shoulder a couple of steps later. “Wait, please,” he said with quiet insistence. “I’m sorry to surprise you with this, I just want to understand.”
Her brain was in disarray. So much disarray that her feet actually stopped and she let him turn her enough to look into his eyes again. “There’s nothing for you to understand,” she said slowly. She intended to add some sort of instruction, or request, to keep what he shouldn’t know to himself, but he didn’t give her the chance.
He frowned again. “It’s bad enough you’re still going along with it at all,” he said, “but are you really doing it to honor some deathbed wish?”
She sucked in a breath and took half a step back. “What?”
“That’s what Yvette said,” Keith continued. “That your mother pushed you into it right before she died.” He shook his head with obvious disgust. “What kind of mother would put that sort of guilt on their kid?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “And why would you let your loyalty to a dead woman keep you shack—”
Smack!
Ophelia’s hand stung, Keith’s head swung sharply to one side, and she clenched her fist to keep from striking him a second time. “Don’t you speak about her!” Shock or no, no one—let alone a stranger—had any right to talk about her mother like that. Tears stung her eyes now as her emotions piled up. “You don’t know anything! Just leave!” She could probably scream for hours as upset as she was, but it wasn’t entirely Keith’s fault. Someone else deserved that earful more.
Keith lifted a hand to his cheek for a moment as he stared at her in obvious disbelief. “Ophelia,” he mumbled.
“There a problem here?” Batson’s interruption was both wonderful and terrible. Equally unavoidable, considering the scene she’d just made.
Keith’s eyes immediately narrowed and his hand fell to his side.
“No,” Ophelia said, doing her best not to shake. “He was just leaving.” She leveled a glare on Keith to make sure he understood his departure was not up for debate before she spun around on her heel to walk away. Batson hadn’t walked completely up to her side, for appearances’ sake, so she hadn’t yet reached him when Keith caught her wrist.
“Ophelia, wait.”
What happened next was simultaneous.
She jerked her arm free, instinctively transforming it long enough to escape confinement, and exclaimed, “Let go of me!”
Batson surged forward with a tangible rush of angry heat and a growl. “Get the hell off her.” He took hold of Keith’s shirt collar and physically walked the weaker man several steps backward, keeping his body between Ophelia and Keith even when he finally let go.
The smell of singed fabric wafted on the breeze Ophelia had unintentionally stirred in her emotional panic. At least fabric was all she could smell.
“Christ,” Keith muttered, stepping back from Batson and brushing at his shirt. “This is between me and—what the hell?” The last was added when he realized the little crumbles he’d brushed off were ashes that had once been the perfectly intact hem of his collar. He lifted his shirt to take a closer look, seeing for himself the new, strangely shaped, singed hole below the neckline. “What the hell?” Keith looked up at Batson again with wide eyes, a spark of fear shining within.
Ophelia wished she felt bad about that, but she was still too angry. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, she knew it probably would be bad if Batson didn’t get himself together.
“How … how the hell did you do that?” Keith asked, dropping his shirt as he glanced toward Batson’s hands. Apparently, Yvette hadn’t told him everything.
“That’s none of your goddamn business,” Batson returned. “You heard the lady. Get the fuck of her property.”
A second passed. Then another. Something in Keith’s eyes changed. “You’re both screwed up,” he said. He turned his less-frightened stare to Ophelia. “Is this why? Does he beat you?”
Batson stiffened, likely thrown just enough by the accusation to keep from immediately losing his temper in a big way.
Ophelia, on the other hand, finally lost hers. She stomped back up until she was in Keith’s face and thrust her pointer finger under his nose, blowing a gust of unnatural wind under his shirt and messing up his too-long hair. “I’m not going to say it again. Get your ass off my property this instant, or so help me, I’ll blow you so high you’ll need to sprout wings if you want a prayer of surviving the fall. And if you think I’m joking—”
She cut herself off, drew a deep breath, dropped her arm in a swinging motion, and summoned a tight spiral of air around her body. It whipped at her long skirt and hair, the sleeves of her shirt, but she kept her feet on the ground since she was outside. She waited until Keith’s eyes had gone wide with renewed fright before dispersing the controlled twister. Then she spun on her heel, her hair smacking him in the face satisfactorily, and strode past Batson. “I need a drink.”
Batson shifted his weight, as if debating whether or not to use his tightly clenched fists.
A question popped up in Ophelia’s mind and she stopped, turning back enough to see Keith walking around to the driver’s side door of his car. She almost didn’t want to address him, didn’t want to stall his leaving, but she had to know. “When?” she asked, projecting her voice to be sure he heard her. As he lifted his head, she clarified, “When did she tell you?” She needed to know how long it had taken her grandmother to go from suggesting Ophelia consider Keith as a nice prospect to pushing Keith on her against her will. Had it been that first day? Not until this morning? It wasn’t like Grandma to be late. Maybe that incident was staged after all.
“Before we met,” Keith replied.
Ophelia felt the blood rush from her body, seeping impossibly into the ground, out through her feet. That was the only way to explain the instant, immobilizing cold. Before…?
It had all been a setup, then. From the moment her grandmother had pulled those ads out of her purse at the café. Yvette had had this plan in motion since before then. Was that possible? Why would she do something so horrible? Why would she betray me like that?
“What exactly are you talking about?” Batson asked slowly, turning a cautiously raised brow toward her.
She didn’t have the strength to answer. She didn’t have the strength to speak at all.
Keith pulled open his door but paused again. “You should know,” he said. “Yvette has your purse. It’s not really stolen. That was planned, too, even though I didn’t particularly care for it.”
“What?” Batson asked, giving voice to the question in Ophelia’s chest.
Grandma Yvette… The last member of her family who spoke to her with any regularity. The last member of her family who seemed to care about her. Her trusted Elder. Grandma Yvette had betrayed her, purposefully.
The air rushed from Ophelia’s body without conscious direction and she wobbled on unsteady legs. For the first time in her memory, gravity caught up to her.
Chapter Eight
Batson repeatedly clenched his free fist as he paced his living room, the ringing of the phone at his ear grating what remained of his patience. Which was very, very little. For possibly the first time in his life, he was glad to only be half salamander. Generating flame in his preferred human form required conscious thought, and at the moment, that was good. Otherwise, the whole damned duplex would be ablaze by now. That didn’t mean his body heat wasn’t through the roof. He had to hope he didn’t melt his phone before he was done with it.
He didn’t exactly know what was going on, but he had a damn good guess.
He’d never seen Lia that pale. Never seen her beautiful blue eyes that devastated. Her grandmother had done something unforgivable to her, something that involved stealing her goddamn purse apparently, and the only word he knew to describe the look she’d had before she’d fainted was gutted. Then her eyes had rolled up in her head and she’d crumpled. She’d have hit the grou
nd, hard, if he hadn’t been close enough to catch her.
The bastard who’d put his hands on her, who’d accused him of abusing her, had had the brains to drive off at that point.
So Batson had done the only thing he could under the circumstances. He’d carried his wife inside, laid her on his bed, let himself into her half of the house in order to rifle through the old-fashioned address book she kept at her small writing desk, and punched Yvette’s number into his phone. He didn’t fucking care that she didn’t like him, or that they had maybe exchanged five words in the past ten years. The old bat had some explaining to do.
The ringing finally stopped with a soft click. “Hello?” He didn’t actually recognize the Elder sylph’s voice, but the speaker was female and sounded elderly enough.
“Yvette.”
A pause. “Yes. Do I know you?” Naturally, she didn’t recognize his voice, either.
“It’s Batson,” he said with a snarl. “What the fuck have you done? Who is that bastard you sent Lia home with and why the hell do you have her purse?”
He heard her take a breath and envisioned her frowning down her nose at the phone. “I have nothing to say to you, mongrel.”
He bristled. “Do you have any goddamn idea how much you’ve hurt her?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?”
Yvette huffed as if she were offended. “I’ve not hurt her,” she said shortly. “And this is no game. I’m trying to save her. She is my only grandchild and I won’t see her future ruined.”
Batson had to fight to keep from throwing his fist into a wall. To keep from roaring his frustration to the gods. “Bullshit. You’re trying to sabotage our marriage and we both fucking know it.”
“Your so-called marriage is a disgrace, not just to sylphs, but to all creatures of nature.” Yvette’s tone had become sharp. He’d hit the nail on the head. “The biracial experiment my son and your parents hoped to use you for is despicable. Since I can’t talk my no-good son into dissolving your contract, I’m going to force one of you to violate it. It isn’t as if you feel any true loyalty to each other.” She was practically sneering now. “It won’t be that hard.”