Chapter 7
Alanna
Iopen my mouth to ask a million questions—but before I can get a single word out, a swift, heavy fatigue descends. Without warning, my eyes flutter closed and I collapse.
But there’s no impact. I am rescued by strong arms, gathered against a broad chest.
“I have you,” he says, a gentleness in his voice I haven’t heard before.
Vaguely, I register the scent of woodsmoke and pine before slipping into unconsciousness.
***
I rouse in a fright, my brain jump-starting with a flood of dizzying memories and questions. Disorientation envelops me, the kind that comes from too many thoughts zipping around, loud and insistent, violently knocking against the inside of my skull with all the whiplash of a car crash.
A shadow attacked me. A fucking shadow.
Even before I saw it, I could feel it. A cold, static-like pull in the air, a wrongness that felt like it was pointing right at me.
How is any of this possible? Either I am truly losing my mind (brain tumor, still a strong possibility), or humanity doesn’t understand nearly as much about the world as we think we do. I’m not very keen on either option.
And I let that stranger just pick me up and take me .
. . somewhere. For someone who prides herself on her intelligence, really dumb move, Alanna.
I don’t know anything about him, and now, I don’t even know where I am.
Not that I had much of a choice, given that I wasn’t exactly conscious at the time.
But that shadow. I’ve seen it twice now, that can’t be coincidence. What if it shows up again and I’m alone in my apartment? What if Em is with me? What if she had come with me to the laser clinics, like she wanted to? What would have happened? Would she be dead right now?
I cannot let that happen.
I don’t know who the stranger is or why he keeps showing up, but I do know that he just saved my life. He threw himself into the line of fire to protect me. I don’t trust him. But, right now, maybe I need him. And honestly, the thought of being without him at this moment terrifies me.
Oh god, what if he left me somewhere and I’m alone right now?
I sit up abruptly and open my eyes, the motion causing an unruly mass of something soft to tumble off me.
Confused, my vision struggling to adjust to the dim light, I see it’s a pile of animal pelt blankets, thick and downy, which must have covered me while I was passed out.
Beneath them, I’m still wearing the same clothes that I wore to the tattoo removal clinics.
The surface under me is firm, but comfortable.
A bed. That same familiar scent of woodsmoke and pine, with an underlying hint of damp earth, suffuses everything.
It should be overpowering—it is—and I’m not sure why, but I find it oddly reassuring at the same time.
My ankle, however, is a different story.
It throbs with pain, and I look down to find an angry, red welt encircling it—a freezing burn from where that thing grabbed me.
A little frantic, I glance around, doing my best not to startle at every shadow.
The first thing I latch onto is an old wood-burning fireplace, smoldering warmly in the corner, sending out a ruddy amber light that seems to breathe with the embers.
It illuminates a large open-concept living space—an eclectic mix of industrial and cottagecore.
The walls are a stark blend of concrete shored up by dark timber planks that match the wide, polished floorboards.
They stretch upward to the ceiling, where moonlight filters in through the smudges in a dirty skylight.
It looks like an old warehouse—if that warehouse were converted into a rustic cabin.
Undeniably, it’s a place built for solitude.
The furniture is sparse, utilitarian. There is an opaque screen beside the bed, blocking my view of the rest of the dwelling, but across the way I can see an exercise area with a towering metal power rack, a punching bag, and more weights than I can count.
None of that interests me right now, though.
My gaze lands squarely on a large form etched against the deeper shadows, leaning against a big wooden table covered in papers beside the worn but well-maintained workout equipment.
Two gold-rimmed eyes watch me in the dimness in total animal stillness, tracking my movements as I try to get my bearings.
They radiate an odd, haunted hunger, at once both intense and .
. . fearful? But that can’t be right. I must be projecting.
“You’re up,” he says, still staring at me in that disconcerting way.
I swallow. “I am.”
“Go back to sleep.”
Back to sleep? As if. “No, I want to talk.”
“We can talk when you’re rested.” He shifts in the darkness but doesn’t come any closer.
I’m glad of it, as I’m not sure I could handle the spike in anxiety that would give me right now.
I feel vulnerable and exposed, like a raw nerve.
Strangely though, it’s not the fact that I’m alone with the hulking stranger—in his bed, no less—that scares me.
It’s the terrors he saved me from. It’s the shimmering mark on my arm, which is flickering weakly at this very moment. It’s not knowing what’s going on.
I pull my legs in closer, wrapping my arms around them and making myself small. From the shadows, he stirs, as if he wants to move, but stays put.
Proud of the way my voice doesn’t waver, I reply, “I know you don’t know me, but if you did, you’d know I won’t be able to rest until I get answers.
” I meet his stare across the room. “Can’t we just talk?
You’ve shown up twice now, and you saved me, but I don’t even know who you are.
Let alone what the fuck is actually going on here. ”
I catch a glint of amusement in his eyes when the word “fuck” leaves my lips.
“Kade,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“My name.”
Oh. Well, that’s progress.
“I’m Alanna.”
“I know.”
A quiver of unease rattles my stomach and I shrink back. “How do you know my name?”
I can barely make out his expression, but I think I catch something rueful cross his features.
“I’m scaring you. Again. Not my intention.”
I wait, unsure of what to say, hoping he will start explaining. The silence stretches between us for a long moment, until he releases a huff and continues, “I have your phone. Someone named ‘Em’ was texting your name in all caps last week. Along with what must have been the maximum emoji limit.”
A gamut of emotion runs through me—trepidation, relief. Anger. “You took my phone?!”
He pins me with a level stare. “You lied to me, Librarian.”
My unease gives way to outrage and, for better or for worse, sarcasm.
“Oh? Did I? You, a huge terrifying man I don’t know, intimidates me and then grabs me when I’m alone at my place of work, but I had the audacity to lie to you?
How rude of me! I should be nicer to men who assault me in the future. ”
“I didn’t assault—” He bites the word off, jaw clenching. “Look, I’m sorry. I was . . .” he pauses, searching for the right word, taking so long that I wonder what’s going through his head. Finally he lands on, “stressed. I reacted poorly.”
“You think?” I say, forgetting momentarily that pissing off the stranger—Kade—probably isn’t a good idea given my present circumstances.
“It’s more complicated than you know,” he says, his voice going gruff. There’s an odd hint of pain in it now that wasn’t there before.
“Then explain it to me.” I lean forward, desperation creeping in. “I need to know what’s happening to me. And what was that shadow . . . Thing? And why are you—” I almost say, following me, but think better of it, “ —helping me?”
He rakes a hand through his dark hair, the motion sharp with tension. “You may not like the answer. It’s not something most people are ever privy to.”
I tip my chin up stubbornly. “I’d rather have an answer I don’t like than no answer at all. What is it?”
He hesitates, and when he speaks, his words are careful and measured. “You would call it ‘magic’.”
My world tilts on its axis. Magic. Gripping the edge of the bed, I try to take a calming breath but only manage a shallow gulp. From across the room, I feel Kade’s eyes on me, assessing my response.
“Magic,” I repeat, my mouth not wanting to even say it. “Magic isn’t . . . that’s not . . .”
But I trail off, because what exactly am I going to say? That it’s not real? I was just attacked by a shadow creature, and I have a glowing mark on my arm. The evidence is literally branded onto my skin.
The implications crash over me. If magic exists, then my understanding of the world, the very foundation of reality as I know it, has all been incomplete. Worse than incomplete. Incorrect.
My mind fights to reject this assessment. The idea of magic is absurd.
But I have to look at the evidence in front of me, not my preconceived notions of how things ought to be. Wrangling my spiraling thoughts, I force myself to acknowledge the facts. And when I do that, then Kade’s answer—simply, “magic”—seems almost too easy.
My eyes narrow. I don’t think he’s lying, not exactly. Oversimplifying, yes.
I’m going to need more data.
“Let’s say I believe you.” I sit up straighter, pushing my disbelief aside in favor of the comforting habit of academic curiosity.
Because if this is true—well, there’s just so much to learn.
“Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed.
Right? So where does the energy for magic come from?
How does it interact with physical matter?
Is it some kind of field we haven’t discovered yet? Or something to do with dark matter?”
“Alanna—” he chokes on my name, cutting himself off with a soft growl. But I pay it no mind, too invested in figuring this out. The possibilities spin.