Zero Probability Event
Milo
I stare hard at the new contact in my phone, thumb hovering just above Ranger’s name on the screen while I chew on my bottom lip.
He just… held out his hand when we pulled up on the drive, and I just…
handed it over, and he just… entered his number.
As if it were that simple. As if he wanted me to have his contact and so… now I do.
Am I… allowed to just… call him?
When this is done, and when we’ve saved the world—I snort at that thought—would he maybe come out for dinner with me?
I know preparing the food is important, but surely sometimes he’d like a night off from that?
And so, we could eat… together… not as my bodyguard, which I guess is what he is right now.
But after? When he’s not responsible for me, would he like to be something else?
My gaze strays his way. On the surface, he looks like any other guy who just parked his truck and is checking messages on his phone before going into the house.
One foot’s still in the truck, but his door is wide open, and the other foot’s planted firmly on the driveway.
A contemplative frown is etched into his forehead, and I’m learning enough about him now to decipher what all this really means.
He’s not checking for messages, because the Dogs won’t have made their Italian safe house yet.
He’s checking the Nest’s security logs before we enter.
That’s also the reason the engine’s still idling: his wolf is scanning the environment in real time, while that app on his phone will inform him of any suspicious activity while we were gone.
Depending on what he finds, he’s prepared to either drive us out of here, or engage in another fight with Time Guy.
Thoughts of a romantic dinner with Rowan abandoned, I too check all the truck’s mirrors, and stare hard at the high hedge that marks the property’s boundary.
I’d forgotten, for a minute, why I’m really here.
Got lost in the fantasy that in some alternate universe, there’s a version of me and Rowan who get a coffee shop date that doesn’t end in a smashed window and bloodshed, or where, whenever he looks at me, he doesn’t see a “job” but a person—a person he might like to get to know better.
My head thumps back on the seat. Dream on, Milo. Time Guy is still out there… somewhere, and with the rest of his unit away, Rowan’s broad shoulders are carrying the full weight of not only the responsibility for my safety but for his entire Bloodline.
Until Operation Tempo comes through with an identity for this Time Guy, we’re relying on some ancient enchantment neither of us know anything about.
What if the Luna del Lupo has a finite number of uses, or something?
The next time will be time number three, and then what if that’s it?
Or what if, when I took hold of Rowan’s wolf’s fur in the coffee shop and extended its protective qualities to him, that was time number three… and now it’s already out of uses?
My whole body shudders at the thought.
“Ye good, Pup?” Rowan asks, pocketing his phone.
Unsure how to even begin putting into words the enormity of everything rattling around inside my skull box right now, I nod and force a smile that I know doesn’t meet my eyes.
When he finally kills the engine and climbs out of the truck, he raps his knuckles on the roof.
“I’m sorry ye chat with Ethel was a bust. But I did at least learn where…” He lets his gaze wander up and down the full length of my body. “Ye get it from.”
With a wink, he straightens to his full height—cutting off my view of his face—and slams the truck door. He doesn’t wait before turning on his heel and striding toward the front porch.
Any and all thoughts of the threat from Time Guy vanish in an instant. Probably, they tumble straight out of the gaping hole my mouth creates now that my jaw’s hanging open. Did he just…?
I scramble to unfasten my seatbelt and climb out of the truck.
It locks behind me with a loud beep, and I all but chase Rowan into the house.
By the time I catch up to him, he’s already in the living room unrolling another sheet of Kraft paper, which he pins directly over the top of Guardian’s explanation of the layout of the Office of Time.
Rowan doesn’t acknowledge me, and now that I’m here, watching him bite the lid from a Sharpie, I forget why I was so energised a second ago.
He draws a thick black line to split the page in two, and the column on the left he titles, “LdL.” Underneath, in neat block capitals he writes, “enchantment, possibly of a human?”
That’s right… Ethel had suggested that. I’d forgotten that too.
Locking in, my brain engages on a whole new track. Do I know a spell that could reveal if a person had a concealed enchantment? Or even one that would help me transfer it from the person into an external object?
Rowan taps his finger on the words, “We’ll keep investigating this enchantment aspect.”
Then on the right-hand side of the paper, he writes, “Lost Colony.” “But I was thinking on the drive back about the potential connection between these two things, and if we can utilise that somehow.”
He recaps the pen, drops into the sofa chair, and crosses one ankle over his knee. “When we asked ye about all this yesterday, we were missing some significant intel. So, my apologies, Milo, but I think it might be helpful if we go over it again. From the beginning.”
Following his example, I flop onto the middle seat of the sofa, almost exactly where I sat the first time we did this.
Immediately, my leg starts bouncing. To rid myself of the nervous association, I rub my hands together. “Yup. Okay.”
It’s no longer me, alone in a house filled with strangers—military wolf strangers. It’s just me and Rowan now. I blow out a long breath. “So, it started with Ethel.”
He cocks an auburn eyebrow that frames an intense hazel eye. It encourages a small smile to creep along my mouth, because I know that look now. When I first met Rowan, I remember mistaking that same intensity for “serial killer,” but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
How many times do people do that, though? Take nothing more than a cursory glance at the complex expression on his face, pair it with his size and build, add in the fact that he’s an alpha werewolf, then determine him to be some kind of cold and savage brute?
My smile widens further, because behind that intimidating exterior is a heart that’s size appropriate for his almost seven-foot-tall body.
And with that sharp gaze that’s hidden under a low brow, it works to keep his friends and family safe.
Then there’s Rowan’s softer look, one I haven’t seen him give any of the other Dogs…
“Milo?” Rowan gently brings me back on task. “What does Ethel have to do with this?”
Shaking my head helps me focus, and I brush my hand over my messy hair to tame it into submission.
“I’d been to see her… earlier that day, and well, you’ve met her…
She’s a national treasure. At least, she should be.
She is to me. Anyway, she’d stolen an almond croissant and a pretzel for me from these little baskets they keep out in the café. ”
Rowan’s laugh is throaty and full. “Of course she did.”
The sound raises the hairs on my arms, and my grin widens to its fullest extent. “They’re free for the residents because they know old people don’t eat much, but they charge visitors twice as much as anywhere else. And I don’t exactly have the money to buy overpriced pastries.”
His smile drops then, along with his brow, and it unnerves me on some deep level.
Wanting to bring it back, I hurry to add, “So, anyway, Ethel took them, but she also ordered me a breakfast that she pretended was for her. To distract the staff from her hustle—and to get ahead at poker—she faked a dizzy spell.”
The huffed laugh that blows up my cheeks as it passes my lips is wry.
I’d meant to bring back Rowan’s smile, and not only did I fail in that, I killed my own mood while I was at it.
Dropping my head, I pick at ripped threads while I continue the explanation that frays my heart strings until they’re messier than my torn jeans.
“And it—the visual of her being crowded as they called out for a medic… When a member of staff held her wrist to find a pulse, it just…” I inhale, and my bottom lip wobbles.
“The whole scenario just went down a pathway in my mind that rang every alarm bell and raised every red flag along the way, you know?”
I risk a glance over to Rowan, but there’s something in that steady and sincere gaze that has me looking away again just as quickly. I clear my throat to rid it of the awkward lump of emotion that’s balled up there.
“Ethel smokes and drinks like she’s still in her twenties, and while I love that for her… she’s all I have left.”
Unable to bear the quiet intimacy of the setting, I stand and snatch up the discarded Sharpie from the table. I’ve no real idea what I’m going to do with it as I step over Rowan’s outstretched legs, but just moving around is helping. I think.
Under the heading “Lost Colony” I write, “spell to slow time left with Ethel.”
Something about placing that period at the end feels so final, and my hand lingers. Now that I’ve said it aloud, written the words on the page, their full weight settles over me like a heavy and depressive blanket.
Rowan hums, the sound deep and contemplative, but also reassuring. It’s deep enough to feel like it’s underneath this… fear with me. I’m not alone. The hope is enough for me to find the words to move the story on.
“I don’t know how much you know about magic, but there’s spell craft and then there’s spell casting.
” I pop the cap back on the pen with a snap.
“And my problem has always been the crafting part. Even as a kid in school, the teachers would always write on my report card that I, ‘lacked concentration and was easily distracted.’”