ONE #2
A breeze threaded its way through the alley, scattering the remains of what had tried to choke her moments earlier. She pushed herself up on shaky hands. Her throat ached, and her eyes still stung from the pepper spray and shock. It was a struggle to stand.
Zarek turned toward her. The moment his gaze met hers, her world tilted. His sea-glass eyes held too much depth and power, along with a pull that should have made her want to look away.
So, of course, she didn’t.
Zarek’s expression flickered with alarm before he looked away.
“What—” she croaked, then swallowed, wincing at the hot, angry welts around her throat. “What was that?”
Zarek’s gaze snapped back to her. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“No kidding.” Angela coughed, using the wall to help her stand as her knees trembled. “That thing—he—whatever that was, hurt that man.”
The injured man was still sprawled on the floor, breathing deeper than Angela could through her tender throat.
Zarek crouched beside the male victim, pressing two gloved fingers to the man’s temple. A faint shimmer moved beneath his fingertips, and the injured man’s eyelids fluttered.
Angela wasn’t sure if it was some new CPR technique, a pressure point trick, or literally anything that belonged to the world she understood.
But clearly her eyes, teary from the pepper spray, were doing a terrible job of seeing what was real.
Especially when Zarek lifted his gloved hand over the victim’s head, and the man’s face slackened, as if he’d fallen asleep.
“What did you do to him?” Why wasn’t anyone calling the police? Ambulance? And where was her handbag?
Zarek stood, turning to face her. “He won’t remember.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Zarek lifted his hand toward her.
“Don’t.” Angela flinched. Her arm came up to shield her as her back pressed against the brick wall. “Don’t come any closer. Please.”
With his gloved palm half-raised, his fingers lightly curled back under. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Then what are you trying to do?” Her voice shook as badly as her legs.
“I’m trying to help you. You shouldn’t remember this.”
“That would be nice.” She let out a short, breathless laugh that held no humor at all. Her gaze flicked to the scattered ash at his feet, then to the empty space where the black-cloaked thing had been standing moments ago.
None of this was real, expecting to wake up any minute now. But the ache in her throat, and a shopping list of pain wracking her body, that as ugly as it was, she’d never been more awake in her life.
“I don’t think my brain is ever going to make sense of that… this… you…”
The man, dressed like some warrior from another time, narrowed his eyes at her. His head tilted, making his angular cheekbones stand out against his strong jawline. Of course he had to be handsome.
“I can make you forget.”
Surprisingly, the way he said it wasn’t threatening.
“I wish I could forget…” She licked her dry lips. “Or this is the worst mugging in the history of muggings.” Her car was just down the alley, near the lights, and the restaurant was just on the other side. This was supposed to be a simple shortcut. That’s all.
Zarek’s brow creased as he studied her. “You’re not reacting the way you should.”
“Seriously? I just watched a man turn into fire, stone, and ash. I think I’m allowed some flexibility in my reactions. I don’t think there are any textbooks for this, are there?”
“You should not be able to see me.”
“Oh, really?” Angela arched her eyebrow at him. “That’s exactly what the black-cloaked thing said. Are you two doing some cosplay drama and forgot to tell the extras what was happening?”
“They’re called Black Cloaks.”
“Right.”
“Mortals don’t see us unless—”
“Mortal? What?” Angela’s fingers curled against the brick wall, trying to rationalize all of this.
Zarek didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his gloved palm towards her.
Angela braced, waiting for him to touch her the way a paramedic checks for wounds.
But nothing happened.
Again, he tilted his head, as if listening to some hidden sound.
“Who are you?” She wanted to ask What are you, but the answer would have been too much for her mind and body to cope with right now.
Zarek turned away from her. “Go home.”
“No.” Yes is what she should have said. “I—he, you—”
Zarek’s gaze snapped back in her direction. A dry warmth brushed against her skin, as the air shimmered near his shoulders like heat on an open desert highway.
Angela was searching for her escape, and her handbag, when that indescribable wrongness returned. Stronger this time, making the air taste of old metal and blood threaded with the cloying sweetness of rotting fruit. The stench hit her all at once, making her stomach turn.
It wasn’t just bad.
It was evil.
But not from one presence. Two.
Angela’s eyes widened. “Behind you.”
Zarek turned as two more Black Cloaks slid out of the shadows like smoke learning to walk. Their hoods hid their faces in a darkness that looked too thick to be empty.
The air dropped to near-freezing temperatures, making the alley seem smaller as Zarek’s posture shifted. Blades already in hand, they flashed once. Twice.
Abruptly, both Black Cloaks stopped mid-step, hardening into gray statues. Their stony shells cracked and collapsed to become more ash that scattered across the alley’s floor.
Zarek spun around to face her, frowning. “How did you see them before I did?”
Angela’s mouth opened, then closed. She didn’t know the answer, when she was still struggling to comprehend what she’d seen, ready to run except her legs still felt like borrowed things.
Zarek stepped in close enough that the heat came off him in waves. With his eyes fixed on hers, he paused, as if something were wrong.
And that was the only normal thing about this entire confrontation.
“One green eye,” he murmured. “One blue.”
People always noticed. And they always stared, sometimes asking what had happened, like she owed them an explanation for being born wrong.
But Zarek didn’t ask. He just looked at her as if she were a problem he couldn’t solve. “What are you?”
Angela’s spine stiffened. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
He hadn’t hurt her. And she couldn’t ignore the traitorous flicker of gratitude that rose inside for being able to breathe. But she couldn’t trust any of this either.
“What about him?” She nodded to the injured man. “You can’t just leave him here.”
In one move, Zarek lifted the man with impossible ease, hoisting him over his shoulder like dead weight.
“Right. Okay. Sure. This is all perfectly normal.”
Zarek’s eyes flicked back to her. “Go home.”
Finally, her instincts, the ones that had screamed at her to run, were getting their way.
She pushed off the wall with unsteady legs, nearly tripping over her handbag. It took a few tries before her fingers latched onto the handle to start backing away.
Zarek watched her the entire time with those bright eyes, as if memorizing her.
Angela reached the edge of the alley where streetlights were too bright as the noise of the city rushed back, filled with cars, laughter, and a distant siren.
She turned back to find Zarek, standing deeper in the alley’s shadows, the injured man over his shoulder, while ash drifted around his boots. His gaze locked onto hers again, and somehow the air tightened, like an invisible thread pulled taut between them.
Angela’s throat burned that she could only whisper, “Thank you, Zarek.”
Zarek’s jaw clenched so hard she saw the muscle jump. As if gratitude were a language he didn’t know how to speak.
It was enough to send Angela stumbling out into the street, pushing through the crowd as if normal people could shield her just by existing.
Her car felt like a fortress when she finally reached it. Her hands shook so badly she fumbled with her keys, slamming the door and locking herself inside.
For a long moment, she just sat there, breathing hard, gripping the steering wheel to stop the trembling while clenching her teary eyes shut.
Only for her mind to replay the three Black Cloaks turn to stone, then ash, all from the flash of those silver blades wielded by a man made of heat, with eyes like pale sea-glass teal blue, with that deliciously deep voice telling her to forget.
She wished she could forget.
What’s more, she should have been sobbing hysterically or calling the police about a mugging she couldn’t properly describe.
Instead, she sat there… Her gaze flicked up to the rear-view mirror, reflecting the alley.
For a second, she thought she saw a black shadow with impossible eyes fixed on her car.
But when a bus drove past, he was gone.
Angela’s pulse didn’t slow as she started the engine. With shaking hands, teary eyes, and a straight spine, she drove into the night, while the world she knew quietly cracked down the middle.