Chapter 10 #2
Jonas winced and nodded. “Still, that doesn’t mean I’m done talking about it,” he called out, as Terk continued to walk toward the end of the tunnel.
“You better be done talking about it,” Riff stated. “Otherwise I’m not helping you out of here. I’ll leave you right here on the sewer floor.”
Jonas groaned. “You guys are all mad.”
“Maybe, but we’re good mad, so remember that.”
And, with that, Riff carried Jonas toward the light.
*
“Did you mean it?” Amy asked Terk. “About coming to work for you?”
He nodded. “Yep, I sure did. We’ve got a lot of people working and living together, so getting along is the order of the day.”
“I can understand that,” she replied, “and my gifts are still rusty in many ways.”
He laughed. “Not in any of the ways that I saw,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen that trick before.”
She snorted. “It’s pretty easy. Once I realized what it could do, I knew just how much of a problem it was for other people.”
“Of course,” Terk agreed. “It’s one thing to have that control, but it’s another thing completely to let people know you can do that.”
“And know that he’s had a stroke ,” she added, making air quotes, “but I don’t know if he’s safe to have that knowledge.”
“After they treat him, we can see what shape he’s in,” he murmured. “However, don’t ever feel bad about self-defense. You have the right to live your life as you choose, and it’s not fair if other people keep trying to take that freedom away from you.”
“It may not be fair,” she murmured, “but you and I both know it happens constantly.”
“But we don’t have to let them get away with it,” Terk stated. “That’s partly why we do what we do.”
“I do love that,” she said, with a smile. “It’s definitely heartwarming to know that people like me are living a more normal life than I ever thought possible.”
“I’m glad to hear that too,” Terk noted. “There’s plenty of room for all of us in this world, and you’ve just got to let people know that you won’t be pushed around. I think you did that effectively today.”
She laughed. “It felt good in a way. I’d forgotten what it was like to utilize that energy.”
“Have you ever had to do that before?”
She shook her head. “No, I haven’t had to, though that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to a time or two,” she muttered. “I suppose Jonas will be on my case constantly because I didn’t tell him that I could do that.”
Wallace walked closer and reached out an arm.
She looked up, smiled, and hooked hers through his.
He squeezed her hand. “Of course you didn’t.
That’s the kind of thing we keep under wraps.
We’re more open between us and Terk and his team as relationships and as trust develops, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned? Not only no, but hell no.”
She nodded. “That was part of my problem with being isolated so much when my gifts changed. That was a big one.”
“In what way did your gifts change though?” Terk asked. “I thought you could always do this and the rest.”
“Yeah, but now I can do it without trying,” she muttered. “It’s almost too easy, as in, I have to control my temper and never get to that point.”
“That goes for all of us,” Terk noted. “We all have abilities that require control, and that’s one of the reasons I have the place that I do, because then we have a safe home base, where people can learn that kind of control.
Otherwise power without control is just abusive, and that’s not what we want at all. That’s not who we are.”
“Got it.” She chuckled. “I agree wholeheartedly.”
“Good,” he replied. “So, in that case, can I tell them at home that the apartment should become permanent then?”
She stared at him. “Is that an option?”
“It is as far as I’m concerned, so you tell me.”
She smiled. “I would love for it to become an option,” she clarified, smiling, as she looked back at Wallace. “What about you?”
He laughed. “You tell me. As far as the group is concerned, we’re already an item.”
She winced. “I did get that impression.”
“How could you not? We got the suite with adjoining rooms after all.”
“But I wasn’t sure if you were okay with that.”
He gave her a quick grin. “Honey, if I wasn’t okay with it, I would have changed it on the first night.”
“Good,” she said, “because it’s definitely how I want it.”
“Perfect.” He leaned over and gave her a big kiss. “Now”—Wallace turned to Terk—“do you think we could possibly get the hell out of here? We could use a couple days away, just to figure out our life, you know?”
“Or you could just spend a few days at the castle, settling in,” Terk replied. “That’s almost a holiday in itself.”
Jonas burst out laughing. “Like hell,” he muttered, his laughter now a coughing fit. “So much chaos is going on in that castle at any given time, I can’t imagine you’ll want to spend all your time there.”
“Maybe not,” Amy conceded, “but it would be nice to have a home base and to know that it really is home.”
“Exactly,” Wallace agreed, “so it’s all good. Let’s get the hell out of here and go home then.”
And that’s exactly what they did.