Chapter Five #2
“Do what, lass?”
“Win. Every time. Those shots, they shouldn’t be possible.”
His grin widens. “Maybe I’m just that good.”
“Bullshit.” The word comes out sharper than I intend, but I’m tired of dancing around the truth. Tired of pretending I don’t see what’s right in front of me. “You’re doing something. Something…” I gesture vaguely. “Something impossible.”
Ronan’s grin doesn’t falter, but something shifts in his eyes. Something ancient, wild, and not quite human.
“Lass…” he says, leaning on his pool cue, “… this whole place runs on magic you don’t wanna understand.”
The word hangs in the air between us.
Magic.
He said it so casually as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“Magic,” I repeat slowly. “You’re telling me you’re using magic to win at pool?”
“I’m telling you that some of us are just born lucky.” He winks. “And some of us can make our own luck.”
My heart pounds hard in my chest, my hands are burning, and somewhere in my head, a voice that sounds suspiciously like my own, is screaming I should run. I should get out of here, and stop asking questions before I learn answers I can’t unknow.
“You’re home, Sloane.” That same woman’s voice from weeks ago alarms in my head, louder this time, so loud I have to close my eyes, a slight headache forming in my temples.
I should get the fuck out of here.
But I don’t.
I simply open my eyes and stare right back at Ronan with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. “Prove it,” I say. “Do something right now. Show me this is real.”
Ronan’s grin falters. “I don’t think—”
“Show me!”
He glances over my shoulder, and his expression changes. Turns carefully neutral. Almost guilty.
I spin, and Crave is standing ten feet away, and the look on his face is terrifying.
Not angry.
Worse.
Controlled.
The kind of control that comes right before an explosion.
“Ronan,” he says, his voice deadly soft. “A word. Now.”
“Boss, I was just—”
“Now!”
The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. Conversations fade. Even the music seems quieter. Everyone is watching, waiting to see what happens next.
Ronan sets down his cue and follows Crave toward the back hallway. But before they disappear, Crave’s eyes find mine, and in them, I see something that makes my blood run cold and hot at the same time.
Warning.
Apology.
Hunger.
Then he’s gone, and I’m left standing by the pool table, my hands shaking, my mind reeling.
‘Magic you don’t wanna understand.’
But I do want to understand.
Desperately.
I want to understand why my hands glow in the dark and why I can feel emotions in my blood, why Ronan can bend probability, and why Crave looks at me like I’m both salvation and damnation.
Why this place, these people, feel more real than anything in my regular life.
I return to the bar, but I don’t sit down.
Eden watches me with those too-knowing eyes. “You should probably go home,” she says quietly. “Before you see something, you can’t unsee.”
“What if I want to see it?”
“Then you’re braver than most. Or more foolish.” She refills my glass even though I didn’t ask. “Either way, Crave’s not going to like it. And it could cause problems… for all of us.”
“Why does everyone keep talking around the truth?” My voice rises, frustration bleeding through. “What is this place? What are you people?”
Eden’s smile is sad. “It’s not for me to say, sweetheart.”
Before I can process that, before I can ask what the hell she means, Crave emerges from the back hallway. Alone.
He walks straight to me, his expression unreadable. “Outside,” he says. “We need to talk.”
It’s not a request.
I follow him out the side door, into the alley where the night air is cool and sharp, and the noise from the bar is muted. He runs a hand through his hair, looking more rattled than I’ve ever seen him.
“I’m sorry about Ronan,” he says finally. “He shouldn’t have said what he said.”
“Is it true?”
“Sloane—”
“Is it true?” I step closer, anger, fear, and desperate hope churning in my chest. “Is this place running on magic? Are you all—” I struggle for the word. “Are you all something other than human?”
His jaw tightens. “I can’t answer that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s not good enough. I’ve been coming here for weeks. Over a month of feeling like I’m losing my mind because strange things keep happening to me, and every time I’m around you, around this place, it gets worse. I deserve answers.”
“You deserve to be safe!”
“I don’t want safe!” The words burst out of me, raw and honest. “I’ve been safe my whole life…
small, invisible, playing by the rules. And you know what?
It’s a fucking lie. Safety is a lie. Normal is a lie.
And whatever is happening to me, whatever I’m becoming…
” I hold up my hands, and in the dim light of the alley, they’re glowing faintly crimson-gold.
“This isn’t normal. So, stop protecting me from the truth and tell me what the hell is going on! ”
Crave stares at my hands, and the look on his face is pure shock.
“When did that start?” he demands.
“Three days after I met you. It only happens at night. Only when I’m alone.” I lower my hands, the glow fading. “What’s happening to me?”
He’s silent for so long, I think he won’t answer. Then, quietly, he exhales, “I… I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!”
“I’m serious. I’ve lived a very long time, Sloane. And I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening to you.”
Lived a very long time.
I grab onto that phrase. “How long?”
“Too long.”
“Crave—”
“There are things I can’t tell you. Rules I can’t break.
Not because I don’t want to, but because breaking them would put both of us in danger.
” He steps closer, and I can feel the heat radiating off him, or maybe it’s me, my blood responding to his proximity.
“But you’re right. You deserve some truth. ”
“So, give it to me.”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I see the war happening behind his eyes. The desire to tell me everything versus whatever is holding him back.
“This place…” he says finally, “… it’s a sanctuary. For people who don’t fit what people would describe as ‘normal.’ Those who have gifts, curses, call them what you want, that make them different, dangerous, special.”
“Like Ronan’s luck-bending.”
“Among other things.”
“And you?” I ask, my heart pounding. “What’s your gift?”
His smile is dark and twisted. “That’s one of those things I can’t talk about.”
The words settle over me like a shroud.
Not, I won’t talk about it. I can’t.
“Okay… how old are you?” I whisper.
“Old enough to know better than to get involved with someone innocent like you.” But even as he says it, he’s moving closer.
Close enough, I can see the silver flecks in his eyes.
Close enough that I feel the pull between us.
“Old enough to know this, whatever this is between us, it’s going to end badly. ”
“Maybe I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“But I don’t.”
We’re inches apart, close enough to kiss, his breath cool against my lips, lingering there long enough to make my pulse stutter.
“Your hands are glowing again,” he murmurs.
I look down. He’s right. Crimson-gold light pulses beneath my skin, brighter than before.
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“I think—” He stops himself. “I think you’re waking up.”
“To what?”
“To what you really are.”
Before I can ask what that means, before I can process any of this, he steps back, breaking the moment.
“Go home, Sloane. Sleep. And tomorrow night, come back. We’ll figure this out together.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
But I don’t want to leave.
I want to stay here in this alley and demand every answer until nothing is hidden anymore.
But I see the strain in his face, the war between what he wants and what he’s allowed to do.
So hesitantly, I turn and leave. But as I walk to my car, as I drive home through the empty streets, my hands won’t stop glowing.
And I can’t stop thinking about what Ronan said.
‘This whole place runs on magic you don’t wanna understand.’
He’s wrong.
I do want to understand.
Even if it destroys me.