Page 26

Hazel

“Oh shoot, I left my wallet in the cruiser,” Mike said, his hand still patting his pocket.

“That’s okay, I’ll grab it,” I said.

Griselda, the owner of our favorite coffee shop, The Witch’s Brew, held out the chip reader to me as I dug my Visa out of my wallet. I held my card over the screen, but nothing happened. So I tried the top of the machine.

“Sorry, machine’s finicky today,” Griselda said apologetically. “Here, let me do it.”

She took my card and then tried a few times herself, her eyes focused on my card until there was finally a beep.

“There you go.” She handed my card back and then got to work making our drinks.

There was a chime from her phone, which was propped up on the counter, and she peered at the screen.

“Can you turn the sign off and lock the door for me while I make your orders? Turns out you two are my last clients of the day.”

“Oh?”

“I’m being called in to help with that Breach thingy. About time too. That thing’s a menace.” She continued frothing the milk.

Ah, she must be in that civilian network of magic practitioners they’d planned to call on.

Tommy and Eugene had come back from their meeting full of hope.

They’d come up with a plan, and they’d started organizing it right away and wanted us to be ready for this afternoon.

I was glad Mike and I managed to get our caffeine fix before they sent out the word.

Mike kept asking me if I was okay since I was less talkative than usual, and I’d blamed it on caffeine withdrawal. So here we were.

In reality, that shitty and unfortunate conversation right before I packed my bags, called a cab, and hightailed it out of Seth and Liam’s home was living rent-free in my head. I couldn’t believe that was just yesterday. It felt like so much longer.

But then again, my entire concept of time when it came to those two was totally and utterly warped.

My time with them passed in a blink of an eye, but it felt like we’d always been together.

Getting back home, everything felt so awkward, like I was a stranger there even though nothing had changed except in my head.

And sleeping alone was difficult. There was so much room on the bed.

And my pillow didn’t conform to and support my neck the same way Liam’s soulstuff did, so I woke up with a wrenched neck for my first day back at work.

In hindsight, maybe I’d overreacted just a little.

I also wasn’t the best at reading people’s emotions; it wasn’t quite the same as reading a potential crime scene.

If I’d actually paused and taken in all the cues, I would’ve figured out that Seth was reacting defensively because he wanted me to stay but couldn’t admit it.

Our week together hadn’t affected only me.

Note to self: cold and aloof was how Seth protected himself.

Kind of like how I avoided all emotional responsibility by never having grownup relationships. And why would he be any other way after I’d already turned down Liam’s offer for me to continue staying with them?

Liam had tried to talk to me yesterday and I’d ignored him, leaving him struggling on my front lawn. Poor guy was dealing with two fully grown adults with the emotional intelligence of a rock combined. I owed him an apology.

I guess I knew what I was doing after we got The Breach under control.

“We’re actually going there after. Want a ride?” I asked Griselda.

“In the back of a cruiser? No thanks,” she replied with a laugh. “And besides, I have to get Triscuit all settled back upstairs.”

At the sound of his name, the African grey hanging out in the corner shrieked, “Triscuit wanna biscuit,” and bobbed his head several times at his owner. Triscuit had been so quiet today until now that I hadn’t even realized he was here.

Mike excused himself to use the boys’ room, and Griselda tossed him the aforementioned “biscuit” to give to Triscuit on the way.

“It’s in the shape of a bone,” I noticed.

“Yeah, Marcus made them using a recipe he found online. He’s into meal prepping and all that, but I can’t eat the same thing for more than two days in a row, so I told him he can do it for Triscuit.”

Marcus was Griselda’s fiancé, and he owned the gym next door.

“We didn’t want them to look like normal biscuits in case anyone tries to eat them by accident.

The doggy bones were the only cookie cutters we could find that were obvious enough.

The recipe is dog-friendly too, so it works out.

” She placed Mike’s drink on the counter and handed me my flat white.

“Say, can I read your fortune? Just for fun to pass the time until your partner gets back?”

I shrugged. “Sure,” I said, not seeing the harm in it. While it would be silly of me not to believe in magic after the last few years, I still wasn’t sure where I stood on things like fortune-telling. “What do you need?”

“Nothing. Just you. A lot of the props are just distractions. We’re actually reading your aura.”

The mention of my aura had me thinking of Seth and Liam again.

“Sometimes people already know what’s coming, but their brain just hasn’t caught up yet.”

She reached out but didn’t quite touch me. I did feel a tingle, though, which I now recognized as magic. For a brief second, her hair switched back to the vibrant red it used to be, then turned black again.

“Hmmmm.” She closed her eyes and took a slow breath.

There was another tingle and another “Hmmmmmmm,” this one longer, followed by a nod.

Finally, she spoke, “If you turn around, you will lose two very important things. If you push forward, you will have to give up one, but gain more in return.”

What the hell did that mean?

She must have seen my face because she chuckled. “These things always come as riddles. It’ll become clear eventually.”

Mike returned and picked up his drink. “Ready to hit The Breach?”

The Breach was a hub of activity by the time we arrived.

Security was several layers deep, and anyone who wasn’t an active part of the operation had already been evacuated.

Mike and I were stationed at the northeastern corner of the intersection, and I could swear that The Breach looked just a tiny bit larger than it had in the video feed I saw earlier this morning. But I could be imagining it.

As volunteers arrived to help save their beloved city, they were instructed to join different quadrants.

Soon, there was a ring of witches, some of them men, around The Breach, ready to fight and take back the intersection.

Their job was to shrink and eliminate the unwelcomed portal.

Our part was to protect them from any physical harm.

The witches who were also wizards got extra security.

For a hastily thrown-together operation, it was rather impressive.

The joint spell was led by a woman on a loudspeaker.

Curious, I scanned the crowd to see who she was and found a woman with a style that reminded me of Seth.

This had me scanning the faces in the crowd even harder until I finally found him.

He wasn’t with Liam, but instead was standing next to the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.

Her blonde locks fell effortlessly around her shoulders, and she looked so familiar.

I wondered if she was a model or perhaps I’d seen her in movies.

Wow! He’d gotten over me quickly. So much for trying to make things right after this.

Then I shook my head at the silly stab of jealousy. I’d been the one who’d left after telling them I wasn’t interested in anything more, so why the fuck was I jealous anyway? Let him hang out with whoever the fuck he wanted.

I focused on my task instead, making sure no one got too close to the hole in the ground, even as The Breach started to shrink.

And it was starting to shrink.

The Breach, or whatever was behind it, must have known what was happening because suddenly, it tried to reach out, expanding its swirling mass toward the dark-haired woman who was leading the chanting. But she was unreachable, so it tried to reach anyone it could. Again, unsuccessful.

Eventually, we were able to see the actual sinkhole behind the portal.

Now, the half-dozen dump trucks filled with gravel came into play.

They emptied their loads, filling in the void.

Then, the nerdiest-looking dude I’d ever seen in my life went around with a laser tool, measuring everything and making calculations.

Calculations done, he drew a red line with spray paint, and all the spell casters stepped up to the red line, closing the circle.

It was working!

But it was too early to celebrate because not long after the dust of the gravel had settled, we lost one of our male spellcasters. The middle-aged man suddenly stopped chanting and started walking past the red line.

He was in our section and one of the K9 units noticed him out of place before either Mike or I did. Zeus shot forward, grabbing the guy by the pants and pulling him back just enough for Mike and I to do the rest.

“Good boy, Zeus,” I said, giving the dog a quick pat on the haunches.

We’d never taught him that, so he must’ve picked up the fact that going past the line was no good just by watching. Smart animal.

But the recently saved man would not listen to reason; whatever promises The Breach offered was sweeter.

It reminded me of how Seth had refused to talk about the things it had promised after saying it had no business offering such things.

And then there were the nightmares that had been waking him up since.

I sure hoped he got enough rest before this fight.

I forced myself to focus on the problem at hand, and Mike helped me haul the man to a safe area, but the man turned his magic on us instead, and we went flying.

Ouch! My first thought was: here we go again.

Magic and I really had to stop meeting this way. Even with the shields we all had against magic, it hurt.

But one of the Redrock brothers came to the rescue.

The massive gargoyle swooped down, picked him up, and got him to the quarantine area, which was held by a team of volunteer wizards.

They might not be able to affect The Breach, but they could keep those affected safe, especially with the help of the local wolf shifter pack.

“You okay?”

I took Tommy’s offered hand. “I’m fine. That was nothing like the last one.” This guy had not thrown everything he had at me.

Tommy gave me a pat on the back, then went to give Zeus some praise.

We lost several more male witches, but The Breach was continuing to shrink, albeit slowly.

Then I felt it, an odd feeling of being watched.

I turned around, expecting to find someone behind me, but found nothing.

Strange. I tried to ignore it but remembered the shadowy forms that had come for me that day at the park.

Goosebumps crawled up my arm, forcing me to look around again, but again, there was nothing. There were no shadows. Nothing.

“Do you feel that?” I asked when Mike sent me a quizzical look.

He looked as well but shook his head.

“I must be imagining it.” I forced my attention back to The Breach.

I kept getting that feeling, but nothing came out of the shadows to attack me.

Meanwhile, those focused on the spell continued to make leeway. We’d even had another round of gravel and a new set of red spray paint marks before our luck ended.