Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “Emma —”

  “Aiden, I can’t … talk about it now. I have to make certain that everyone is okay, including you. I need everyone to be okay first. Then … then I …”

  “All right.” Aiden’s expression was tight, grim. But he allowed me to help him to his feet and get him back to the SUV.

  We drove to the property in silence. Aiden sat with his right arm still held gingerly across his body, draped in the bedding from the hotel. We’d stolen it in an attempt to keep him somewhat warm as he moved to the vehicle. He had his head back, resting, but with his gaze on me. His regard felt as though it was actually singeing my skin, but I tried to ignore it while I slowly negotiated the SUV through the snow.

  We arrived safely, though slowly. Taking the driveway carefully, I reversed into the parking area beside the barn.

  Aiden opened his mouth to speak as I shut the engine off.

  I shook my head sharply, still gripping the steering wheel.

  He closed his mouth. Then he just sat with me in silence as I watched the house, picking out the feeling of Christopher’s magic, of Paisley and Opal’s magic within. My chest was tight, my temples aching.

  I never got headaches.

  I tried to push through all the emotions stifling me. Christopher was right. I was scared. So scared …

  “Emma.” Aiden reached for me.

  “No,” I blurted out, barely keeping the sobs choking me at bay.

  He let his hand rest on the leather console between us.

  I softened my tone. “No, please. We should get you into your pentagram so you can start healing.”

  “I’d like to at least be able to say goodbye,” he said gruffly. “Before you ask me to leave.”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t … I wouldn’t ever ask him to leave. I forced myself to speak. “I … you never have to leave, Aiden.”

  He tried to brush his fingers against my arm, but I opened the door and stepped out into the snow. I glanced back at him as I closed the door behind me. His expression was pained, eyes closed.

  I crossed around, wading through the deep snow to help him out of the SUV, but he stepped out, raising a hand to ward me off.

  I curled my fingers in, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I just need a moment.”

  He nodded, awkwardly closing the door behind him, the hotel bedding wrapped around him like a shroud.

  I glanced over at the house, then back at Aiden. “Can you give me a moment to …” I struggled to focus my thoughts. Again. “I need to tell you something, and then … will you wait for me?”

  “Always.”

  “Do you need help up the stairs?”

  “I’ll be fine, Emma.”

  I stepped away, forcing myself to move forward into the pending moment.

  “Emma,” Aiden whispered. “I’m sorry. For drawing my brother and Ruwa here. For hurting you through them.”

  I shook my head, then checked the motion because it felt too sharp, too erratic. As if I might be on the edge of an emotional precipice.

  “I’m not sure you can be blamed, Aiden. Ruwa was obviously here for me. She’d been trying to hire me, I think. Since San Francisco.” I turned toward the house, trudging through the snow. “And I’m not hurt.”

  “Just because you don’t have any wounds or bruises doesn’t mean you aren’t hurt, Emma.”

  I ignored him, leaving him to get himself over to the barn and up to his pentagram in the loft. I needed to see Opal, and Paisley, and Christopher. Then I needed to send a couple of emails — though one of them should probably wait until I’d talked with Aiden. Which meant I had to have an actual conversation with the sorcerer, not just gaze idiotically into his eyes. Not just force myself on him, magically and sexually.

  And, now that I’d acknowledged it, I was so tired of being scared.

  Scared of myself. Scared of ruining everything.

  Opal was playing video games in the front sitting room with Paisley. The young witch and the demon dog had a large bowl of tortilla chips between them, and were utterly enraptured.

  Paisley was holding a controller with two of her tentacles, mimicking the outward stretch of Opal’s arms. Her other tentacles were waving around her neck, holding tortilla chips.

  “Hi, Emma,” Opal said brightly, barely glancing my way before looking back at the game on the TV, then frowning at something. “No, not that way. Look, you’re going to go off the cliff!”

  Paisley started waving the controller around.

  “What … that’s not going to do anything … you’re going to drag us both …” Opal growled in frustration, then madly stuffed a handful of chips in her mouth.

  Paisley did the same.

  “Look,” the young witch spat. “Now you’re dead.”

  My heart felt like lead in my chest. But I had an inkling that if I stepped forward, if I brushed my fingers over Paisley’s flat, solid head, then touched Opal’s shoulder … if I settled down on the couch with them … the feeling might ebb.

  I could trick myself. I could pretend that everything was okay, was going to continue to be okay.

  Except it wouldn’t be.

  One day, it would stop being okay.

  And I didn’t play games, not even with myself.

  I continued back down the hall, stepping into the kitchen. Christopher’s gaze was already on me as I crossed from the fir floor onto the white tile. He was cutting vegetables, but I didn’t look closely enough to try to guess what he was making.

  “You came home,” he whispered. His magic glinted from his light-gray eyes, forming a tight ring around each iris. He was primed, watching my future in the moments before it actually unfolded. “Is Aiden okay?”

  I nodded, then forced myself to speak. “He’s in his pentagram. I’ll go check on him in a moment. I just needed to …” I was so shut down, so weirdly cut off from my own thoughts and emotions that I couldn’t remember what I’d come into the house to do.

  I needed to check that everyone was okay …

  Right.

  Was this some sort of panic attack? Was this what being terrified felt like?

  “Ember is on her way. With Capri.”

  “What?”

  Christopher lowered his voice. “Capri, Opal’s foster mom.”

  I blinked at him. “You read my email?”

  He frowned. “You cc’d me, remember? When we didn’t know where Aiden was, and you weren’t sure —”

  I cut him off. “When will they be here?”

  “Depends on how the airports are doing with the weather. Seattle has gotten hit too. We didn’t find any trace of Isa. The tracks just stopped, like he got into a vehicle. Hitchhiking, maybe. No residual magic.”

  I nodded.

  “Socks?”

  “It will be okay, Christopher. I’m going to make sure everything is okay again.”

  He set his knife down. “I don’t know what that means.”

  I turned away, heading toward the laundry room.

  “Emma …”

  I shoved my bare feet into my gumboots, having left my lined boots at the front door. I stepped out the back door before Christopher could follow me. Before he could demand answers that I didn’t have yet.

  Aiden was sitting cross-legged in a large black-painted pentagram, surrounded by an active field of blue magic. His hands rested on his knees, the runes carved into his copper rings etched with even brighter energy.

  He was drawing power from the rings to fuel his healing spell.

  The scene was an almost-perfect replica of the first time I’d seen him in the pentagram, except for the deep, dark bruises starting to appear across his wrists, shoulders, and torso. The runes etched across his skin in black marker were faded, emptied of power.

  Aiden met my gaze as I climbed the last few stairs into the loft. I caught my toe on the last step, stumbling. I’d forgotten to remove my boots, tracking snow and water through the barn.

  I should have felt like an idiot for having done so.
Except I couldn’t feel anything through the numbness that currently occupied my mind, smothering all my senses.

  I slipped off the boots, leaving them at the top of the stairs along with my jacket. Then I crossed toward Aiden.

  He lifted his hand as if to dispel the pentagram.

  “Don’t,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “You … you’re really hurt.”

  “I’ll heal,” he said gruffly.

  “Yes. My point exactly.”

  He twisted his lips, but settled his hand on his knee again.

  “You lost the bat? In the dimensional pocket?”

  He shook his head. “I’m fairly certain it teleported with me.”

  I paused in between two points of the pentagram, feeling the shimmer of magic gently humming against the exposed skin of my arms, neck, and chest. “So Isa took it.”

  “Emma —”

  “I lost my blades as well.”

  “I’m sorry. I can … I can help you find others —”

  I waved my hand. “Not important right now.”

  “What is important, then? You obviously don’t want me to apologize.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t want me to swear vengeance. To hunt down my brother.”

  “No.”

  “And I can’t give you any assurances that he won’t be back, with my father in tow.”

  I shook my head.

  “And you won’t ask me to leave. That you made clear. But I have no idea if you want me to stay.”

  I didn’t answer, still sorting through my thoughts.

  “What do you need, Emma?” he whispered. “Just tell me. Anything … anything in my power is yours.”

  I sank to my knees before him, just out of his reach. Then I looked at him, met his piercing blue eyes, and shoved words through the mass of emotions clogging my chest, my head. “I need you to hear me, Aiden. I need you to know who I can be, who I am really. Then … then I need to ask you a question.”

  “I’m listening, Emma.”

  “I’m … I grew up surrounded by four other powerful people. We were trained for every moment of the life the Collective expected of us. I never had to … to worry about hurting the people I was … closest to, because they were so powerful themselves. Bred to be that powerful. To have and to wield. All five of us.”

  “And … I’m too weak?”

  I shook my head, harshly enough that I hurt my neck. I checked that erratic behavior for the second time, forcing myself to remain still. “Then came the day when I was suddenly expendable. And the others were marked for death because of me. So I did what I needed to do, and I … I found Paisley that day, and almost lost Knox. I never expected to walk away.”

  I met Aiden’s steady gaze, desperately needing him to understand. “We took that entire compound down, the five of us. But in the end, it was only me standing …” I faltered.

  “I’m listening,” Aiden murmured.

  “I took their power. All of their magic, every last drop of it. Fish, Bee, Zans, and Knox. And I … I destroyed … everything —”

  “Emma —”

  “No, please. Listen to me.”

  He clamped his mouth shut. Then he nodded stiffly.

  “I need you to know what I’m capable of doing, what I’m capable of … of being. I destroyed everything. Everything. Every last thing. For five kilometers in every direction. Anything and everything in my path, magic, buildings, weapons, people, animals, the entire swath of rainforest where the Collective had hidden the compound.”

  Aiden’s expression was so impassive that it could have been carved of stone.

  “That’s why Christopher says that about me. Holds that against me. I do destroy everything … everyone I touch.” I forced the words from my throat. I was incapable of containing them anymore.

  My life had expanded at a terrifying rate. And I didn’t have the capacity to hold back the emotions that came with that.

  “Opal,” I said. “Kidnapped twice now. Because of me. The second time because I amplified her magic, claiming her without permission, marking her out for Ruwa … then Jenni … and you. And now I’ve amplified Lani without permission.” I brushed the tears away from my cheeks, so, so angry with myself. “My … friend …” My voice cracked, devolving into a sob. “She’ll never be the same now.”

  “Are you done?” Aiden’s tone was harsh, laced with frustration and pain.

  “Yes!” I cried. “I’m fucking done!”

  I breathed deeply, struggling to calm myself, to resolve what I was feeling into an actionable plan. A course that I was better suited for. A life I understood.

  “I’m … I’ve decided …” I said.

  “Decided what, Emma?” Aiden’s gaze was unyielding, unflinching.

  “I’ll email Daniel …”

  “And leave. You’ll leave Christopher? Paisley? The property? Your home, your friends?”

  “Daniel will protect them. Far better than I can. He … his magic isn’t …” I kneaded my temples. My head was aching from all my thwarted tears and stifled fear. I threaded my fingers through my hair, pulling on it harshly. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be Emma Johnson.”

  “It’s not any easier being Amp5.”

  “No. But it’s more straightforward.”

  “To be the killer the Collective made you.”

  I met his gaze. “Yes. Yes.”

  He nodded.

  “Aiden?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you … will you come with me?”

  “Will I come with you? Go where magic wills us? Contract to contract, dealing deadly deeds? No consequences, no rules? Destroying everything in our path until someone stronger steps up and wipes us from the face of the earth?”

  “Yes. Until someone … until someone does what I just can’t do, and removes me from the equation.”

  “At each other’s side until the grisly end?”

  “Yes. Aiden, yes. Will you come with me?”

  “In a heartbeat, my love. Every day, any day by your side.” He reached for me then. The pentagram dispelled with an audible snap as he scooted forward awkwardly to smooth the tears away from my cheeks. I leaned into his touch, knowing how much it was costing him to even hold his arm aloft. He needed much more time to fully heal.

  “But that’s not your path, Emma Johnson,” he whispered. “Before you, Opal was living on the streets, and the untapped magic in her blood made her a target for every evil entity in the dark. Jenni was on a crash course with the West Coast pack, even if she didn’t know it. And now, when they come looking for her? They’ll find you. And the same could be said for Christopher and Paisley. Couldn’t it?”

  He paused, offering me space to agree.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  Aiden laughed quietly. “And there’s me.” He wiped more tears from my cheeks. “I was so far gone that I woke up on the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere, lost, utterly lost to the darkness. Bereft of hope. Slowly but very effectively killing myself. And then … I saw you. A goddess. An angel. Sitting in a goddamn cafe. You could have struck me down, Emma, in that moment, and I would have died happy, fulfilled, just to have seen you. Touched you. Ridiculously fulfilled. These last months away from you have been torture. Yet every evening, I fell asleep hoping that I’d soon be by your side once again. That thought kept me moving forward.”

  Aiden smoothed his fingers through my hair. “So yes,” he said. “If you want to destroy everything, and in doing so, call forth powers that we have no hope in hell of standing against, I’ll be there if you want me. But you know what I would prefer?”

  I sucked in a shaky breath. “To build a life?”

  “Yes. This life. The life you are already carving out for yourself. As hard, as flawed as it is. Will you invite me to share that with you, Emma Johnson? Making mistakes as we stumble along? Together? Will you rescue me?”

  “Yes.” My breath caught in my throat. I f
orced myself to breathe, to truly consider the path he was offering to walk with me. “Yes, if you want me to.”

  He smiled. “Good choice. Because I’m fairly certain the others won’t let you go without a fight.”

  “I was planning to slip away.”

  He laughed. “They’d follow. And you’d feel even more guilty for dragging them away from the house, the life you’ve helped them build.”

  I sighed. “I would.”

  His shoulders slumped with exhaustion, yet his hold was firm as he twined his fingers through mine. “I’m seriously surprised you were able to get rid of Daniel.”

  “I’m never free of the Five, Aiden. They only have to call, and I’d have to go to them. Daniel knows that. So there’s no point in pushing me. I’d make his life hell if he forced me to do anything I didn’t want to do.”

  Aiden laughed softly.

  “This … this is important,” I whispered, reaching back to part my hair and pull it forward from my neck. “The Five are bound together. Possibly to our mutual deaths. If you stay with me, you might get the other four as well.” I tugged my sweater up at the back, pulling it over my head and twisting my torso so Aiden could see the blood tattoos on my upper spine.

  He didn’t react.

  I turned back to look at him, pulling my sweater back on.

  “I’d already felt the bindings on you,” he said. “And yours on Christopher and Daniel. Not all the time. Perhaps just when they trigger? The first time was in the loft before Christopher had the vision of the snatcher demon.”

  I sighed. All the trepidation and fear drained from me, leaving me weak limbed. “You already knew.”

  “I assumed that was why you were researching binding spells and magical transference.”

  “No …” I grew a little lightheaded at the idea of trying to rid myself of the blood bonds. “No, Aiden. I … I’d never try to remove the ties to the Five. They’re part of me, even if I think it’s best that we stay apart.”

  He nodded.

  “That’s … okay?”

  “Okay?” He laughed, incredulous. “Any scenario in which I get to spend any portion of your life with you, Emma, is more than okay with me. Even if I have to share you with others.”