33. Benson
Benson
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Thea.
It’s been more than a week and I’m still beyond annoyed with Zair. He spends most of crafting complaining that Thea won’t open up to him. I don’t know why he cares. He doesn’t like her, thinks she’s ugly.
The dude is seriously blind.
She’s the kind of woman you marry.
The thought stops me cold and a shot gets past me that I should’ve stopped. Coach makes me run laps after practice for it.
They don’t help.
By the time I get done with my shower, the locker room is empty and I’m sure that Thea and Zair have vanished into their secret nook in the main library.
I grab my bag and head to the goblin building.
There’s a lot of noise coming from the library, hopefully not another argument about befriending spiritborne.
“You’re scaring her.” I stop short as my hand rests on the door.
Her? I step inside and have to blink a few times to confirm I haven’t lost my mind.
Thea is sitting at a table on the far side of the room.
A pile of books surround her. And every goblin is standing around, talking over each other, voices raising.
“Hey!” I call, everyone ignores me, after two more failed attempts to get everyone’s attention I put my fingers in my mouth and whistle. The goblins all turn to me, but my eyes are on Thea as her face lights up when she sees me. It takes me a second to remember what I’m doing.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
Silence. I raise an eyebrow.
“She came to research something,” Gabe says, pointing to a paper on the table.
“And we were just trying to help,” a goblin with acne I don’t know says.
Only Thea could charm a room of goblins into helping her. Though they all look remorseful at getting caught. I meet Thea’s eyes and she suppresses a smile. I know exactly what she’s thinking because I’m thinking it too. We’re so going to hell.
“What are you doing in our space, witch?” I snap.
The goblins let out a collective gasp. Talking to a witch like that, is a good way to die.
“She had a dream about Ruby Zoisite,” someone says.
A death stone. I approach the table, holding her eye contact.
“Is that so?” A few murmured agreements. “I don’t care. Leave.”
The room is deathly silent.
I shake my head and pick up Thea’s picture. Another gasp. Ril et Thren written in Graven in her messy handwriting next to a spotted stone, five flowers growing out from under it.
Thea pretends to pack up her bag. “I don’t want to bother anyone.”
“Benson, she isn’t hurting anyone.”
I meet each of their eyes then turn to Thea.
“I know. This from your dream of Jerimiah?” I ask her as I come around the table. She nods as I pull over a chair and sit right beside her.
“Wait, what?” someone asks.
“Thea had a dream about a goblin she grew up with the other night,” I tell them before turning and adding. “And he’s dead, which would explain the death stone.”
“You know her?” the acne goblin asks.
I wink at them.
“Asshole,” Gabe says and throws a ball of paper at me.
“It’s not my fault y’all are unobservant and jump to conclusions. We’re together all the time.” I smile as everyone grumbles and returns to their work.
Thea has a book open to Ruby Zoisite. I pick it up and compare it to her drawing. “Why didn’t you ask me about the stone?”
“You’re busy,” she says as she takes her hands from her lap and reaches for the picture. She’s wearing elbow length gloves that I stare at.
“Why are you wearing gloves?”
She looks down at them then back at me, her long eyelashes holding my attention.
“I was trying not to contaminate everything.”
For how loud she is, she really does try to shrink herself.
“I’m never too busy to help you. And you’re not hazardous.” I hold her eye contact, my heart racing as I’m tempted, so tempted to close the distance. Instead I exhale, look down and grab her hand. Carefully pinching the fingers of the glove and pulling it off.
“How do you know how to do that? It took me fifteen minutes to get one off yesterday!”
“Opera gloves were popular when I was in my twenties.”
She studies me as I take her other hand and repeat the process. I’m about to pass the glove back when I get the scent of it. I raise it to my nose. It wrinkles at the smell.
“No wonder Dylan thought you smelled like a goblin, shifter, demon threesome!”
She cackles and I can’t help but join in.
“I borrowed them from a shifter in my English class,” she explains. I pass her the gloves.
“Better return them, or you’re gonna get a reputation.” Her face falls a little and I regret bringing it up. “So tell me about this dream again.”
She gives me some details and then pulls out a book from her bag.
“I’m not a seer so I was looking it up in a dream book and…” She presses the book towards me and points to a passage.
I stare at the gibberish on the page.
“Is this a library book?” I ask.
“Yeah?”
“They’re enchanted, I can’t read it.”
She stares at me in confusion.
I wait.
She tilts her head. “They’re only enchanted so that nightblind can’t read them.”
“No, they’re enchanted so only spiritborne can read them. They don’t consider us spiritborne.”
“What?” it echoes. Everyone focuses harder on their work, like they aren’t eavesdropping. “How are you not considered spiritborne? Goblin’s are one of the original races.”
“Can’t have your slaves reading your books. That’s why we have Graven. It can’t be hidden with enchantments.”
“Well that’s bullshit!” she explodes. I blink stunned, I’ve never heard Thea lose her temper. She looks around the room.
“This is all the library books you have access too? How do you do your work?”
“This isn’t a library, it used to be a cafeteria, the books are donations.”
Her green eyes pulse with fire. Like literally.
I grab her hand quickly and whisper, “Thea, your eyes are glowing.”
She pinches them shut and squeezes my hand. Takes a few heavy breaths then opens them, they’re back to their normal Chrome Tourmaline.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
“Avenging angel is a pretty good look on you.” I can’t hide the smile. Hers blooms until she looks around the room. The other goblins have their jaws slack.
She leans towards me and says, “I think I’ve worn out my welcome.”
“I think it’s because I’m holding your hand.” I look pointedly at our interlocked fingers.
She gasps and tries to take it back. I don’t let go.
“Benson!”
I chuckle and release it. Her cheeks heat. Interesting. She starts to pack up her bag.
“Where are you going?”
“To give the Strix a piece of my mind!” She stands and checks her area. “Please cleanse the books I touched.” She passes me a spray and is out the door.
“Thea, wait!” I call, grabbing my bag and chasing after her. I can barely see her at the top of the steps and I take them two at a time trying to catch her. When I step out the door I look towards the library but she isn’t there. Maybe she went into the woods? I look that way.
“Thea!”
Only the darkness echoes back. I pull out my phone to call when I feel it. Magic. Lots of it.
A witch is melting down.
I should run away.
The trees tear at my arms as I race towards it. Twenty feet into the woods, I find her. The plants around her are growing rapidly, wind whipping through the clearing.
Her body is pulsing with light and tears streak her face.
I approach cautiously.
“Thea?”
“Go away B!” she screams.
“What happened?”
“I’m losing control. I don’t want to hurt you.” She sounds terrified.
The wind pulls at my clothes as I step into the clearing. I drop to my haunches, inching towards her until I can pull her into a hug.
“I got you.”
I don’t know how long we sit there, the eye of a storm in the woods.
The wind falters suddenly, her skin no longer glowing.
“You okay?” I ask, moving to kneel in front of her. I reach out and wipe the tears from her face.
“I think so. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, I cause earthquakes when I lose my temper.”
Her lips quirk and she surveys the damage she caused.
“Guess this is what happens when I skip training two days in a row.”
I snort and stand, helping her to her feet.
“Want to get some dinner?”
“Really?” she asks, incredulously.
“I hear you love waffles.”
She smiles and then it falls. “I should get back to my room, I’m defenseless.”
Footsteps crash through the underbrush and I put Thea behind me. A security guard comes into the clearing, flashlight sweeping the area and falling on me. His brow furrows.
“What’s going on here?”
“Um—” What won’t get her in trouble?
“Where’s Thea?” he asks sweeping the cleaning again.
“What?”
Thea grabs my arm and peeks from behind me.
“Ollin?” she asks. His body relaxes.
“Gracias a Dios. Are you okay?” he asks, stepping towards her reverently. Who’s this guy? I move in front of Thea.
“It’s okay,” she tells me. Tapping my arm again and stepping to stand beside me. “I’m fine.”
He looks around. “Not as bad as last time?”
“Yeah, I controlled it to mostly wind.”
The radio crackles and a warped voice comes through, “Everything good Ollin? You find her?”
“All good,” he replies. Redness spreads on his face. I turn to look at Thea and raise an eyebrow in question.
“Not my first explosion this month,” she admits shyly. She gestures towards the guard. “This is Officer Ollin, Ollin, this is my friend Benson.”
I shake his hand. Shifter, not a wolf. Something else.
“Can you get her back to her dorm?” he asks me and I nod.
He grabs her bag from right off the path as we walk and passes it to me. When we get by the goblin building he surveys her in the light.
“Make sure she eats something.” Once I agree he turns and leaves, pulling out his radio as he walks.
Thea walks slowly and I quickly text Zair, he beats us to her dorm with a bag of food. His eyes widen when he sees her and he rushes to help me get her into her room.
She collapses on the bed and curls up. Zair tries to coax her to eat but her eyes don’t open.
“Can you heal her? Give her some of your magic?” I ask. I don’t like leaving her defenseless.
“No, she would probably kill me if I tried,” he says. “Sharing magic is very intimate, and also dangerous. And with as weak as she is, she wouldn’t be able to stop.”
He quickly casts a few spells to protect her as she sleeps. We walk in silence back to our dorms.
“What happened?” he finally asks me.
“She melted down.”
“I got that.” He opens his door and gestures for me to follow him inside. He runs his hand down his face.
“Did something happen with her boyfriend?”
My stomach drops and I fight to control my face.
“I didn’t know she had one,” I tell him honestly.
“I’m not sure she does.” He exhales slowly, turning and digging in his drawer for something. “When I tried to kiss her, that was her excuse for rejecting me.”
The walls close in. I know he’s hiding his face, but damn if I don’t appreciate it.
“I—I thought you said you didn’t like her.”
He turns and looks at me then away again.
Fuck. I’m an idiot.