Burn for Me

Chapter 11

I awoke early. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the sky had turned a pearly, pale color. I peeled Band-Aids off my face and arm, shook a few drops of lavandin and rose geranium into the oil warmer, lit a candle under it, and took a long shower. I was still clean, but a shower usually made me feel better. I stood under the cascade of hot water, hoping to wash away the remnants of yesterday. I’d dreamed of shooting people. In my dreams I killed them again and again, each bullet punching their heads in slow motion, the blood blossoming like a revolting red flower. It hadn’t been like that at all. The whole firefight had probably taken three or four minutes, if that. In the dream, my gun had sounded like thunder. In the lobby, it had sounded dry, like a firecracker. Boom-boom. A life ended. Boom-boom. Another one down.

I let the water run over me and tried to figure out how my mother survived it. How could she look through the scope, squeeze the trigger, and end someone’s life and do it again and again and still hold it together? I wanted to ask her about it. Was there some secret to it?

But two years had passed since my mother went to her last group meeting. She was better. Stirring up old demons wouldn’t do her any good. I had to deal with it on my own.

I stood under the shower until the guilt got the better of me. Using up all the hot water wouldn’t be cool. My sisters and cousins still had to shower. I got out, wrapped a towel around my hair and another around my body, and looked at my reflection. The shallow cuts on my face and arm had survived without bleeding. The cut on my ribs was worse. I smeared an antibiotic ointment on it. Wincing and making sucking noises didn’t seem to make the pain any less. I slapped a Band-Aid on the gash and another one on my arm, just in case that cut decided to open up and make a mess.

If only I’d had some paper towels and duct tape lying around. I rolled my eyes. What the hell had he been thinking? He was what, a multimillionaire? And he bandaged himself with a paper towel and duct tape. How did he even know what duct tape was? Maybe he had his own Prime version at the house, stitched with gold and studded with diamonds, just in case he gave himself a paper cut.

I laughed under my breath, snorted, and laughed some more. Standing here, dripping wet, and laughing like a loon. Perfectly mentally fit.

I pulled the towel off my hair, reached to put it on the hook by the window, and stopped. My bathroom window had a view of the motor pool, and from this angle, I could see the entire expanse of Grandma Frida’s kingdom. Vehicles covered with canvas and racks with parts stood by the walls. In the middle of the polished concrete floor, Mad Rogan was drawing a magic circle with chalk. It started as a large pentagon, with a two-and-a-half-foot-wide circle at each corner. Lines sectioned the pentagon into separate parts, with glyphs running along the border of the design. It looked flawless, the pentagon sides straight, the circles round. It must’ve taken him years of practice.

Mad Rogan finished the last glyph and straightened. He was wearing the same Henley and pants he had on last night. He stretched, raising one leg, than the other, and hopped in place, as if jumping an invisible rope. For a moment he stood, barefoot, in front of the pentagon, then he stepped across the line and stopped, facing my side of the warehouse, his eyes closed, his arms at his sides.

The Key. I’d read about it. It was a ritual some of the greater Houses used to recharge. Mad Rogan had expended all of his magic, and now he would try to get it back. Somewhere Adam Pierce was probably doing a very similar thing. People had different opinions on what the Keys actually did. Some said they replenished magic, some said they just realigned the magic user to make the best of it. I’d seen some YouTube videos of it, but none of them were of good quality. The Keys were a well-guarded secret. Each was unique to the House that had developed it.

Mad Rogan raised his arms, his elbows bent, his hands wide open, his eyes closed. I leaned against the side wall. A variation of the mage pose. Okay. So far not that exciting.

Rogan turned his right arm to the side, flexing his back, stretching his chest, simultaneously stepping sideways into the circle with liquid grace, as if his whole body suddenly opened. He spun within the chalk boundary, shockingly fast. His foot shot out, hammering a devastating high kick to an invisible opponent. His hands sliced through the air, right, then left, like blades ready to cut down an attacker.

The outline of the circle began to glow pale blue.

Mad Rogan turned, leaped, spun, and moved into the second circle. His rigid fingers rolled into fists and blades transformed into hammers as he threw quick, hard punches. His long kicks turned short and vicious, his speed and strength melding into pure power. He was graceful, like a dancer, but brutal and efficient, like an assassin backed into a corner.

The second circle glowed. Sweat broke out on Mad Rogan’s face, yet a serene, calm expression claimed his face. He rolled into the third circle. His right hand shot up, fingers bent. I’d seen this exact move yesterday when he’d hit the fake firefighter in the face. He must’ve stopped short, because if he had done it the way he was doing it now, he would’ve driven the cartilage of the man’s nose straight into his brain.

There was a fluid, magnetic grace in the way he moved. All those muscles I had been admiring yesterday were just a by-product of his journey toward his goal. And the goal was power. Raw, lethal power. All of him, his incredible strength, his blinding speed, his flexibility, dexterity, and stamina blended together to achieve an almost feral savagery. Tiny hairs stood on the backs of my arms. It was like watching a god of primal human violence dance, and I couldn’t look away. If only I could have him all to myself. What would it feel like to walk up to him, put my hand on his shoulder, and see all that condensed violence turn into lust?

All five circles glowed now. He landed in the pentagon, back in the same mage pose. The glow flared brighter, then vanished, as if sucked into him. Mad Rogan stepped out, wiped the sweat off his forehead with his forearm, grabbed a bottle of water sitting on the nearest covered vehicle, and drank.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and shivered. My left foot sparked with tiny points of pain—it had fallen asleep. I hopped, grabbed my towel before it slid off me, and leaned back to glance through the window. He still stood there. The sun had risen, and golden light spilled into the warehouse, drawing long rectangles on the floor. It washed over him, making his tan skin glow. I couldn’t see his face, just the sharp angle of his cheek, warmed by the sun.

If I’d been next to him right now and he’d reached for me, I would have let him do anything he wanted right there, on the hood of some tank.

I was in over my head. I exhaled and tried to drown out the need pulsing through me. Mad Rogan was off limits. He was from a different world, he had different standards, and he promised to make me an orphan if my mother threatened him again. Okay, that last one did. I was all good now.

I moved away from the window.

I had to get a grip. Nothing but trouble would come from messing around with Mad Rogan. He and I needed to catch Adam Pierce, bring him to his family, and go our separate ways.

When I came downstairs, Mad Rogan was nowhere to be found. I tracked Grandma Frida in the garage. She was leaning against the track vehicle she’d been working on and drinking her morning tea.

“Something else, wasn’t he?” she asked me quietly.

“You saw me watching him?”

She nodded, reached over, and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “When did you get so grown up? When did I get so old?”

“You’re not old, Grandma. You could probably kick my butt.”

She sighed. “Be careful, Nevada. That’s a very dangerous man.”

Tell me about it. “I’m not planning on hanging out with him one second longer than necessary.”

Grandma Frida gave me an odd look.

“What?”

“Does he know that?”

“Yes, he does. I told him. This is a purely professional arrangement.”

Grandma Frida shook her head and sipped her tea. “How is the investigation going, Sherlock?”

“Well, we found a weird doohicky made of jewels and almost got ourselves blown up.”

“What does it have to do with Pierce?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. But they are connected somehow. Where is Mad Rogan?”

“Bern came and got him.”

The less contact Mad Rogan had with my cousins and sisters, the better. “I guess I’ll go find them, then.”

“Guess so,” she said. “Watch your back, Nevada.”

“Always.”

“Because he isn’t Kevin.”

I turned on my foot. “Really, Grandma?”

She waved me on. “Go!”

She was right. Mad Rogan was as far away from Kevin as you could get.

A minute later I climbed the five steps to the Hut of Evil. Bern sat at his workstation. Mad Rogan stood behind him. Three screens in front of Bern showed the inside of Bug’s digital jungle lair in all its glory. Bug himself sat in front of the center monitor, petting Napoleon, who sprawled on his lap. His face was relaxed. Not twitching. No jumpy eyes. He was high as a kite on Equzol.

How in the world had Mad Rogan conned him into linking up to Bern’s system like this? Usually Bug was too paranoid. In the two years I’d known him, he wouldn’t even give me a phone number.

“. . . not bad for a home system,” Bug was saying.

“Is that a Strix T09x server behind you?” Bern asked.

Bug nodded.

“Nice. With Talon-M7?”

“Look again,” Bug said.

“How much Equzol did this cost you?” I murmured to Mad Rogan.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

Bern zoomed in on a piece of convoluted computer equipment. “Can’t be.”

“See it and weep.” Bug held out a dog biscuit in front of Napoleon. The dog opened his mouth and patiently waited until Bug put a biscuit into it.

Bern frowned. “How did you get this? M8s are scheduled for release in two months. M9s shouldn’t even be in production yet.”

“That’s what they want you to believe. They’re waiting for the Stryker chip to drop. When the M8s go on sale, the price will go through the roof, and then they’ll be worthless in like a month, because the M9s with the new Stryker will flood the market. Dickfuckers.”

“You keep using that word,” Mad Rogan said. “You realize it doesn’t make sense?”

“Why?” Bug startled.

“You can’t fuck a dick,” Mad Rogan said.

“But you can fuck with a dick,” Bug said.

“Then it’s redundant,” Bern said.

This was the kind of argument that could go on for hours. “Bug, did you find something?”

Bug rolled his eyes. “No, I’m sitting here talking to you assholes, Major excluded, because I’m a social butterfly and I just love y’all so much.” His fingers danced across the keyboard. “Turns out that First National stores two months of their security footage and dumps it to a remote server every night. I’ve gone through it and voila!”

Security footage of the inside of the bank filled the left monitor. A light rectangle slid across the screen and singled out a slim woman walking across the polished floor. Platinum blond hair, well dyed, white blouse with a chunky gold necklace, grey skirt, shockingly bright red belt, pair of red pumps, and designer bag. A banker met her, and the camera caught her face as she turned. She was about thirty, with large grey eyes, framed by long false eyelashes and a thin mouth. Pretty overlaid with a polish of money.

“Meet Harper Larvo,” Bug announced. “Twenty-nine years old, father Phillip Larvo, mother Lynn Larvo, both in real estate. Not affiliated with any House. Attended Phillips Academy Andover, then Dartmouth, where she managed to squeak by with a degree in art history—I’ve seen the transcript, it’s not pretty. Harper’s a harmonizer, like both of her parents and her grandfather.”

Harmonizers in magic terms had nothing to do with music. A talented harmonizer could walk into a room and make it take on an entirely different mood just by rearranging a few objects. As talents went, this one wasn’t that rare. Harmonizers usually worked as interior designers, florists, fashion consultants, any sphere where something had to be coordinated to be esthetically pleasing.

“Harper rates as Notable, but she’s really not far from Average,” Bug said. “Which is something, but not remarkable. Her parents are Notable too, her grandfather was a Significant. Her family banks at Central Bank. All of their accounts are there and have been for fifty years. So what is she doing here? There is no trace of her opening an account. Furthermore, my sweet little chickies, Harper is more or less unemployed. She interned at a fashion magazine, worked on the Black and Red Hotel in Dallas with some Sullivan dude who is supposed to be famous, and she’s affiliated with a couple of charities, but mostly she parties and looks pretty. Like a butterfly. Useless and famous for nothing.”

Half a dozen images popped on the screen. Harper with a champagne flute. Harper lying on a table, prettily kicking her feet. Harper at some sort of photo shoot poised on a couch and pouting at the camera.

“And my favorite,” Bug announced.

An image filled the screen. Harper giggling, her hair, bright yellow blond, pressed against Adam Pierce, who was looking hot and bothered in his trademark leather. He had one arm around her.

“When was this?” Mad Rogan asked.

“Four years ago,” Bug said.

The video resumed and we watched Harper and the bank employee walk to the elevator. They moved slowly, the banker speaking and moving his hands, as if explaining. The doors of the elevator opened, and they disappeared from view.

“And down they go to the safe-deposit box room,” Bug announced.

“She got the grand tour,” I guessed. “All she had to do was tell them she was interested and set up an appointment, and they showed her the bank, including the safe-deposit vault, where she could’ve marked the right box for Gavin.”

“Do you have her number?” Mad Rogan asked.

“Yes, Major. Sent to your phone.”

When Bug said Major, he said it in the way people usually say sir. Until now, I would’ve sworn Bug had no idea what word respect even meant.

Mad Rogan swiped his phone and held it to his ear. “This is Mad Rogan. Meet me in the Galleria by the fountain at Nordstrom in an hour.”

He hung up and looked at me. “Would you like to come?”

“Sure.”

“Front door in fifteen minutes.” He turned around and strode out.

I glanced at Bug’s face on the monitor. “When I met you, you told me you’d rather drink sewage than work with a Prime or anyone from the military again.”

Bug bristled. “So?”

I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder. “He’s a Prime and ex-military.”

“You don’t understand,” Bug said. “He’s . . . he’s Mad Rogan.”

“Oh spare me.”

He waved at me and Bern. “Kid, I’ll be moving soon. If you want the M9, you can have it.”

“That’s mighty big of you,” Bern said. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. I’m getting something better, so don’t go thinking I’m being nice. It just saves me from having to torch all this junk.”

The screens went dark.

“Did Mad Rogan just recruit Bug?” I asked.

“Appears that way,” Berg said.

We stared at each other.

“Did you get anywhere with the ornament?” I asked.

“No. It’s an odd shape. I got a hit on a Japanese dragonfly brooch, but I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “The pattern is slightly wrong.”

“Will you please keep looking? I know it’s like looking for a needle in the haystack, and I really, really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” he said.

“I just don’t trust Mad Rogan. We need to figure this out.”

“Don’t worry,” Bern said. “We’ll get it. Here, I’ve got something for you.”

Bern opened a drawer and pulled out a Ziploc bag containing a metal doohicky. “Found this on your car. A standard GPS transmitter.”

That’s how Mad Rogan had known I’d gone to meet Adam Pierce at the arboretum. I sighed.

“Are you okay?” Bern asked.

“Yes,” I lied. “I’m going to get dressed.” And get my gun.

“Nevada,” he called after me. “That M9 would be really nice! Do you have a problem with it?”

“If you can make a deal with Bug, go for it. Just try not to owe him any favors you can’t repay.”

I stepped out the front door of the warehouse and did a double take. Mad Rogan waited in the driver seat of the perfectly intact Range Rover. It had been a charred wreck only a few hours ago. It couldn’t be the same Range Rover.

I saw him looking at me through the window. His eyes were very blue this morning. A by-now familiar feeling zinged through me, two parts lust, one part alarm, and the rest frustration with myself. The impact of all that masculinity should’ve faded by now. I should’ve become inoculated and immune. Instead he again knocked my socks off.

Chains, I reminded myself, as I got in. “Do you have more than one Range Rover?”

“I have several,” he said, his voice calm.

“So I guess it’s not a big deal that Adam blew it up?”

“I have several because I like them.”

I looked at him. His jaw was set. His mouth was a straight, hard line. His eyes under the dark eyebrows had acquired a cold, steel-like hardness and I saw anger in their depths. Not the loud, ranting kind of anger, but a bone-chilling determined fury. My instincts screamed at me to get out of the car. Get out now and back away with my hands in the air.

“That particular Range Rover was the one I liked best,” Rogan said, his voice and expression still calm and pleasant. “When we find Pierce, I’ll take it out of him.”

Out of him? If this wasn’t personal for him before, it was definitely personal now. “We need Adam Pierce alive,” I reminded him. “You promised me.”

“I remember,” Rogan said. His tone suggested that he really didn’t like it. Maybe I would get lucky and Adam would lay low today, because if Rogan ran across him now, he might murder him and really enjoy it.

I buckled up, and the Range Rover rolled onto the street. It would take us about forty-five minutes to get to the Galleria. “Do you know Harper Larvo?”

“Never met her,” Rogan said.

“Then what makes you think she would even show?”

“I know her type.”

“What type is that?”

“The failed vector.”

I glanced at him.

“Her grandfather was a Significant,” he said. “He had three children. All of them are Notable. And all of their children are either Notable or Average.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked the House database while Bug was talking. I didn’t mention it at the time, because Bug was doing an excellent job, and it was his moment to shine. You have to let your people take pride in a job well accomplished and recognize them for it. You will get better results.”

Everything Rogan did was driven by efficiency, even his treatment of his employees. Happy employees worked hard and were more loyal, so he took the time to recognize them for their achievements. I wonder where I stood on that recognition ladder. He probably considered me his employee. Well, I wasn’t his employee, and the only thing I wanted from him was Adam Pierce, preferably hog-tied.

“In approximately seventy percent of the cases, magic passes from parent to child without a significant change in power,” Mad Rogan said. “A few descendants, about three to five percent, show a sudden uptick. The rest lose magic with each generation. You can see traces of this pattern within the same family. Even if both parents are Primes, there is usually a variation in power among their children. You asked me once why I was expected to have no more than three children. This is the other reason. If the first child is a Prime, there is a good statistical chance that the second child might not be. Still, most Houses prefer that the head of the House have at least two additional children. You know what they’re called?”

“No.”

He glanced at me, his face grim. “Backup plan. The Houses war with each other. We don’t always have the best life expectancy. Do you know why Adam was conceived?”

“No.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“Because Peter, his brother, was a late bloomer. The full extent of his magic didn’t manifest until he was eleven. They thought he was a dud, and that left only Tatyana, his sister, as the Prime of the House. If someone managed to kill her, House Pierce would be without a Prime. So they hurried on with making another baby just in case.”

“This sounds so cynical. And joyless.”

“It often is,” Mad Rogan said. “If the fading magic effect persists over two generations, that particular bloodline becomes a failed vector. Each generation is weaker than the previous one. The Houses fear one thing and one thing only: losing power. If I’m a failed vector, whoever marries me does so knowing her children will be less magically powerful than she is.”

The pieces came together. “Nobody will touch Harper with a ten-foot pole.”

“Exactly. Her grandfather had strong magic, and that afforded her entrance into society. She probably appeared as a fresh, wide-eyed debutante, sure that she would meet the love of her life and marry into a powerful House. Over the years she realized that men date her, fuck her, but always leave her. She’s twenty-nine. By now the bloom has worn off the rose. She knows the facts, she knows a match with any of the Houses is impossible, but she still wants it desperately. She watched her grandfather be a part of the power circle, she watched her parents wield a fraction of that influence, and she’ll do anything to claw her way back to the top. I’m an unmarried male Prime. I’m powerful, handsome, and filthy rich.”

“Also humble and self-deprecating.” I couldn’t help myself.

“That too,” he said without blinking an eye. “She’ll show. She can’t pass on the chance I might get smitten.”

“That’s really sad. I’m really glad I’m not a Prime, because the lot of you are a bunch of sick bastards.”

Mad Rogan gave me an odd look. “Power has a price. We don’t always want it, but we always end up paying. You held power over life and death yesterday. How does it feel?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’m not going to have a heart-to-heart with you.

“The first time I killed someone, and I mean an up close, personal kill where I watched the life fade out of his eyes, I waited. I’d read all the books and watched all the movies, and I knew what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to feel sick, throw up, and then deal with it. So I stood there, waiting, and I felt nothing. So I thought, maybe it will happen next time.”

“Did it?”

“No,” he said.

“How many people did you kill?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I stopped counting. It was a hard war.”

His words kept rolling around my head. He shared something private and personal with me. He probably wouldn’t understand, but I felt the urge to tell him about it anyway. I had to tell someone.

“It feels like I lost a part of myself,” I said. “There is a big hole inside me, like something has been violently ripped out. I was brushing my teeth today, and I thought of those two men and the woman. They will never brush their teeth. They’ll never go to breakfast. They’ll never say hello to their mother. They won’t get to do any of those simple things. I caused that. I squeezed the trigger. I realize that they were trying to do the same to me, but I feel guilty and I mourn for them and for me. Something is gone from me forever. I want to be whole again, but I know I will never get it back.”

“What happens if instead of Harper we walk into an ambush and someone points a gun at you?” he asked.

“I’ll shoot him,” I said. “It will be bad later, but I’ll deal with it. It would help if I knew why. Why are they willing to kill? What’s so important that Adam will burn a whole office building just to provide a distraction?”

“That’s a good question,” Mad Rogan said.

“All of it—the bank, the office tower, the team of people—it seems too complicated for Adam.” It had been nagging at me ever since I’d seen the team of fake firefighters go into the tower. “He doesn’t like to work. This whole thing is well organized and carefully planned. He doesn’t strike me as a guy who would bother with that much planning.”

Mad Rogan changed lanes with surgical precision. “I learned a long time ago to only employ the best. I choose my people carefully. They’re competent, well trained, and diligent, and right now they are scouring the city. I have considerable resources at my disposal. I have contacts among people who run Houston’s underworld.”

I didn’t want to know how he got them.

“I’m not telling you this to aggrandize myself. I’m establishing the frame of reference. When I want someone found, they are brought to me within hours.” Mad Rogan glanced at me. “I can’t find Adam Pierce.”

For a moment the calm mask slid and I saw straight into him. He wasn’t just frustrated. He was furious.

“He’s moving through the city like a ghost,” Mad Rogan said. “He appears and disappears at will.”

Now I understood why he had zeroed in on me. Everything his people had done failed, and here I was, buying T-shirts for Adam Pierce.

“Do you think he is being cloaked by an illusion mage?” I asked. Really strong illusionists could distort reality.

“Not by one mage. He is being cloaked by a team. Cloaking a moving target takes a coordinated effort and a special training. The team we took down in the tower had that kind of proper training.” Rogan grimaced. “Pierce wouldn’t have connections or the knowledge to put an op of this size together. He doesn’t have the finances, he doesn’t know the right people, and even if he had somehow managed to acquire financial backing and contacts, nobody would take him seriously.”

He was right. “It wouldn’t even occur to Adam. He isn’t a team player. Someone else must be pulling his strings.” Anxiety washed over me. “Who could have that much influence over Adam? His own family can’t control him.”

Mad Rogan’s face turned grim. “I don’t know. Maybe Harper can tell us.”

We rode in silence.

“I want some justification for having ended the lives of these people,” I said quietly. “I want to know why.”

“I promise you, we will find out why,” Mad Rogan said.

I didn’t need my magic to tell me he meant it.

The Houston Galleria was the largest mall in Texas. It had hundreds of stores—Nordstrom, Saks, two separate Macy’s—and an ice rink, open year round. It was built in the late ’60s by Gerald D. Hines, who in turn had gotten the idea from Glenn H. McCarthy, Houston’s legendary wildcatter and oil man, known as Diamond Glenn. Since its opening in 1970, the mall had undergone several expansions. We were heading into the newest wing, Galleria IV.

The mall sprawled before us, two levels of stores, all glass, pale tile, enormous vaulted skylights interrupted by white arches. We strolled through it casually. I’d gone for the jeans and blouse again, and I’d brought along my favorite purse, tan leather, light, small, easy to fit over my shoulder, with a modified front compartment that let me pull out my firearm in a fraction of a second. I was carrying a Kahr PM9. At five and a half inches long, it weighed about a pound with the 6-round magazine. It had no hammer, so it wouldn’t catch as I pulled it out of my modified purse, and it had an external safety selector, which made me feel better. My Plan A for when things went wrong was to run away without shooting anyone. Plan B was to show the gun and make the person back off, in which case the last thing I wanted was an accidental discharge. Only Plan C involved actually firing the firearm, and considering where we were, I would have to be very sure I could pull the trigger without injuring an innocent person.

Mad Rogan strode next to me. He wore a grey suit with a black shirt he’d left unbuttoned at the collar. The clothes he wore were neither elaborate nor showy. They just fit him with tailored precision and were exceptionally well made. We should’ve coordinated better. We didn’t exactly fit together, but the Galleria was home to an odd crowd. Young mothers walked with babies in their strollers, mingling with scene teenagers with blue, purple, and pink hair. In front of us, two middle-aged women in expensive pantsuits, their faces smoothed by illusion magic into near plastic perfection, ducked into a store, narrowly avoiding a collision with a man in a ball cap and paint-smeared shorts.

A young woman passing us glanced at Mad Rogan and slowed down. We kept walking, and I saw her reflection in a mirrored display. She was still looking at him in that appraising female way. A couple of men walked out of the store on the right and paused, giving Mad Rogan the same appreciative look. The younger of the two winked at me.

On second thought, no matter what we wore, people would still notice. Mad Rogan wasn’t the most beautiful man in the Galleria, but that masculine . . . aura? Air? Whatever the heck it was, it rolled off him. It was in the set of his shoulders, in the way he walked, as if there was nothing he couldn’t handle. It was in the slight roughness of his skin. In the hardness in his eyes. In a sea of generic illusion faces, he stood out, and people zeroed in on him.

We passed a gift shop selling bouquets of flowers arranged in crystal vases. The middle bouquets held carnations, big, frilly blossoms with gentle pink in the center and pale, wide borders along the petals’ edges. I loved carnations. They were delicate but surprisingly resilient. When roses withered in the vase, carnations still bloomed. And I loved the scent, the delicate, fresh, slightly spicy fragrance.

“What is it?” Mad Rogan asked.

I realized I had glanced at the flowers for a second too long. “Nothing. I just like carnations.”

The fountain by Nordstrom sat on the first floor, a round basin with plants rising up in a tight arrangement in its center. A ring of white underground lights surrounded the plants, glowing gently under the water. A blond stood next to the fountain. She wore a dress made of intertwining, shimmering dark-purple braids, which formed a complex latticework over her shoulders. I had no idea how she managed to even get into that dress, but I had to give it to her, the woman knew how to pose. She stood relaxed but bending back a little, one foot turned inward and pointing toward the other in that slightly awkward pose fashion magazines liked. The dress fit her like a glove, just a quarter inch too loose to turn from form-fitting to vulgar. Her figure was perfect, her waist slender, her legs tan and toned, her breasts and butt curvy but not too big. She’d dyed her hair from platinum to soft strawberry blond, and it fell in ringlets over her shoulders. Her makeup was fresh and flawless. Too flawless. Harper had had herself spelled before she came to meet us. Nothing too obvious, but human skin typically had pores.

“How can I make it easier for you to tell if she’s lying?” Mad Rogan asked quietly.

“Yes or no answers are best,” I said.

Mad Rogan stopped by the sitting area just short of the fountain and sat. I sat next to him.

Harper walked toward us, slowly, like a cat, her golden, high-heeled, strappy sandals making a slight clicking sound on the tiled floor.

“Rogan, I presume.” Her voice matched her—throaty. She slid into the chair across from Rogan and put one long, tan leg over the other, exposing a dangerous amount of thigh. She eyed him up and down in a slow, blatant appraisal and smiled. “I like.”

This wouldn’t go well.

Harper gave me a quick but thorough once-over and turned back to Rogan. “What can I do for you, Mad Rogan?”

He leaned back against his chair. “When you marked the safe-deposit box in the vault of First National, did you know Pierce intended to blow up the bank?”

Straight for the jugular. Okay, then.

Harper smiled. “You called me here to talk about Adam? I would much rather talk about you. What have you been doing all these years?”

“I’ll ask again: did you know Pierce would set the bank on fire?” Rogan asked.

“And if I don’t answer?” Harper raised one eyebrow. “Will you do things to me? They say you’re a tactile.” She glanced at me. “Is he a tactile?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I had no idea what a tactile was.

“Oh. You haven’t had sex.” Harper’s blue eyes brightened. “Don’t feel bad. I imagine he doesn’t go slumming very often.”

Slumming? Cute.

Harper looked me over with a critical eye. “The dye job isn’t bad, but the rest needs help. Especially the shoes. I’d give you pointers, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t do much good.”

In that moment I got Harper’s number. She was one of those women who judged other women’s worth by the kind of men they were with. I came with Mad Rogan, and she wasn’t sure at first if I was competition or not. Now she realized we weren’t a couple, but she demolished me just in case. This was actually sad.

“Answer my question,” Mad Rogan said. His eyes had turned darker. He was getting annoyed.

“I dated a tactile once,” Harper purred. “The Ramirez branch of the Espinoza family. He wasn’t on your level, but it was . . . an experience. He could take my clothes off with his mind. Can you?” She tilted her head. “Can you take my clothes off without touching me?”

Mad Rogan leaned forward, his grim mask suddenly cracking into a smile. “Sure, sweetheart.”

Uh-oh. I’d heard that tone of voice before, just before Peaches went splat.

“Show me,” she said. “And then I’ll tell you about Adam.”

Wow. Here was a dangerous Prime she’d known for all of thirty seconds, and she went right to making out. God, she must really have been desperate. I felt a little embarrassed for Harper Larvo.

Mad Rogan leaned back and smiled. He looked at her as if she was already naked and he owned her. Harper smiled back, showing white teeth. And why exactly did I develop a sudden urge to throw some of that fountain water on both of them?

Harper gasped.

“Did it feel something like that?” Mad Rogan asked.

She gasped again, drawing her breath in sharply. Her cheeks flushed. Something was clearly happening. I had no idea what, but she seemed to enjoy it.

The braids crisscrossing on her shoulders slid, moving against each other on their own. They unwound, turned, left, right . . . Harper swallowed and her eyes opened wide, her pupils growing larger.

“Touch me again,” she breathed.

Another braid, weaving in between the others. Was he actually going to undress her right here? I followed their movement. Oh no. He wasn’t taking her clothes off, like she thought. He was braiding them into a noose around her neck.

“Don’t you dare.”

Mad Rogan ignored me.

“I mean it. Stop.”

“Don’t interfere,” he said.

“If you’re too embarrassed, you can go wait by the fountain,” Harper murmured and glanced back at Rogan, her eyes half closed. “I wouldn’t have expected you to employ a prude. You’re an interesting man . . . full of . . . oh my God . . . surprises.”

The braids twisted again.

“Rogan!”

Harper leaned forward, stretching like a limber cat ready for a stroke of her owner’s hand. Her words came out in quick, breathless bursts. “Give her a hundred bucks, tell her to buy something so she’ll leave us alone . . . More, Rogan. More . . .”

The noose snapped tight, clamping Harper’s neck. She gasped for breath, her mouth gaping.

“You can’t just strangle her.”

“Of course I can,” he said.

Harper clutched at her dress, clawing at her neck, trying to get it off her throat.

I pulled a gun out of my purse and pointed it at Mad Rogan’s leg. “Let her go, or I’ll shoot you.”

Mad Rogan turned to me. “You would shoot me?” He looked genuinely puzzled.

“To save her life, yes.” Even if it meant he would crush me a moment later. “Let her go.”

Harper’s face turned bright plum red. She struggled, her back rigid.

Mad Rogan looked at me. Looking into his eyes was like staring straight into the dragon.

I took the safety off my Kahr. “Please let her go.”

The noose on Harper’s throat fell slack. She fell back into her chair, gulping air in hoarse breaths. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Look at me.” Mad Rogan leaned forward. Menace and contempt dripped from his words. “Did you know Adam would blow up the building?”

“Yes!” Harper gasped. “Yes, I knew, you sick fuck!”

True.

“Do you know what was in the deposit box?”

“No!”

True.

“Do you know what was in the building next to the one Adam burned yesterday?” I asked.

“No!”

True.

People were looking at us. Blood swelled in the scratches on Harper’s neck where she had clawed at herself.

“Do you know what Adam is planning?” I asked.

She glared at me. “You think Adam is planning something? Adam just wants to burn shit! He’s just a glorified O’Reilly’s cow. He’s a means to an end. You have no idea what’s coming. Soon the Change will happen, and the only thing that will matter will be whose side you were on. I’ve earned my place. I was on the right side. I will be on top. You, you fucking bitch, you’ll rot in hell with this fucking pervert! I hope you two fucking suffer.”

Harper jumped to her feet and ran away, sobbing. A large cityscape billboard hanging from the second-floor bridge moved slightly, turning up as she came toward it, about to peel off the bridge. If it fell on her . . .

I put my hand on Mad Rogan’s arm. “Don’t.”

The board stopped. Harper ran under the bridge and deeper into the mall, her cell phone to her ear. I thumbed the safety back on and put the gun away.

“You would have shot me over her?” Mad Rogan asked.

“You can’t just kill people.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s morally wrong. She is a person, a living, breathing human being.”

“Morally wrong according to whom?” he asked.

“According to the majority of people. It’s against the law.”

“Who is going to tell the law?” he asked. “I could’ve snapped her neck and shot her up on those arches above us. Nobody would find her for days until pieces of her started to fall down.”

“It’s still wrong. You can’t just kill people because they annoy you.”

“You keep saying ‘can’t,’” he said.

“You shouldn’t.” It was like talking to some alien creature.

He leaned back and examined me. “I’ve helped you and protected you. More, you need me to apprehend Pierce. So you have both an emotional and a financial interest in maintaining a working relationship with me. I’m important to you. She insulted and belittled you. She’s a completely useless human being. In five years she will still be doing exactly what she’s doing now, flitting from club to club, supplying tabloids with gossip, and bitching to her friends about her mother, except the clubs won’t be quite as nice and the tabloids won’t mention her quite as often. She contributes nothing.”

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty for protecting her?” I asked.

“No, I’m trying to understand. You’re not annoyed at her.”

“I’m annoyed at the people who taught her that her only goal in life should be attaching herself to someone with better magic. I’m annoyed by her because she thinks that having a little bit of money lets her belittle other people. But I’m not threatened by her in the least. Rogan, I own my own business. I’m good at my job. I’m successful enough to keep the roof over our heads and be respected by my peers. My family loves me unconditionally. And when some strange man calls me and orders me to be somewhere, I don’t drop everything and rush over. I’m free. I make my own life and my own choices. I’m not desperately trying to earn the approval of people who think I’m worthless because I don’t have enough magic or because I’m failing to meet their expectations. Don’t you think that if Harper was honest with herself for a moment, she would wish she were me?”

“You’re giving her too much credit. She can change her life any moment she wants to,” he said.

“You still can’t kill her.”

“Yes, I can. I wasn’t necessarily going to just yet, because I wanted information, but your argument that I shouldn’t is baseless. You do realize she participated in an arson that resulted in a man dying?”

“You can’t kill her, because it’s against the law. Because you live here in this country and its laws apply to you no matter how much magic you have. We let police handle things. We have a justice system. Because killing random people just because they did something you don’t like makes you the bad guy.”

His lips curved. A light, amused spark flashed in his eyes, and Mad Rogan laughed at me.

I threw my hands up and got to my feet. “I’m done talking to you.”

He got up, chuckling. “We could’ve gotten more out of her if you had let me choke her a little longer.”

“I think we got about as much as we were going to. You humiliated her. I’m guessing you were making out somehow and then you nearly killed her. She’ll be scarred for life.”

“And if she tried to choke me?”

“I would’ve shot her. I might have warned her first. I don’t know.” I frowned. “So, we know she is involved. She doesn’t know what’s in the deposit box.”

“They probably told her just enough to get her on board,” Mad Rogan said. “Still, we could’ve gotten more.”

I shook my head.

“What?” he asked.

“Rogan, I am not an idiot. By now you probably bugged her car and her house, cloned her phone, and slipped spyware into her computer. You terrified her, and you know she will snitch on you to whoever handles her and your people will be in on the conversation.”

He laughed again.

I pulled out my phone and texted Bern to ask him to search the net for some mention of the Change. Then I paused. She’d said Adam was just a glorified O’Reilly cow. I wondered if she’d meant O’Leary. Did someone call Adam that and she misheard, maybe?

We moved toward the nearest exit. The crowd had thinned out. It was just me and him.

“What’s a tactile?” I really shouldn’t have been asking him that.

His face blank, he didn’t answer.

I must’ve made him uncomfortable. “Never mind. I understand it’s probably personal. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, I’m just thinking of the best way to explain,” Mad Rogan said. “My father survived nine assassination attempts. House Rogan always had its share of enemies. If we can see a threat, we can deal with it, but one can’t always see a sniper hiding in the dark. My father was obsessed with compensating for what he perceived as weakness. He wanted a child with telepathic magic in addition to his own telekinetic powers, so after careful consideration, he found my mother. She had a minor telekinetic talent and she was also a very powerful empath. My father had to go all the way to Europe to find the right combination of genes.”

“Where was your mother from?”

“Spain. She was Basque. My father wanted me to have a secondary talent and be a telekinetic sensate, someone who senses when they are being watched or targeted. But my telekinetic magic proved to be too strong, so instead I’m a tactile. I can make you feel touched.” He paused. “It would be easier if I showed you. Do I have permission?”

Yes. “No.” Being touched by Mad Rogan wasn’t a good idea.

We kept walking. What would it be like?

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

How would it feel?

Would it feel . . . oh hell.

“Okay.” I stopped. We were in front of a small alcove. Nobody was around. If I made an idiot out of myself, nobody would notice. “Just once.”

A soft burst of heat touched the back of my neck. I’d never felt anything like it before. It was as if someone had touched me with a heated mink glove, but the touch wasn’t soft, it was firm. It felt . . . it felt . . .

The heat slid down my neck, fast, over my spine, setting every single nerve on fire before melting in the small of my back, its echoes pulsing through me. My body sang. He’d strummed me like I was a guitar. I wanted him and I wanted him now.

“That was . . .” I saw his eyes. Words died.

All the hardness had vanished from his eyes. They were alive and heated from within. “You want me.”

“What?”

The magic warmth slid over my shoulders, melting into pure pleasure.

“I feel the feedback.” He took a step toward me, grinning. “Nevada, you’re a liar.”

Uh-oh. I backed up. “What feedback?”

“When I do this . . .” The heated pressure zinged from my back up my ribs. I gasped. Oh dear God. “. . . what you feel loops back to me. I’m partially empathic.”

“You didn’t mention that.” My heart was doing its best to break through my chest, and I couldn’t tell if it was alarm, lust, or some weird mix of both.

He grinned, coming closer. “The hotter you are, the hotter I am. And you’re on fire.”

My back hit the wall. He closed in with an almost terrifying intensity. His muscular body boxed me in.

“Rogan,” I warned. In my head, a song played over and over, singing to me in a seductive voice, Rogan, Rogan, Rogan, sex . . . want . . .

“Remember that dream you had?” His voice was low, commanding.

“Rogan!”

The delicious warmth danced around my neck.

“Where I had no clothes?”

The warmth split and slid over me, over the sensitive nerves in the back of my neck, over my collarbone, around my breasts, cupping them and sliding fast to the tips, tightening my nipples, then sliding down, over my stomach, over my sides and butt, down between my legs. It was everywhere at once, and it flowed over me like a cascade of sensual ecstasy, overloading my senses, overriding my reason, and rendering me speechless. I hurtled through it, trying to sort through the sensations and failing. My head spun.

He was right there, masculine, hot, sexy, so incredibly sexy, and I wanted to taste him. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted him to press himself against the aching spot between my legs.

His arms closed around me. His face was too close, his eyes enticing, compelling, excited. “Let’s talk about that dream, Nevada.”

I was trapped. I had nowhere to go. If he kissed me, I would melt right here. I would moan and beg him, and I would have sex with him right here, in the Galleria, in public.

A spark of pain drained down my arm, driven by pure instinct. I grabbed his shoulder. Feathery lightning shot out and singed him.

Agony exploded in me, cleansing like an ice-cold shower.

Rogan’s body jerked, as if struck by an electric current. It lasted only a second, and I didn’t push as hard as I could have. I was learning to control it.

Rogan whipped back to me, his eyes feral. His voice was a ragged growl. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

“It was supposed to get your attention.” I pushed him back with my hand. “You were getting really excited.”

“‘No’ would’ve been sufficient.”

“I wasn’t sure.” I pushed from the wall and headed toward the exit. “I said ‘once.’ That was more than once. I wanted you to stop.”

“I was encouraged by you breathlessly moaning my name.”

I spun on my foot. “I wasn’t moaning your name. I was shrieking in alarm.”

“That was the sexiest throaty shrieking I’ve ever heard.”

“You need to get out more.” My cheeks were burning.

“Shockers take six months of training and still occasionally kill their users. Why did you implant them in the first place?”

“Because you kidnapped me.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Mr. Rogan,” I frosted my voice over. “What I put into my body is my business.”

Okay, that didn’t sound right. I gave up and marched out the doors into the sunlight. That was so dumb. Sure, try your magic sex touch on me, what could happen? My whole body was still keyed up, wrapped up in want and anticipation. I had completely embarrassed myself. If I could fall through the floor, I would.

“Nevada,” he said behind me. His voice rolled over me, tinted with command and enticing, promising things I really wanted.

You’re a professional. Act like one. I gathered all of my will and made myself sound calm. “Yes?”

He caught up with me. “We need to talk about this.”

“There is nothing to discuss,” I told him. “My body had an involuntary response to your magic.” I nodded at the poster for Crash and Burn II on the wall of the mall, with Leif Magnusson flexing with two guns while wrapped in flames. “If Leif showed up in the middle of this parking lot, my body would have an involuntary response to his presence as well. It doesn’t mean I would act on it.”

Mad Rogan gave Leif a dismissive glance and turned back to me. “They say admitting that you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.”

He was changing his tactics. Not going to work. “You know what my problem is? My problem is a homicidal pyrokinetic Prime whom I have to bring back to his narcissistic family.”

We crossed the road to the long parking lot. Grassy dividers punctuated by small trees sectioned the lot into lanes, and Mad Rogan had parked toward the end of the lane, by the exit ramp.

“One school of thought says that the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy,” Mad Rogan said. “For example, if you’re terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it.”

Aha. “I’m not handling your snake.”

He grinned. “Baby, you couldn’t handle my snake.”

It finally sank in. Mad Rogan, the Huracan, had just made a pass at me. After he casually almost strangled a woman in public. I texted to Bern, “Need pickup at Galleria IV.” Getting into Rogan’s car was out of the question.

Ahead of us a grey SUV slid into a far parking spot and spat out three people, two men in cargo shorts and T-shirts, and a woman in a sundress. They began walking toward the mall and us. They were moving deliberately, with a purpose, each step measured.

My instincts whined at me. “Rogan. Three people ahead.”

“I see,” Rogan said.

The sound of a car engine made me glance over my shoulder. A blue sedan drove down our lane and came to a stop. The doors opened and an older man with short greying hair, wearing khaki pants and a white shirt, jumped out on one side, while a woman in a white dress got out of the other.

Time stopped. Things happened all at once in the space of a tiny, pressure-filled second.

The hood of the car tore off, slid sideways like a Frisbee, sliced into the woman, and kept flying.

I pulled my gun.

The man clapped his hands, and twin sparks of blue lightning hit Rogan straight in his chest.

I fired two shots. Bullets ripped into the lightning mage’s face, blowing two wet, red holes in his skull.

Rogan went down like a cut tree.

The top of the woman’s body tipped back, a huge gash opening up at her waist like a gaping red mouth. She fell.

I fired two more shots into the windshield.

The car reversed. Its wheels rolled over the woman’s twitching body.

I spun and squeezed the last two shots at the three people sprinting to us. They ducked behind the cars.

I grabbed Rogan’s legs and yanked him into the narrow space between a black Tahoe and red Honda.

Someone pushed Play on the invisible divine remote. Suddenly time sped back up. I pulled a spare magazine out, released the old one, and snapped the new one in on autopilot. Six rounds. The lightning mage and the woman were down, but the other three and the driver of the car remained. Six bullets, four people. The math wasn’t in my favor.

Fear twisted inside me like a living animal. Rogan’s legs and arms shuddered, locked up in spasms. Please, God, don’t let it be permanent.

If we stayed here, we were sitting ducks. They would come for us, and I had no idea what sort of magic they had. Bullets wouldn’t be enough.

I had to draw them away.

I put my gun down and pushed Rogan, trying to slide him under the Tahoe. His body barely moved. He was so heavy. I pushed against the asphalt. Rogan slid an inch. Another inch. What the hell was he eating for dinner, lead bricks? I pushed with everything I had. Finally he slid under the car.

I grabbed my gun, crouched low, and ran along the line of cars toward the mall, punching the car hoods. One, two, three . . . come on, the line was all SUVs, Cadillacs and BMWs, someone had to have the alarm on . . . Four, five . . . I needed the noise. I punched another hood, a beat-up orange Pontiac Aztek with a mangled bumper. The car alarm shrieked and wailed in outrage. Really? All those cars and someone put the alarm on an Aztek? Oh well, good enough. I kept moving, sucked in a lungful of air, and screamed, “Help! Help me! Help!”

Follow me, you bastards.

“Help!”

An old, white-haired man with wire-rimmed glasses leaned out between the cars, his ruddy face puzzled. He wore dark dress pants, a white shirt, and a dark tie with red and gold stylized flowers on it. He was holding a Starbucks coffee cup in his right hand.

“Are you alright?” He started toward me.

He had to be a decade past sixty. Why couldn’t I have gotten a younger Samaritan?

“It’s not safe!” I waved at him. “Get out of here!”

“What’s going on?”

“Get out—”

The old man tossed the contents of the cup at me. A ball of crinkled copper wire flashed, reflecting sunlight, and smacked me in the chest. The wires shot out of the clump, catching my arms, legs, and throat, and yanked me off my feet, dragging me to the side between the cars. The wire strands whipped, twisting around the bike racks on the SUVs and stretching my arms. I hung between an SUV and a small tree growing in the grass divider, my toes barely touching the ground. The wire loop around my neck squeezed, cutting off my air.

The old man walked out between the cars, the wires stretching from the cup in his hands.

“Shhh,” the old man said. “Don’t struggle, it will make it worse.”

He touched his hand to his left ear. An earpiece. Didn’t see it before. His hair had hidden it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I have her.” He took his hand from his ear and looked at me. “Give me the gun.”

I wheezed, trying to suck some air. He wasn’t getting the gun from me. He would have to take it.

“Come on.” The old man held his hand under my right fist. “Just let it go. Be a good girl.”

No, I don’t think so.

The old man squeezed the cup and the wires tightened, cutting my throat. I tried to scream but managed a hoarse hiss instead.

“Always has to be the hard way, doesn’t it? Fine.” He reached over, on his toes. His hand closed over the barrel of the Kahr.

I dropped the gun and clamped my fingers on his wrist. Pain rolled down my shoulder, and I let it blossom into agony. The feathery lightning gripped him and the old man bent back, his spine rigid. His eyes rolled back in his head. Foam bubbled up at his mouth. I let go and he fell to his knees, landing facedown on the pavement.

The wires fell. I crashed to the ground, dug my nails at the metal noose around my neck, and pulled it loose. Air. Sweet, sweet air. Bright red stained my fingers. My blood. The wire must’ve cut me.

I had to move. The others were coming. I glanced up.

A silver sedan hurtled toward me through the air. I saw it with crystal clarity, every single detail plain, as if I were looking at an enormous HD image: the oblong headlights, the tinted windows, the shiny hood, the top of the car as it turned before crushing me. No time to run. No time for anything.

I’m dead.

I jerked my arms up in reflex.

The sedan froze six inches from my fingertips. It groaned, the metal twisting, and shot up and back, revealing Mad Rogan. He was incredibly, monumentally angry.

The car flew over him, aiming for the attackers. The woman in the sundress tried to dodge the sedan. It smashed into her, sweeping her from her feet.

I yanked the rest of the wires off my ankles and wrists and got up.

The sedan bounced on the woman’s body, screeched, scraping the asphalt, spun, and slapped the taller of the two men. He crashed down and the sedan rolled over him, pounding him flat. The vehicle bounced and flew at the third man, who was wearing a dark blue T-shirt. The man leaped up, like he had wings, and perched atop the sedan, standing on one foot, perfectly balanced.

“Are you okay?” Mad Rogan ground out.

“I’ll live,” I croaked and grabbed my gun.

The sedan jerked six feet into the air, rotating. The man ran over the spinning car as a lumberjack during a logrolling competition, leaped at the parked row of cars, and dashed toward us, running across the cars like they were solid ground.

I sighted him and squeezed the trigger. The windshield of the white truck to the right cracked. The bullet hit him dead center and ricocheted into the windshield. Lovely.

“A wind mage.” Mad Rogan clasped his hands together and jerked them apart. Two hoods flew off the nearest cars and flew at the mage. The aerokinetic dodged with room to spare, as graceful as a ballet dancer, and punched the air. Mad Rogan leapt right. A foot-long gap sliced the asphalt next to me. The second gap split the pavement two inches closer to Rogan’s foot. Holy shit.

The hoods shot back to us and hovered like shields.

Anything small would bounce off the wind mage. Anything heavier would be too slow to hit him. Catch-22.

Mad Rogan held out a chalk. “Draw an amplification circle around me.”

I grabbed the chalk. Amplification circle was magic 101. Small circle around the mage’s feet, larger circle around him, three sets of runes. I’d just never tried to draw one on the asphalt while a wind mage was throwing invisible air blades at us.

The hood directly in front of Rogan split with a screech. A bright red line swelled across his chest. He grimaced. The hoods spun around us, faster and faster.

I finished the smaller circle. It wasn’t perfect, but it was round.

Something pelted the hoods, sounding like hail. The mage couldn’t see us, but we couldn’t see him either.

I finished the second circle.

Another hail of air blades, this time from the right. The aerokinetic had us pinned.

I drew the runes out. “Done.”

A tiny puff of chalk escaped from the lines into the air. Rogan flexed, his arms bulging. A vein shook in his neck.

The hoods kept spinning. If I were a wind mage, I’d try to get a drop on us . . .

I looked up. A graceful figure soared above us in the sky.

“Up!” I yelled.

The aerokinetic raised his arms. We were wide open.

A Greyhound bus smashed into the wind mage. I caught a glimpse of him, pressed against the bus’ windshield like a bug, his eyes wild. The bus crashed into the pavement in front of the mall, sinking three feet into the ground but remaining half upright.

Mad Rogan smiled, like a smug cat who’d just gotten away with stealing something off the counter. “Wind mages. They’re all fancy dancing until you drop something heavy on them.”

I stared at the bus like an idiot, still holding the chalk in my fingers. A car tire was heavy. He had dropped a damn bus.

My wrists and ankles were bleeding. My knees too—I must’ve scraped myself trying to draw the circle. So far today I’d seen a woman almost die, I’d shot a person, I’d killed another person with my shockers, I’d been strung up on wires and almost crushed by a car, and now I was bleeding all over the place. If I could, I would punch today right in the face.

Bern’s black Civic pulled into the parking lot and swerved to avoid the bus.

Mad Rogan looked down at my chalk lines. “This is the lousiest circlework I’ve ever seen. Were you drawing with your eyes closed?”

That was it. I threw the chalk at him, got up, marched to the Civic, and got inside. “Drive, Bern. Please.”

To my cousin’s credit, he said nothing about the blood, the bus, or Mad Rogan. He stepped on the gas and drove straight home.