Page 15

VIOLET

A t first, I thought what I was seeing was a product of sleep deprivation. I had to be hallucinating. My eyes were surely betraying me as a protest for my sleepless night. What other explanation could there be for the flat tires of my truck?

I walked around my vehicle for what had to be the millionth time, leaving my duffel bag in the underground parking garage to ease my movements. In the back of my head, the images of what had happened the last time I’d been there were lying in wait, ready to bite at any moment, but I did my best to keep them at bay. I was safe now. Besides, I had other things to worry about. An example being my tires. They weren’t just flat, I noticed: deep lacerations cut through the rubber as if someone had taken the time to purposefully slash it.

A pang of fear made me stand up straighter. I couldn’t help it: my mind ran to the most obvious conclusion, namely that someone was once again trying to hurt me.

"Good morning, love," a soft voice said, and only at that point did I become aware of the echoing steps growing closer with each passing second. "Is everything alright?"

Despite myself, I sighed in relief. Alpha Team was there. Nothing bad would happen to me now. I turned, a little unstable on my legs, and watched them approach with an incomprehensible mix of feelings boiling up in my chest. Relief, of course, but also pain, anger, and attraction, all of them fighting to prevail, none succeeding.

"Is everything alright?" Quinn repeated.

I couldn’t say anything. I just moved aside and pointed at the tires, preparing myself to hear what I was dreading: that I was in danger again, that someone was after me for the millionth time.

"Oh, no." Quinn clicked his tongue as he bent to get a better look. "What happened here?"

“A damn tragedy, isn’t it?” Nicholas grumbled, grabbing the duffel bag off the floor. “Now you have to come with us. That’s too bad.”

“Let’s move” was Kenji’s contribution. “We’re already late.”

Oh. Weird reactions, to say the least.

A moment later, the realization hit me, so strikingly obvious that I felt stupid for not seeing it earlier. “You did it.”

Not a question: I knew. I’d been blind, but now I couldn’t unsee it.

“Did what?”

They all started walking, so I had to move to avoid falling behind. “The tires. You slashed them to force me to come with you.”

Quinn turned to give me a quick look over his shoulder. “That’s a serious accusation, love. What makes you think we’re behind it?”

“You barely reacted to it!” I exclaimed, quickening my pace to catch up with them. “And you weren’t fond of the idea of me driving there on my own.”

“Of course not” Nicholas replied, not even stopping to look at me. “That thing’s a rolling trap. Looks like someone’s looking out for you, Princess.”

I didn't think it possible, but I was getting angrier and angrier, their words gasoline on the flames. "You ruined my truck!"

“Oh, trust me, it didn’t need our intervention for that. It was already doing a great job on its own.”

“Replacing the tires will cost me a fortune” I rambled as we reached the spot where Kenji’s Jeep was parked. “You… You…”

Kenji unlocked the doors with the car remote key. “We’ll pay for them. Now get in.”

“So you admit it was you.”

His look on me was bored, but a glint of impatience and annoyance danced in his eyes. “What’s the difference? Either way, you need to get in.” He opened the door for me. “Before I get old.”

"You don't get old" I mumbled before sliding in. I wasn't letting them off the hook so easily, but I didn't want to waste time. Daisy was potentially in danger. Engaging in endless discussions wasn't going to help her. "Is this how you're trying to obtain my forgiveness? By ruining the vehicle I busted my ass to buy? Because it isn’t working. The contrary.”

“Those tires needed changing anyway” Nicholas replied, hopping on the passenger seat in the front. “They weren’t safe to drive with.”

I didn’t care. They’d ruined my pick-up so that they would have their way. Didn’t they realize how bossy and arrogant they were?

“Don’t be mad.” Quinn fastened his seatbelt and reached for me, but I flicked his hand away. “Please. We had no ill intentions.”

“No, you just couldn’t accept my decision.”

“It was a shitty decision” Nicholas said, as the car slowly made its way out of the parking spot. “We had to do something about it.”

I crossed my arms, tapping repeatedly on my ribcage with my right hand. “Why was it shitty? Let’s hear. I’m curious.”

“Well, for starters, the environment wouldn’t have benefitted from the exhaust gas of two cars when it could’ve easily been a single one.”

“That thing of yours is, again, a rolling trap” Nicholas grumbled, quickly looking over his shoulder.

Driving the car out of the underground parking lot, Kenji gave me a glance through the rearview mirror. “You’re safer with us.”

I could've argued. My blind rage was begging me to, the need to let off steam almost unbearable, but I kept my mouth shut. What was the point? Fighting a wall would prove to be more useful. They never listened. Some part of me suggested it was unfair and untrue, but I quickly shut it down. They didn't deserve my mercy.

For a while, I stayed hunched over in my corner of the car, eyes scanning the forest running along the highway. I had brought nothing to keep me company during the car ride: not a book, not earphones to listen to music, not something to knit. It had felt disrespectful: Daisy had been kidnapped and brought into an unknown, parallel world she knew nothing about. She was probably suffering, maybe fearing for her life. I truly had no idea what she was going through. The least I could do was endure some boredom on the way to save her.

A tiny voice in my head kept suggesting it might be too late, but I paid no attention to it. There was no way. Daisy was fine. She had to be.

The time seemed to be slowing down. I tried to count the signs we sped past, to find familiar shapes in the dark clouds gathering in the distance, and even to get some sleep, but seemingly nothing could keep my mind occupied. I was starting to get a little jealous of Quinn’s book and Nicholas’s crossword puzzle. And Kenji was busy driving, so…

“I’d like to drive for a while” I said, leaning forward.

Quinn chuckled, not even glancing away from the book. “Bolder and bolder. I like it, love.”

I ignored him, trying to get even closer to the front seats. The seatbelt wasn’t letting me move much. “So? Can I drive?”

"No." Not a hint of hesitation in Kenji's tone. "Sleep. Looks like you need it."

“I don’t want to sleep.” I gave him a sharp look, though his eyes were focused on the road stretching ahead. “I want to drive.”

“And I told you no” he slowly said, shifting gears with a bored, automatic movement. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

I slumped back in the seat. “Why not?”

Kenji’s look through the rearview mirror was brief, though not enough to prevent me from recognizing exasperation in his gaze. “Because I always drive.”

Wow. Great explanation, really. Extensive. Detailed. “I’m a good driver,” I insisted, probably because it was the first distraction of what had felt like ages. “I drove my brother all the way to Harvard.”

I thought about sending him a text, only to remember I'd already done it and hadn't received an answer yet.

“Just sleep, Violet.”

“I can’t” I protested. “It’s not like I haven’t tried.”

Nicholas turned to stare at me through the gap between the front seats. “Bored? How about we talk about whatever the hell happened yesterday?”

I pressed my lips in a tight line. Was he talking about their betrayal? Or the way I’d almost stripped naked before them later that evening? The memory was enough to warm my cheeks up with shame.

I shook my head. I wasn’t in the right headspace to do it, to hear whatever pathetic excuses they had to offer.

“Then do as he said and sleep” he concluded, going back to his crossword puzzle. “You look…”

“Bad?” I chimed in, taking advantage of his hesitation.

“Tired” he corrected me, his voice caustic. And then, this time lower: “You never look bad.”

I pretended not to hear. It was easier that way.

Quinn closed his book, leaving his index finger between the pages so as not to miss the mark. “I’m available for pillow-related services.” He curled his lips into one of those tender smiles that always made me want to hug him. Not this time, though. “It’s on the house.”

“No, thanks” I replied, curling up in my spot. “I’m comfy enough.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but at last, he went back to reading his book without another word.

I couldn’t sleep, obviously. I kept checking my phone for notifications that couldn’t really come—the signal had gone from spotty to non-existent in the last hour—I changed position every five minutes at most, I breathed on the car window and drew sad faces and stars on the condensation. That earned me a killer glare from Kenji, the most interaction I’d got in hours.

I was counting the minutes. No, scratch that: I was counting the seconds until we reached our destination. It wouldn't be long: an hour tops and we would be there, the actual starting point of our mission.

But then, out of nowhere, just when we were getting close, tragedy struck: we got caught in traffic. And not just any kind of traffic—nothing was moving. We were stuck in a column of cars that went on for miles and miles. I couldn’t see the end of it.

“Is there an accident?” I asked, reaching over between the front seats. “What’s going on?”

“No idea” Kenji muttered, fingers thrumming on the steering wheel. “I just know my legs are numb.”

“We can switch.”

He looked at me past his shoulder, the vaguest hint of a smile on his lips. “Nice try.”

I pulled back expeditiously. Was I fraternizing with the enemy? Was that what a little bit of boredom did to me? “It was a kind offer, but suit yourself.”

“There’s a road” Nicholas pointed out. “Right there.”

I looked in the direction he was gesturing at. I wouldn't have called it a road: it was more of a dirt track unraveling through trees, wide enough for a car to pass through.

“A shortcut, maybe?” Quinn offered, leaning forward. “Should we take it?”

I frowned. “Do you know where it leads?”

“It leads somewhere” Kenji said, briefly glancing at me. “All roads are connected.” He nodded toward the path. “It will merge back onto the main road in a few miles.”

“I think we should check something like Google Maps. Just to be sure.”

"Unfortunately, there is no signal," Quinn replied before stretching his arms with a muffled moan that made me look away to regain composure. "We'd need an old-fashioned map. Do they even make those anymore?"

Kenji put the blinker on, and as soon as the red car in front of us moved a couple of feet forward, he switched lanes and took the dirt path. “I don’t need maps.”

As it turned out, he did. He did need maps. We followed the path for more than an hour, encountering no traces of civilization whatsoever. Just trees, trees, other trees… and how could I forget? Even more trees. The main road? Nowhere to be found.

By the time the hour on my lock screen read two p.m., my tummy was grumbling, and I needed to pee kind of badly. “I think we’re lost.”

“We aren’t lost.” Was that a hint of annoyance I heard in Kenji’s voice? The situation must be worse than I thought. “Road’s just longer than expected.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do you know where we are?”

“Look around” he replied dryly. “The trees, the greenery… I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Asshole. “We’re lost” I repeated, crossing my arms. “We need to go back.”

“No.”

“I think Violet’s right” Quinn murmured, closing his book and resting it on the empty seat between us. “I don’t see us finding the right road any time soon.”

Nicholas let out a sound that sat in between a groan and a scoff. “We’re running out of gas, too.”

“It’ll last” Kenji replied, though his typically confident tone was faltering.

“But I need to use the restroom” I objected, leaning toward the front seats. “And I’m hungry.”

He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that I feared he would tear it apart, but the car slowed down and came to a complete halt a moment later. “You should’ve told me earlier.”

“I’m telling you now because earlier, I wasn’t hungry, and I didn’t need to pee.”

I knew he wasn’t happy with my answer, but nevertheless, he turned the car around and sped through the forest, shoulders tense and fingers strangling the steering wheel.

It took us an hour to find the main road, still congested in the direction we needed, and then another thirty-five minutes driving back to where we’d come from, where Kenji swore he saw a service station. At least, this time, he was right: at almost four p.m., he parked the Jeep by a long row of gasoline pumps and came to open my door before I could even unbuckle my seatbelt.

“Quinn, take her to the restroom” Kenji instructed, pulling out a wallet from his pocket. “Nicholas, you get something to eat. Let’s meet here in—”

"I can go by myself," I interrupted him, gesturing toward the low building behind the gas pumps. A huge sign above the white doors read RESTROOMS. "I think I can manage twenty steps on my own."

He stared at me for a second, unblinking, before he leaned in and tilted his head to the side. "This isn't up for debate. Either you go to the toilet with him, or you don't go at all."

I craved a fight. I needed to get the tiredness, frustration, and rage out of my system, and that seemed the perfect way to do it, but I forced myself to swallow each and every bad word my mind had conjured up for him. It would only be a waste of time.

I marched to the restrooms, not even stopping to check if Quinn was following me like a devoted puppy—I knew he was. I felt his magic popping and sizzling behind me.

“Love?” he called once I was inside a stall, taking care of my business. “Can I ask you a question?”

I sighed. “What is it?”

There was a moment of hesitation before he spoke again. “Are you still mad?”

A tiny fraction of me felt guilty. His voice had come muffled from behind the door, but the hint of hurt and uncertainty lingering in his words was far too clear. I felt it as if it was mine.

“I am” I finally replied, flushing the toilet and then washing my hands in the tiny corner sink. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

When I opened the door, he was leaning against the wall, a tormented look in his eyes. “Then how do we fix this?”

“I don’t know” I replied sincerely, walking wide steps toward the Jeep. “Not by slashing the tires of my truck, that's for sure."

“Love, please.” Quinn was tailing me, the frantic energy oozing from his body both satisfying and angering me at the same time. “Please. I need to know we can solve this.”

We got to the car before I had to give him an answer I didn’t know. I was grateful for that.

Kenji closed the fuel door and turned to us, the fabric of his compression shirt stretching as he crossed his arms. “We’re stuck here.”

Wait, what?

Nicholas pushed off the mudguards, a plastic bag dangling from his fingers. "The cashier said the road is closed for construction work until tomorrow morning."

“What? No.” I shook my head, unable to accept what he’d just told me. “How about secondary roads? All those cars have to be going somewhere, right?”

“We’d get stuck for hours. It’d be dark by the time we make it to a road that actually leads somewhere.”

I found myself unable to speak. Waiting for the morning meant wasting precious hours we couldn’t afford. That Daisy couldn’t afford. “Can’t we… The spell you use to open portals” I stammered, turning to face Kenji. “You said they only work when the distance is short. This is the case, right?”

“I’d have to know exactly where we’re going, and I don’t. I’ve never been there.”

“And besides…” Quinn took a couple of steps and stopped next to me, looking at me with half an eye. “I don’t believe it would be smart to waltz it the territory of the Exiled through a portal.” He rolled up the sleeves of his loose, half-unbuttoned shirt. “Something leads me to think he’d interpret it as a challenge. Not of the good kind.”

I blinked several times, head still shaking automatically. It was a reflex by that point. “Then what do we do? Do we go back?” I clenched my fists, nails poking the flesh of my palms. “No. No, I can’t go back.”

Kenji motioned to a white and teal building standing behind the gas station, right by the edge of the forest. The red neon sign on top of it identified it as a motel. “We’ll spend the night and get back on the road as soon as it’s viable.”

I opened and closed my mouth, not a single sound coming from it. It wasn’t ideal, far from it, but what alternative did we have?

“We’ll be well rested and ready for whatever awaits” Quinn added. “I’d say it’s the best solution.”

“Fine” I agreed, nodding weakly. I could use some sleep. “Let’s go.”

After the car was moved to the more suitable parking lot in front of the building, the boys grabbed our bags, and we walked into the motel lobby. It was… well, it was what one could expect from a motel, truthfully: fake plants in the corners, colorful, stripey wallpaper, generic-looking landscapes framed on the walls, neon tubes on the ceiling casting a yellowish light on every surface, making it look unclean. The stench of stale cigarettes immediately made my eyes water.

The woman sitting behind the desk barely looked away from whatever was playing on her tablet.

“Good day” she mumbled with a long sigh. “What can I do for you?”

“A double for tonight” Kenji asked, fishing a couple of bills from his wallet. “Queen-sized beds.”

I gave him a closer look. “I’m not sharing with you.”

He didn’t even spare a glance in my direction; he kept his eyes on the lady, who suddenly looked pretty interested in what we had to say. “Possibly a pull-out couch.”

I fumbled to grab the wallet from my handbag, slamming it on the front desk. “A single room for me, please.”

The woman—Rita, according to the nameplate sewn to her shirt—looked back and forth blankly. "So what’s it going to be?”

“Just a double” Kenji replied. “How much?”

“I am not sharing” I repeated, turning to glower at Nicholas and Quinn, too. “And it’s not like I’m expecting you to pay for another room. I’m covering my own expenses.”

“You’re not staying in one of these damn rooms by yourself” Nicholas snapped. “Don’t even think about it.”

Quinn, hands in his pockets, shrugged. “They are right, love. It isn’t happening.”

“You can’t… You can’t force me to stay in a room with you.”

At those words, Kenji slowly turned in my direction. The usual muscle in his jaw twitched, the only sign he was getting upset. “You’re part of this Team. If your security is at stake, you can bet we’ll force you to do anything we deem necessary to keep you safe.”

I was this close to throwing a tantrum in the middle of the lobby, right in front of that poor woman, but I bit the inside of my cheeks so hard I drew blood. It wasn’t like me at all, but I was furious. They treated me as if I wasn’t even there. They made choices about me without even thinking about asking. Well, I was done. I’d spent all my life unable to decide for myself—I wasn’t willing to keep on living like that, not when I was just beginning to understand what freedom meant.

I stopped talking. I just observed as Kenji paid for the room, grabbed the pair of keys the woman was offering, and pushed me out of the tiny office like a shopping cart. We made our way up a flight of unstable stairs, crossed a gallery lined with doors on the left and overlooking the parking lot on the right, and finally got to our room.

I didn’t even look at it: as soon as the door was closed behind our back, I started speaking again.

“It’s funny, really” I started, faking a trembling smile. “You say I’m a part of this Team but never treat me as such, apart from when it benefits you. Apart from when you can use the excuse to control me.”

Three sets of eyes landed on me immediately. Quinn was placing our bags under the small desk next to the restroom door; Kenji was closing the blinds; Nicholas was taking sandwiches and snacks out of the plastic bag.

"We aren't trying to control you, love." Quinn stood up from his crouched position and took a couple of steps forward, hands lifted as if approaching an unknown danger. "Kenji might have used a harsh tone, but he's right. We're merely concerned about your safety. And I guess we all are pretty nervous about the whole situation, aren’t we?”

I shook my head. "You treat me as a nuisance. Like a stupid kid, you're forced to drag to work because the Coven has decided so."

“Nuisance? Stupid kid?” Quinn repeated before letting out a sharp laugh that sounded wrong coming from his mouth. “Please, love, listen to yourself. You’re not making any sense.”

"You're constantly leaving me out" I snapped. "You make decisions for me without even asking. You think my defective magic interferes with the missions. You still believe I'm not making any sense when I say I'm a nuisance?"

“Yes!” Nicholas exploded, crumpling up the bag and throwing it on the ground. “Because I’d like to remind you we're courting disaster here. Our careers—No, fuck that, our lives are on the line. We're risking everything for you, and you still choose not to see it! We gave you all the space you needed when you needed it, but still, it's not enough! We are asking you just one fuck—just one thing."

I flinched. A part of me wanted to take a step back, but I didn’t accommodate it. Instead, I got even closer, trying to ignore the way my hands and knees were trembling. Trying to ignore what he said. “I didn’t force you to” I said, my voice barely above an angry whisper. “You chose to come here.”

“We sure did.” Kenji’s voice cut deep like a blade. He was standing next to the window, seemingly indifferent. The tension in his shoulders told a different story, though. “That should tell you enough, Violet.”

A part of me was starting to understand what they meant. But it was so tiny, so insignificant, it could do nothing to contrast the blind rage setting fire to my body. “It doesn’t tell me anything. Anything! All I see is three cocky men bossing me around and treating me like an idiot who doesn’t know how to be in the world, and honestly, I’m done.”

I was well determined to get my bag and march to the lobby to ask for my own room, but I didn’t get past Nicholas: he grabbed my sweatshirt and pulled, making me stumble and crash into his chest. “Maybe you’re done, but we’re not.” He held onto me as if his life depended on it, so close I could smell his leather jacket and his aftershave. So close, his labored breathing caressed my cheeks. “Do you want to know how we treat you? Like someone unwilling to ask for help. Like someone we’ve almost fucking lost too many times.”

Warmth spread across my back. A moment later, Quinn appeared behind me, his hands tracing the profile of my neck and shoulders. “Like someone cherished and invaluable we can’t afford to lose.”

“Like someone we’d do anything to protect” Kenji concluded, taking a step toward us. “Including lying and slashing tires.”

“You don’t get it” I grumbled, ignoring the tangle of emotions their words had conjured. I extricated myself from that jail of warm hands, pretending not to feel the sense of loss that followed, and I backed off to look at all three of them. “Protecting me doesn’t mean controlling me or deciding what I should or shouldn’t do without taking my thoughts into consideration.”

For a moment, they didn’t react; they just kept staring in silence, the energy in the room so thick I felt it on my skin.

“And now, excuse me,” I grabbed my duffel bag off the floor, “I’m going to get my own room, like an adult woman capable of making her own decisions.”

Nicholas stepped in the way before I could even think about moving. “No.”

“Yes.”

“This is no place for you to be alone.” His gaze darkened as he clenched his jaw. “It’s a den of scumbags.”

“True. Three of them are in this room right now.”

What a bitch.

Truth be told, they didn’t seem offended by my comment: Nicholas was blocking the way, Quinn leaned against the door, Kenji stood in front of the window like he feared I could escape from there.

“I could always teleport” I snapped, when the millionth attempt to get across the room failed miserably.

“Go ahead.” Nicholas’s grin had something cruel about it. “I’d like to see you try.”

I bit my tongue, hand squeezing the bag strap. “Asshole.”

“Call me asshole, call me scumbag… you’re not leaving this room in any case.”

“You can’t keep me here!” I hit his chest with my index finger. “It’s called kidnapping!”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me so close for a moment I feared I’d get lost in his icy glare. “It’s called keeping you safe from creeps!”

“Did I ask you to?” I blurted out. “No, so let go, Nicholas!”

I tried shoving him away with my free hand, but he caught that one as well, and for a long second, he stared. Heaving chest, parted lips, a look in his eyes that pointed at storms ahead, he just stared.

“Letting you go?” he finally whispered, a stark contrast to the shouts that had filled the room up to that moment. His gaze was so intense I felt myself burning. “Never.”

And less than an instant later, his mouth was on mine.