Chapter 6 #2
Liam stood in the doorway, chest heaving like he’d run the whole way. His eyes found her immediately—glowing, terrified, surrounded by chaos—and his expression shifted from panic to determination.
“Everyone out,” he said, in a voice that left no room for argument. “Now.”
“Who the hell are you?” her boss demanded.
“I’m the only person in this building who can fix this. Out.”
Something in his tone—or maybe something in the way the floating objects had started spinning faster, forming a small tornado of office supplies around Cassie’s head—convinced them. People fled. Dana actually climbed over a chair in her haste to escape.
Then it was just Cassie and Liam and the magical disaster she’d created.
“Hey.” He was moving toward her slowly, hands up like she was a spooked animal. “Look at me. Just me.”
“I can’t—I can’t make it stop—”
“I know. That’s okay.” He reached her, took her hands. The spark jumped between them, and she felt him—solid, grounded, calm. An anchor in the storm. “Breathe with me. You remember how.”
“Everyone saw. Everyone saw, Liam.”
“That’s a problem for later. Right now, just breathe.”
She tried. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. His thumbs traced circles on her wrists, the same way they had during the thunderstorm. The same steadiness. The same patience.
“Find the center,” he murmured. “All that power—it’s yours. It’s not controlling you. You’re controlling it. You just forgot.”
“I forgot to ground. All day. I was so excited about the promotion and the car and—”
“I know. It’s okay. We’ll deal with that later. Right now, just feel it. Don’t fight it. Just… redirect.”
She closed her eyes. The magic was huge inside her—bigger than she’d ever felt. But Liam was right. It was hers. It had always been hers.
She imagined roots. Not into the conference room floor, but through it—down through concrete and dirt and stone, all the way to the earth’s core. She imagined the excess energy flowing down, draining away, returning to the source.
The floating objects began to descend.
“That’s it,” Liam said. “You’ve got it. Keep going.”
One by one, the pens and pencils and phones settled back onto the table. The golden glow faded from her skin. The spinning stopped.
When she opened her eyes, the room was trashed but stable. Broken glass everywhere. Chairs overturned. A motivational poster about teamwork hanging at a sad diagonal.
But the magic was contained. Finally, blessedly contained.
“I did it,” she whispered.
“You did it.”
She looked at him—really looked at him for the first time in days—and felt something crack open in her chest. Gratitude. Relief. And underneath it all, the terrifying awareness that he’d somehow known she was in trouble. He’d felt it. Through their connection. And he’d come running.
“How did you—”
“I felt it,” he said, confirming what she already knew. “The surge. The fear. I was halfway here before I realized I was moving.” He released her hands, stepped back. The distance felt deliberate. “You should… probably deal with the aftermath.”
Right. The aftermath. The dozen coworkers who’d just watched her become a human light show. The boss who’d offered her a promotion three hours ago.
The career she’d just immolated more thoroughly than Derek’s couch.
“Medical leave.”
Cassie sat in her boss’s office, still shaky, still not entirely sure she wasn’t going to float something accidentally. Her boss sat behind his desk with the expression of a man who’d just seen something he couldn’t explain and desperately wanted to pretend hadn’t happened.
“Just until you’re… feeling better.” He wouldn’t look at her. “We’ll hold the position. The promotion. Everything will be waiting when you’re… recovered.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Cassie.” His voice was gentle in a way that made her want to scream. “Something happened in that meeting. I don’t know what. I don’t want to know what. But clearly you’re dealing with some kind of… condition. And we want to support you. From a distance. A very safe distance.”
Condition. Like she had a particularly aggressive case of the flu instead of uncontrolled magical powers.
“How long?”
“Let’s start with two weeks. We’ll reassess.”
Two weeks. Two weeks of sitting at home, thinking about everything she’d ruined. Two weeks of the walls changing color and Luna judging her and Liam being politely distant while she fell apart.
“Fine,” she said, because what else was there to say?
She gathered her things—the sad little box of desk items they’d already packed for her, which was a special kind of humiliation—and walked to the elevator.
Dana was waiting by the water cooler. Of course she was.
“Feeling better?” Her smile was poison wrapped in politeness. “That was quite a display. Very… theatrical.”
Cassie kept walking.
“I’m sure the promotion will still be there when you get back!” Dana called after her. “Assuming you get back. Mental health issues can be so unpredictable.”
The elevator doors closed on Dana’s smug face.
Cassie didn’t cry. Not yet. She held it together through the lobby, through the parking lot, all the way to her car where Liam was waiting.
He’d driven her. She’d forgotten that. He’d driven her to work this morning because she’d been too keyed up to focus, and he’d been worried about her, even though they weren’t speaking.
She got in the passenger seat.
He didn’t say anything. Just started the car and pulled out of the lot.
They made it three blocks before she broke.
It started as a hiccup. Then a gasp. Then the kind of ugly, heaving sobs that she hadn’t allowed herself since the divorce.
Everything she’d been holding—the fear, the humiliation, the crushing realization that she’d just destroyed her career in front of everyone—came pouring out in a flood of tears and snot and sounds that weren’t quite words.
Liam pulled over. Parked. Let her cry.
When she finally wound down to shaky breaths and the occasional hiccup, he spoke.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re still learning. You forgot to ground. It happens—”
“I ruined everything.” Her voice was raw. “I finally got the promotion. I finally felt like I was enough. And then I destroyed it in front of everyone because I can’t control myself.”
“You’re learning to control abilities you didn’t know you had three weeks ago. That’s not failure. That’s—”
“Maybe Derek was right.” The words came out hollow. “Maybe I am too much. Too emotional. Too everything. Maybe I just ruin things.”
“Cassie—”
“I need to be alone.” She was already reaching for the door handle. They were only a few blocks from home. She could walk. She needed to walk. She needed to not be in this car with this man who kept showing up and seeing her at her worst.
“Let me drive you home, at least.”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s two miles.”
“I need the air.”
She was out of the car before he could argue, walking fast, not looking back. She heard him call her name once, then the car door close, then nothing.
The walls would probably be gray when she got home.
That was fine.
Gray felt about right.