14
Present day
Cold night air streamed around the edges of the Jeep’s doors and windows, filling the interior with its brisk clarity. The vinyl seat under my butt crackled, giving way beneath my weight only reluctantly. Chill seeped through the cheap leather-look gloves I tugged on before gripping the steering wheel. The air was so clear that when Claire shut her door, I could hear the grind and whine of the latch as it caught.
Outside, the northern lights teased the sky above the darkened landscape. Anxiety danced along my skin, keeping time with them.
Or maybe that’s my magic I feel.
Despite my hurry, a renewed joy filled my chest, too.
I have my magic back.
This time, I would not give it up easily.
The Jeep’s engine sputtered to life, filling the deep silence of the late-early hour with its rumbling. I backed it around and aimed it down the road toward the Cox farm and the paved highway beyond that. A series of ruts jostled us as I covered the dirt portion of the path leading up to the cabin. When we crossed onto the actual road, gravel crunched beneath the tires.
I abruptly felt surreal. I’d left the places I’d chosen to live during the past years without ceremony before—every time I’d left, that’s how I’d gone. But I couldn’t recall ever leaving in the middle of the night, without so much as giving notice at my job. The darkness and moonlight and colors floating in the sky outside converged into a dream-like quality.
The first time I’d fled anyplace, it had been darker yet, but for different reasons. Fire-induced midnight revisited my memory, choked with black smoke and heat and anguish. If I hadn’t been away from the city when the explosions happened… If Heimdal hadn’t first shielded me and then compelled me to leave…
I’d fled with him from my home. Now I ran from him.
“Where…” Claire huddled against the passenger door, as if she’d changed her mind and might crack it open and fling herself out at the first opportunity. “Where are we going?”
I turned my head just far enough to look Claire over one more time. With the way the girl crammed herself against the door and the querulous note in her voice, you’d think I’d taken her against her will, instead of Claire insisting.
I caught myself hoping Claire would escape from the Jeep at the first slow-down. Not that I was going so fast at the moment—dust rolled up behind the Jeep, filling the night with eerie white plumes. I didn’t want to risk disturbing Maureen and Everett when I drove past. As it was, if they were up, they’d glimpse the headlights drilling through the darkness.
Claire was still looking at me. Still waiting for an answer.
I didn’t have one. “I don’t know. Grand Forks, I guess. There’s a bus station there.”
“Oh.” Claire sniffled and ran a thumb under one eye. Her eyeliner smudged only a tiny bit this time, not like the total collapse it had suffered this morning. Or, given the hour, yesterday morning.
“That’s where I am going, at least.” I continued splitting my attention between the road and my passenger. “What are you going to do? This guy, he’s bad enough news to leave town?”
Claire shrugged with one shoulder. Her eyes glittered with fresh tears. “I don’t know what to do. I’m really into him. I think he’s into me, too.”
“But?” I intoned the word with gentle sternness. I wasn’t sure I liked the dangerous rollercoaster of indecision Claire seemed to be riding. “You think he’s drugging you. That doesn’t sound like something someone who’s genuinely ‘into you’ would do.”
Claire sniffed, but this sounded less like a sniffle and more like indignation. “I do things recreationally. Just because our screwed-up government doesn’t appreciate the rights of individuals to—”
“It’s not the same thing,” I cut in. “Legal or not, there’s a difference between choosing to do something and being tricked into it. There’s this thing called ‘consent’?”
Claire didn’t answer right away. “Maybe,” she finally mumbled.
“Do you want out of this relationship or not?”
Again, Claire was silent a moment before responding with a mumble. “I don’t know.”
Terrific.
The leading edge of my headlights picked out the mailbox at the end of the Cox driveway. Beyond it, the farmhouse windows were dimly lit—Everett’s equipment or maybe lights they left on all night. Nothing blazed, and I worried less about disturbing them.
A twinge of betrayal pinched my gut. If Claire really did ride all the way to Grand Forks with me, then Maureen would need to find not one but two new workers. She couldn’t run the rental office and general store herself, not with Everett needing near-constant monitoring. How much money would they lose if they had to shut down for even a single day? It could cost the resort customers—cabin rentals for days, maybe even an entire week. And they needed the money—the resort didn’t do poorly, but they had Everett’s medical bills to deal with.
Damn it. I should’ve at least left a note. An apology. Something.
Maureen would worry. Belatedly, I realized that with Claire vanishing, too, and especially with Claire’s van parked in front of my cabin, someone might suspect the worst. Once the hour was more human, I’d need to at least text or email Maureen as soon as possible, so she wouldn’t call the police.
Or maybe, maybe, I was overreacting to the whole situation. Maybe I should turn around, haul my belongings back into the cabin, and deal with my personal failings in order to not make Maureen’s life more difficult than it already was.
Damn it!
But I could feel my magic. Even in my state of emotional upheaval, it thrilled through my veins. In the headlight beams, colors sparked and flashed from the white light—colors I knew without asking that Claire didn’t see. The colors called to me, begging me to touch them.
I don’t need this Jeep to travel. All I need is my magic. I could go anywhere …
Habit developed over the last six years had driven me to pack in the mundane way. Claire’s presence now locked me into that path. But maybe that was as well, anyhow. I’d never completely understood how Heimdal’s Watcher abilities worked. Using the magic might draw attention I didn’t need.
This is real. I have to go. I’m sorry, Maureen.
I aimed my mental apology at the farmhouse as the Jeep passed the oft-mended porch. A sense of calm settled over me, like a touch of dawn at the end of a restless night.
As we cleared the far end of the farmhouse, onto the last few yards of gravel before the paved road that would take us to Route 2 and eventually to Grand Forks, a new light flared in the rearview mirror.
My first reaction was to think that Maureen had heard the Jeep after all and thrown on a light in the house. But after a disoriented moment, I realized the new light came from the wrong side of the road to be the farmhouse. The new light was round and white, like a single spotlight.
A second later, the sound of an engine revving put the pieces together for me.
Motorcycle.
My heart lurched into my throat.
The only houses along the road behind us were my cabin and the Cox farmhouse. The bike had come from across the road from the farmhouse. Which could only mean the motorcycle had been parked there.
Lying in wait, maybe. Maybe for me.
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. I fixed my attention on the road ahead and teased the gas pedal, spurring the speedometer needle higher. I needed to reach the paved road sooner rather than later.