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6

THE PAST

I sat down on a leather chair that let out a heavy squeak so familiar I let out a little gasp as my weight settled. It felt completely surreal, being back in my old office on Fillmore.

I wasn’t sure yet, if I wanted to be there at all.

I absolutely knew I didn’t need to be there… and gods, we surely didn’t need the money. But rather than taking the pressure off my decision to do this, to try it out for a few months at least, that lack of need made me distinctly uncomfortable.

What was I doing here?

Taking a trip down memory lane?

Definitely lying to myself, possibly in more than one way.

“What do you think, Panther?” I stroked the head and nose of the big black wolfhound who plopped down next to my leather chair.

He’d already made one full circuit of the place, nose to the ratty carpet. He’d sniffed all over the waiting area chairs, the rug, the table, the old reception desk, and now he’d just finished doing the same with my old office, before circling back to sit by me.

I rubbed his ears. “What do you think, buddy?” I cooed. “Is mommy crazy?”

It was a little crazy, coming back here.

I don’t know why I thought I could just re-start my old life, like the last few years hadn’t happened. Not to mention, why on earth would I even want to?

Nick always said I was wasted in private therapy.

The night we went out to celebrate me finally earning my PhD, Nick drunkenly told me that I belonged in forensic psychology, either in profiling or research, possibly both, not in private counseling. He’d joked, even then, that I should help him and Angel catch murderers, not waste my time listening to wealthy people in San Francisco talk about their “issues.”

I agreed with him, honestly.

So why hadn’t I taken the job Black offered me, and run his forensics department?

Black hadn’t said much when I turned him down, but he must have wondered, too. To his credit, he didn’t try to talk me out of it. He simply listened as I explained my own plan instead, his face impossible to read.

When I finished, he offered me space in one of his buildings.

He offered the California Street building first, of course.

He talked up the redesign, the building upgrades, the fact that Nick, Angel, Jem, Kiko, Dex, and Cowboy would all be working out of there, along with Manny and Yarli when they got back from overseas. He showed me the redesign, the new security system, the new equipment and computers… the monstrous espresso machine and diner-style booths he’d added to the break room.

He offered me my pick of floors, suite sizes, parking spots, views.

He offered to help me do a functional redesign of my office that sounded expensive as hell: a small library for writing and research, a private, a fully-equipped lab just for me, a consult room, a profiling room, a yoga room (if I wanted it), a fireplace for me for me and Panther… whatever I wanted, in whatever combination I wanted.

I told him no.

That time, I definitely got the sense he’d been hurt by the quickness of my refusal.

I glanced out the window at the familiar entrance of the S.F.P.D. Northern District Police Precinct building on Fillmore. I used to know the inside of that building almost as well as Nick and Angel did. I’d walk over there a few times a week to try and grab Angel or Nick for lunch, or for a drink after work. I’d also see them in the coffee shop downstairs.

The shop had changed owners; the coffee wasn’t as good now.

That, or Black had spoiled me rotten with his expensive machines and imported coffee beans and supernatural knack with the milk-steamer.

Coffee wasn’t the issue, though.

Nick didn’t work across the street anymore.

Angel didn’t work there, either. She occasionally still went inside that Fillmore station, likely to waves and cheers, but no longer as “one of them.”

More to the point, being back here, at my old office, felt… well, bad.

It felt grim, verging on depressing.

My admin assistant from those days, Gomez “Gomey” Ramirez, wouldn’t be coming back to handle reception at the front desk, driving me crazy with his endless (and loud) personal phone calls, and frankly making me wonder why I paid him at all, given his frequent breaks, his refusal to get my coffee orders right, and his inability to take down a message without garbling it, transcribing the number wrong, or losing it altogether.

Gomey died in this office.

My chest began to throb, constricted with an imaginary weight.

Gaos. Why had I come back here?

That’s why I left. That’s why I hadn’t ever wanted to return.

Panther whined, and I dug into my pocket and fed him a treat. I stroked his soft neck and looked around the room while he crunched it with his teeth.

I’d never know how badly Brick hurt Gomey that day, before he finally snapped his neck and left him on my waiting room floor like a broken doll. Guilt and grief nearly overwhelmed me whenever I thought about him. It was impossible not to feel responsible. He’d died because he worked for me. If he’d worked for anyone else, he’d more than likely still be alive.

I’d wondered why Black held onto this place.

He’d renewed the lease even after I told him he could get rid of it. He never said why he held onto it, or even that he had, not until I intercepted a call from the landlord one day and confronted him. Before, I might have guessed it was guilt, or even nostalgia.

Now I wondered if it had been something else entirely.

Despite how brusque and callous-seeming Black could be, he was eerily perceptive in some areas. Maybe he thought I’d need to come back here one day.

Maybe he thought I’d need to face it.

I let out a disbelieving snort, and Panther looked up at me, ears perked.

Bastard. Not the dog… Black. Clever, subtle, possibly manipulative, impossibly smart, reverse-psychology bastard.

I knew that wasn’t entirely fair. I was sure Black had been trying to help me.

Just like he’d drag me with him some mornings, when he got up at four, sometimes even three in the morning to go running.

Sometimes we’d stop by Jem and Nick’s house for coffee at the end of our run, and see if either or both of them wanted to walk down the street for waffles. Sometimes we’d look at houses and joke about moving into one ourselves. Black would tease me about buying one next door to Nick, just to watch Nick freak out.

Really, I let Black think it was a joke, but I wasn’t adverse to the idea, myself.

When I thought about the four of us living near one another, it made me feel safe.

I bit my lip, stroked Panther’s silky ears.

Was that what this was? Had some part of me been trying to return to something I knew, something that felt safe and “normal” to me? Had I come here for the same reason I went running with Black, or swimming in the ocean in the dark, the same reason I cried alone in the shower about my sister, or Solonik, or even Ian, the fiancé who tried to kill me?

It was like some part of me lived there again, in that earlier time.

Strangely, that felt like a comfortable place to me, even though I hadn’t been particularly happy back then. Maybe it just felt more real.

I knew Black was struggling, too.

Black’s nightmares had returned, bad enough to have him screaming out sometimes at night, or I’d find him sitting upright, covered in sweat, panting, and he’d try his damnedest to let me comfort him. He’d force himself to stay in bed, to try and talk to me, even when I could feel him desperately wanting to get up and go.

In more normal moments, over coffee or dinner or during quiet moments in the day, Black mostly dismissed these things as “normalcy pains” and “being an ordinary seer” and “just needing time” and “our light rearranging itself” and maybe he was right about all those things, but it also felt like a way to distance himself.

Anyway, I didn’t really know what being a “normal seer” was supposed to look like, and Black likely hadn’t experienced that since he was roughly a teenager, so telling ourselves that maybe wasn’t as helpful as he hoped.

On our last conference call, Yarli agreed with Black that our ordinary “seer” emotions were stretching their legs without the interference of those other presences. She further agreed with Black that our emotions had been muted and manipulated at various times while we’d been possessed by those… beings? Archetypal forces? Gods?

Anyway, she agreed with Black. She said we just needed time.

She also offered to try and help us when she and Manny returned.

I really hoped Black would take her up on that. I definitely planned to.

I glanced round my old clinician’s office and drummed my fingers on the arms of my very squeaky and not- ergonomic chair.

As I did, it hit me that I’d already made up my mind.

I wasn’t doing this.

I wasn’t going to knowingly try and turn the clock back on my life. Whatever brought me here, back to this place, the spell felt broken. I didn’t want to be a clinician. I didn’t want to work out of this office half-filled with my old ghosts.

I’d take Black’s offer, and not just of an office space.

I’d use that damned monstrous espresso-maker he bought––a machine I knew, somehow, Black had mostly gotten for me, even if it once belonged to Cal. I’d start inviting Nick and Angel out to lunch again, and we’d walk to the Ferry Building or Chinatown, or drive to North Beach or NOPA or the park. I’d re-join my dojo, maybe find a decent yoga studio. I’d call my old college friends, throw a few dinner parties. I’d go to the beach, and to Shakespeare in the Park, visit museums and outdoor markets, see bands and plays and watch the sunset.

I’d do normal things.

Somewhere along the line, I’d forgotten to do normal things.

Even before Black, I’d been haunted by what happened to my parents and my sister. I hadn’t been able to let go of Zoe. I’d been stuck, unable to move on.

But that mystery had been solved for a while now.

I no longer needed to spend nights awake, agonizing over what I could have done differently, what I should have done to save her.

What happened to Zoe wasn’t my fault.

It was strange, but I’d never really acknowledged that. I’d never really let it be over. I’d never given myself the silence and space to think it could be over, what that would mean, or how it would feel.

I sat there, stroking my dog’s head, and let myself think it now.

That part of my life was over. It was really, really over.

Something about that brought a sharp pang of hope to my chest.

It also terrified me.