8
JESSICA
The farmer gave Ethan a pair of cheap shorts and a shirt that was so filthy it looked like he'd been using it as a rag, which Ethan accepted them gladly.
But he didn't know what Uber was, and neither Ethan nor I had our cell phones on us, so in the end he called us a regular old taxi.
We made the trip back to Dallas in silence. I thought it was becoming awkward, that period after you've made an irreversible step when you both began to regret it, but then Ethan grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and I smiled, and he didn't let go until we reached his apartment.
"I, uhh, left my wallet upstairs," Ethan said as we got out. The sounds of the city, traffic and distant police sirens, were a welcome relief. "Stay right here and I'll be back with your fare."
"Meter's still runnin'," the driver grumbled.
Ethan opened the door for me and said, "I don't know about you, but I'm going to take a long, hot shower and then get something to eat."
"Sounds like a plan..." I said, trailing off as we entered the lobby. People stood around with their arms crossed, chatting quietly. And a dozen pairs of eyes swung toward Ethan when they saw him. And not because of what he was wearing.
"Hey," one man said, "thank a lot, asshole."
Another shook his head and muttered, "Made me waste my whole damn morning."
My heart dropped. I hadn't thought about it until right now, but clearly other people had seen his transformation. Who would handle that sort of thing? The CIA, or FBI? Or some crazy secretive government program nobody knew of?
Ethan pressed the button for the elevator and said, "Hey Matt, uhh, what are you talking about?"
"Fuck you," the guy spat, pulling out his cell phone and walking in the other direction.
I smiled nervously at the people around us until the elevator opened.
When it reached Ethan's floor, it was immediately obvious what had happened. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, though none was actually visible. Ethan's door, only ten feet from the elevator, was open wide and firemen in heavy gear walked around inside.
A man stood next to the door, and his eyes widened when he saw Ethan.
"You!" he said, intercepting us before we made it inside. He jabbed an accusing finger at Ethan, rage now plastered on his face. "You are a bloody idiot, Mr. Masterson."
Ethan put up his hands and said, "I don't know what's going on..."
"Leaving food on the stove is the kind of idiotic thing I've seen tenants with dementia do," he snarled, "but not someone your age."
Food on the stove. Oh no. The soup.
Ethan gave a nervous grin. "Hey, now that I can guarantee is a mistake. I slept at the office last night, and have been dead sick since then. Jessica can..."
He trailed off when he saw my face.
While his landlord berated him in the hallway, I stepped into the apartment. The kitchen was charred black, with grey foam spiderwebbing all over the walls and corners. I didn't see the pot of soup that I'd started anywhere near the stove, but then again it was so thickly covered in ash and foam that you could probably hide a body in there.
A fireman glanced at me while walking by, and rolled his eyes.
"Don't look at me, this isn't even my apartment!" I snapped. It was a lie of omission, since it was obviously still my fault, but he didn't know that.
As if by magnetic force, my eyes were pulled away from the kitchen and to the other half of the studio apartment. I felt the totem before seeing it, a pulsing sensation like a heartbeat. Stepping through the foam, I found it against the far wall next to the bed. A ring of foamless floor surrounded it like snow melted around a fire.
I snatched it as if it might disappear, and once it was in my hands the pulsing stopped.
Now he's safe. It was an emotion more than a thought, but I knew it to be true. Somehow, Ethan was safe while I held this.
Careful not to depress the emerald--that would be tougher to explain than the kitchen fire--I tucked it in my pocket.
It took the better part of five minutes thanks to the foam, but I eventually found my cell phone by the window. Surprisingly, it still worked.
I had three missed calls, all from the same person.
"Whelp," Ethan said, finally entering the room. "My landlord insists I started the fire, and I got sick of arguing with him."
"Can't win them all." Then I changed the subject by saying, "Mrs. Arnold isn't happy I skipped work."
"I thought you left her a voicemail?"
"Sure, but I told her I would only be a few minutes late because of rush hour traffic." I held my phone screen out to show him the time. "Now we're dealing with the afternoon rush hour traffic. The whole day's been wasted."
"I wouldn't say wasted," he grinned.
"Not that it matters," I mumbled, putting the phone away. "She's not gunna hire me when my contract's over anyways." I checked to make sure everyone was gone from the doorway and pulled out the totem.
"Careful..." Ethan said, putting out a cautious hand.
"Don't worry, I'm avoiding the emerald. Just showing you that I have it."
He frowned, then nodded to himself. "I knew you had it. I was out in the hall getting screamed at, and the moment you picked it up I knew. Like I could feel your fingers on its surface."
"Add it to the list of oddities of today." I put it back in my pocket. "And along those lines, how about we get a drink? I could use one, which means you could probably use seven."
Ethan looked down at himself. "I really need to get clean. I think this shirt is giving me a rash. How about a shower, then drinks?"
I took him by the arm. "Lucky for you, my apartment has both."
*
I opened a five dollar bottle of merlot and poured two glasses while Ethan showered in my bathroom. There was only one option for food in my freezer, a pasta skillet meal, so I pulled that out and dumped it into a pan.
"Hope you like spinach farfalle," I called when I heard the shower stop.
"Spinach what?"
I looked down at the skillet. "It's like butterfly shaped pasta."
"That works for me," he said, still in the other room. "Honestly, I'm not very hungry."
Yeah, cause you carved out the inside of a cow like it was a melon. I was glad to have been unconscious for that part.
He walked into my small kitchen wearing the change of clothes he'd brought from his apartment. "You look like a new man," I said, glancing sideways.
"I feel like it, too." He stepped close, his arm brushing against mine, and leaned forward to sniff the air above the stove. "Smells good. Maybe I'm hungry after all."
I handed him his glass of wine and poured myself a second, then toasted the air between us. "To not being crazy. I hope."
He clinked his glass to mine and took a long drink. "Well then. What's our plan?"
"Right now," I said, "the farthest ahead I can plan is the bowl of pasta I'm about to devour. Everything else is secondary."
He leaned against my fridge and stared off. "I don't know what's happening with my body. But I need to get a hold of it sooner rather than later. If I random transform into that thing..."
"Gryphon," I pointed out.
"...that thing while sitting at my desk at work, then I'm really screwed. And beyond that..." He hesitated.
"What?"
"The voice in my head." He pursed his lips. "It was a dragon."
"A dragon," I repeated, deadpan.
"That's what it said. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but Jessica: I believe it. He's a dragon, and if we're going to fight like he insists then I need to be ready. I need to get used to my other form."
"That's no crazier than anything else I saw today. Yeah, I agree with your assessment."
He nodded with finality. "So with all that in mind, I think it's best we take a sick day tomorrow."
I split open the sauce packet and dumped it over the pasta. "You can take a sick day. But I'm just a temp. I don't have that luxury."
"Why not?" Ethan insisted. "You said it yourself: Mrs. Arnold hates you. It won't affect anything."
"It'll affect my rank at the temp agency," I explained. "I might not parlay this contract into a full-time job, but I still need to go back to the agency and get a new contract. Two missed days in a row isn't something I want added to my record."
Ethan looked disappointed, but said, "Yeah, alright."
"You can hide out here all day." I dumped the pasta into two bowls, and sprinkled Parmesan cheese over the top. "We can test your superpowers when I get off work."
Ethan took his bowl, looked like he wanted to argue more, then said, "Alright."
BANG BANG BANG.
Someone pounded on the door so hard I almost dropped my pasta onto the floor. Ethan whirled toward the door, fear shining in his gorgeous green eyes.
"You don't think someone knows..."
But I feared I knew exactly who this was, and it had nothing to do with Ethan.
"Jess!" Mark yelled from outside, a slur to his words even though it was only 8:00. "Jess, open up!"
Ethan glanced at me. "Ex boyfriend," I whispered, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
"Jess! I can hear you in there. Don't hide from me! I just want to talk."
I didn't want to talk. I wanted to be left alone. Mark had said he understood, that he would give me my space, but that had only lasted a few days before he'd started getting possessive. I'd been ducking him for a week, and he'd finally caught up with me.
Before I could say anything, Ethan's face hardened and he strode right at the door, unlocking the bolt and throwing it open.
"Jessica doesn't want to talk to you."
From my vantage in the kitchen the door blocked my view, but I could hear the frown in Mark's voice.
"The fuck are you?"
Part of me wanted to tell Ethan to stop. To go somewhere else, to let me deal with my problem myself. He didn't need to worry himself over it, and it only embarrassed me for him to suddenly be in the middle.
But the other part of me, the larger part of me, loved seeing his muscular form step in between us. To end the harassment.
"I'm Jessica's coworker," Ethan said. "We're having dinner together. Please leave."
Mark stepped forward into the doorway, his arm coming into view. Ethan didn't flinch as Mark pointed at his hair. "Your hair's wet. You smell like fucken shampoo."
"I'm going to ask you one more time," Ethan said calmly. "Please leave so we can finish our dinner."
"The fuck I am."
Everything happened swiftly, before I could process what was happening. Mark tried to push past Ethan, his eyes locking onto me instantly. His pinched face flashed with fury, a sight I'd seen many times before, the face that had led to me dumping him two weeks ago, and as his lips pursed together I knew he was about to call me a whore.
Before he could, Ethan shoved him back with both hands. Mark bounced off the wall, surprised for a moment, but then he was twisting and swinging his right arm through the air. I felt myself cry out as the blow neared Ethan, but he was quicker, leaning back just enough for the fist to hiss through open air.
Ethan growled, a noise I felt as if it were in my own head, and punched Mark in the gut.
It was a crushing blow, the muscles of Ethan's arm flexing like some beautiful machine. Mark doubled over and fell back against the wall, gasping and groaning as he tried to breathe. Ethan, my gryphon, pointed casually at the door.
"Leave."
Mark's face twisted in rage again, and in his drunken state I almost thought he'd try to continue the fight, but some morsel of logic won through and he scrambled out the door.
The lead weights left my feet and I stepped into the doorway, watching to make sure Mark was really going. His hunched shape punched through the doorway into the stairwell down the hall, and then he was gone for good.
The door across the hall cracked open, and I saw my neighbor Aly staring out at me.
"About time," she nodded in satisfaction.
I closed my door. I'd been holding my breath, I realized, and when I let out a shuddering breath it became difficult to breathe.
Ethan steadied me with his hands. "Are you okay?"
I panted with my back against the door, the emotion of the encounter crashing over me. Ethan pulled me to his chest, his warm and strong chest, just as the tears began to flow.
I wept, and trembled, and let Ethan rub my hair with his hand, and when I finally stopped the pasta had gone cold.
"I'm sorry," Ethan said in a rush. "I don't know what came over me. I would never presume to do that without your permission, but I could feel your pain, I don't know how, but I felt it and wanted to make it go away..."
"It's fine." I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "You weren't presumptive at all. I've been avoiding him since we broke up, and a confrontation was probably for the best. Some closure."
Ethan held his wrist with the other hand. "I've never punched anyone before. Man, that hurt, even hitting him where he had no bones."
I grabbed his arm and gave his knuckles a soft kiss. "Some pasta and wine will make it feel better."
It was weird, but having Ethan nearby was a comfort. This man I'd only known for a day, who had some insane ability I still couldn't quite comprehend. But we ate pasta in content silence, and then got ready for bed, and before I could say, you can sleep on the couch, if you want, he was climbing into bed with me and sighing in the sheets.
I rolled over, and he draped an arm across my body, and it felt like the most normal thing in the world.
On the bedside table, within reach, the gryphon totem pulsed.