Burn for Me

Chapter 5

I opened my eyes. A pale ceiling stretched above me. I sat up. Folds of blue silk slid off my body, slippery over my skin.

I was in the middle of the floor in a large rectangular room. No windows interrupted the dark walls. Two floor lamps placed in the corners spilled soft yellow light into the room, not so much banishing the darkness but gently diluting it. The floor was smooth polished concrete. Lines crossed it, circles, triangles, and arcane symbols drawn in chalk, charcoal, and pure intense blue, which could only come from grinding lapis lazuli into powder. The lines glowed with gentle radiance, some parts of the pattern flat on the surface of concrete, some floating a few inches above it. I followed its flow with my gaze to a circle ringed in symbols. Someone sat inside the circle. I looked up.

Mad Rogan stared at me with his blue eyes. They opened wide, like two windows into the depth of him, and magic glared back at me. Monstrous, shocking magic, a living darkness filled with flashes of intense light and power. I might as well have looked into the heart of a supernova. I forgot to breathe. My heart tried to run away without the rest of me. My hands shook.

I jerked back and fell. Something was holding me to the floor. I pulled the silk away. Two steel cuffs enclosed my ankles. Metal rods secured the cuffs, disappearing into the concrete. I strained. My feet didn’t move at all.

“You chained me to the floor.” My voice trembled, and I hated it.

The demonic, inhuman thing that was Mad Rogan tilted his head, watching me. He sat cross-legged. He wore only dark loose pants that flared at the bottom. His feet were bare. His torso was bare too. Supple, hard muscle corded his frame. Carved biceps stood out on his arms, like living steel. His powerful chest slimmed down into flat planes of hard, ridged stomach. Pale stripes of scars crossed his bronze skin. He wasn’t just toned. He had the kind of body that was meant for combat: strong, flexible, hard, and fueled with explosive power. If Adam Pierce were present, he would perish in a fit of jealousy.

I forced my brain to work. Thin blue lines marked his skin, blending into glyphs. He had written arcane symbols on his chest and stomach. He was amplifying his power, which was dangerous to his health. Why? Why could he possibly need more power if he already forced all the air out of this big room with his presence?

“What gives you the right to grab me off the street and chain me in your dirty basement?”

“Do you know what this is?” His voice matched him, deep and slightly raspy. If dragons existed and could talk, they would sound just like him.

I strained my neck, trying to get a sense of the pattern in the scattering of symbols and lines. I was locked in a circle ringed with several larger concentric circles. Straight lines fanned through the circles, connecting to a triangle. The “top” point of the triangle contained a smaller circle, where Mad Rogan sat. Lines of runic script and arcane characters wound through the pattern, glowing with magic. My insides went cold. Acubens Exemplar, named after the “Claw” star in the Cancer constellation.

When my parents discovered the nature of my magic, we had a long talk, and my father explained to me that there was only one profession for someone with my talents. I could be an interrogator. No matter what other things I wanted to do, once my talent became known, either the military or the civilian authorities would pressure me into becoming a human lie detector. They would keep the pressure on until I gave in. I would witness torture and see horrible things done in the name of the greater good, and it would destroy my chances at a happy life. He told me that when I was old enough, I could always make the choice to become an interrogator, but until then, my ability needed to stay secret. To make his point, he made me watch a documentary on the Spanish Inquisition. I was only seven years old, but I understood. That horrible life could be my future.

When I was twelve, I began rebelling against everything my parents stood for, and I studied interrogation techniques and spells. Acubens Exemplar was one of the most potent. It took days of careful preparation to set up, and there was a very narrow window in which it could be used before the magic it accumulated dissipated, but it was almost completely foolproof. Like the claw of the crab for which it was named, the spell would allow a telepath to put crushing pressure on the person trapped in its center. The spell would amplify the pressure until the victim’s will broke and they revealed whatever secret they had been trying to hide.

“Acubens Exemplar requires a telepath.” I was grasping at straws. “You’re a telekinetic.”

The lines around Mad Rogan pulsed brighter. Okay. So he was also a telepath. Or he had some sort of will-related magic.

“I want to know everything you have on Adam Pierce,” he said. “His location, his plans, his family’s plans for him. Everything.”

I crossed my arms. “No. First, I was hired to find Adam Pierce, and my client has an expectation of confidentiality. Second, you attacked me and then chained me to the floor.” I tried to rattle my cuffs to underscore the point, but they remained completely immovable.

Mad Rogan fixed me with his blue eyes. There it was again, the predatory, merciless power. Alarm squirmed through me. He was a dragon in human skin, powerful, ruthless, and dangerous. My mind locked, struggling to come to terms with it. The muscles in my legs and arms tensed; my chest tightened. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs to just vent the fear out of my body.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I want the information.”

True.

“Forcing you gives me no pleasure.”

True. “If you don’t like forcing me, you should let me go.”

“Tell me what I want to know, and you can walk out of here.”

“No. It would be unethical and unprofessional.”

He was a Prime telekinetic. Sometime Primes had secondary talents, but they were never as strong as their primary magic. Telepathy was will based. My magic was also will based, and in all of the time I had been alive, I had never met a person on whom it hadn’t worked. I grabbed onto that thought and used it to steady myself. He might be a dragon, but if he tried to swallow me whole, I’d make him choke. I scooted forward, trying to get as comfortable in my restraints as I could, and licked my dry lips. “Okay, tough guy. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Mad Rogan shrugged his shoulders. Magic pulsed from him, running down the lines of magic, turning them brighter, like fire traveling along a firing cord. Pressure clamped me, squeezing my mind in an invisible vise. I clenched my teeth. He was strong.

I pushed back. His eyes narrowed.

“Adam Pierce.” He would keep repeating the name. The more he repeated it, the harder it would be not to think about it, and the harder the spell would grind against my defenses.

I braced myself against the pressure. He wouldn’t break me. “Eat dirt and die.”

The pressure crushed my mind, pushing against it like an impossibly heavy weight. It felt like my head was locked inside a giant lead bell, and it kept growing tighter and tighter, compressing my skull. The relentless assault of magic had turned into a steady, terrible pain. It hurt to think. It hurt to move. Time had dissolved into ache in my mind.

The heat from all the energy rushing back and forth through the spell had turned the room into a sauna. Sweat slicked my skin. I had pulled off my T-shirt ages ago. I would’ve stripped off my jeans too if I could’ve gotten them over the cuffs.

Across from me, Mad Rogan sat motionless in the circle. A damp sheen beaded at his hairline and slicked his chest and carved biceps. The blue runic script covering his body still held, but some symbols were beginning to smudge. The effort of crushing my will was wearing him out. In the soft illumination of the room, he looked barely human, a feral, predatory creature of some arcane magic. I would’ve loved nothing more than to walk over there and kick him right in the face. As it was, I glanced at him anytime the pressure got to me, and a fresh jolt of fear kept me going.

The pressure ebbed slightly. He was tired.

“You’re rich, right?” My voice came out rough.

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t you spring for air-conditioning in the room?”

“I didn’t expect to sit here for hours. But if you’re too hot, feel free to take the bra off.”

I gave him the finger.

“What are you?” he asked.

“I’m the woman you chained in your basement. I’m your captive. Your . . . victim. Yes, that’s the right word. All of that education. How come nobody ever explained to you that you can’t just kidnap people because you feel like it?”

He grimaced. “You had a full second to shoot me.”

“I don’t just shoot strangers unless my life is clearly in danger. For all I knew, you could’ve been a cop assigned to Pierce’s case. If I fire, I have to be prepared for the possibility of killing my target. Besides, discharging a firearm into a crowd is irresponsible.”

“A .22 will bounce off wet laundry on the line. Why even carry it?”

I leaned back. Something in my spine popped. “Because I don’t shoot unless I mean to kill. A large caliber will tear a hole through the target and exit, possibly striking innocent bystanders. A .22 will enter the body and bounce around inside it, turning your insides into hamburger. Small-caliber gunshots to the chest and skull are nearly always fatal. Had I known you were going to pull a pretty ribbon out of your sleeve like some two-bit magician, tie me up with it, and indulge your mental torture fetish in your basement, I would’ve shot you. Many times.”

“Two-bit magician?”

“Men like you enjoy being flattered.”

The muscles on his arms bulged. Magic clamped me, hard and painful. The familiar fear flooded me in a slow wave. I was really tired.

“I’ve broken Significant mages in this trap,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact.

True.

“I’ll break you.”

“You will try.”

The pressure on my mind skyrocketed. The magic turned into a beast, chewing on me. Its teeth ripped a quiet moan from me. I stared at him, channeling all of my anger into my defenses.

Blood slipped from his nostrils and slid down his face.

“Give up,” he growled.

“You first.”

It hurt. The weight was so heavy. My defenses quaked. My hands were shaking.

Mad Rogan growled like an animal. It hurt him too.

Adam Pierce, Adam Pierce, Adam Pierce . . . The name resonated through my mind like the toll of a church bell. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears, but it wouldn’t help. The sound and pressure were everywhere. The magic devoured my barriers, seeking its prey.

My thoughts began to dissolve, slipping away from me. He was almost through.

Adam Pierce, Adam Pierce, Adam Pierce . . .

The basement swam around me. The walls turned liquid.

My mind boiled under pressure. I had to give in. I had to feed the beast to save myself.

I couldn’t betray my client. He couldn’t win.

Feed the beast. Feed it something secret, something I kept buried so deep in my soul that I swore never to let it out.

No, I can’t.

The magic ripped apart the inner walls of my mind.

I can’t.

My defenses burst, and with one last effort I shoved my deepest secret in front of the beast. It snapped my guilt into its jaws and tore it out. The words spilled out of me in a rush.

“When I was fifteen years old, I found the letter from our physician with my father’s diagnosis on it. He caught me and made me promise not to tell anyone. I kept his secret for a year. I’m the reason why my father died when he did. If I had told Mom, we could’ve started treatment a year earlier. I’m responsible. I didn’t tell. I didn’t tell anyone to this day, because I’m a coward.”

The magic shot through the Acubens Exemplar like a blast wave. The glowing lines pulsed with brilliance and vanished, exhausted, all of their power expended in trying to rip my secret out of me.

I slumped over on the floor, my face cold. The lack of pressure was pure, distilled bliss. I felt so light.

Mad Rogan walked over to me, moving carefully, and swore.

“Fuck you too,” I told him.

He knelt by my feet. How the hell could he even move after this? I heard metal clanging. He lifted my head and put something to my lips.

I clamped my teeth together.

“It’s water, you stubborn idiot,” he snarled.

I tried to shake my head, but he forced my mouth open. Water wet my tongue. I swallowed, fighting the fog.

Fatigue wrapped me, or maybe it was some sort of blanket. Then we were in a car. It was dark outside.

The car stopping. Car door swinging open. Mad Rogan carrying me. Warehouse door. Cold cement.

The door opening.

Mom.

I woke up in the living room. Someone had left the table lamp on. It glowed with soft electric light, and the room looked so cozy, with its dark blue-green walls and warm yellow lamps. I snuggled into the throw someone had put over me. I’d had a really ugly nightmare.

I stretched. The muscles of my legs and arms cramped. Ow, ow, ow.

Not a nightmare. Mad Rogan really did chain me in his basement.

I sat up. Everything hurt. My back felt like it had been beaten up by a sack of potatoes.

That bastard. I’d file a police report, except nobody would believe me, and explaining how I’d held him off inside the spell would make things really complicated. That’s okay. I would find some way to get even.

Voices floated to me from the kitchen. Mother. She sounded upset. I squinted at the clock on the Blu-ray player. 11:45 p.m. Given a chance, we argued until we turned purple in the face and passed out from the effort, but this was late for a fight even by our family’s standards. I pushed myself upright and staggered toward the voices.

My mother’s voice cut through the night. “. . . Pierce? Irresponsible and stupid. Stupid, Bernard!”

Right. We’d been busted. After that ass dropped me off at my doorstep, my mother must’ve leaned on Bern for explanations, and he must’ve broken down and told her everything.

I pushed my way into the kitchen. Bern sat at the table, his face a somber mask. Next to him Leon was pushing a marble back and forth on the table with a chopstick and trying his best to look like he didn’t care about anything. Catalina and Arabella sat together. Catalina’s face had shut down, the way it usually did when something really stressful happened between adults. Arabella looked like she wanted to punch something. Both they and Leon should’ve been in bed. Grandma Frida nursed a coffee, her eyes red. I felt a rush of guilt. I’d made my grandmother cry.

“I can’t believe you,” my mother snarled.

“You can stop yelling at him,” I said. “It was my call.”

Mom spun around. We stared at each other.

“Tomorrow you will go to MII,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but it had about as much give in it as a steel beam. “You’ll tell them you’re off this job.”

I braced myself. I’d known this moment would come sooner or later, and I’d been dreading it. “No.”

My mother squared her shoulders. “Fine. Then I will do it.”

Mother had lost her license four years ago. She blamed herself for it. If anything happened to me, she would blame herself as well. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to stir up all that guilt and heartache, so I tried to keep my voice as gentle as possible. “You don’t have the authority to speak for the firm. The agency is in my name.”

The kitchen went so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Catalina’s eyes were as big as saucers.

My mother’s face turned into a cold, flat mask.

“The decision is mine,” I said. “I’m the one licensed. We are going after Pierce.”

“How are you going to contain him?”

“I don’t have to contain him. I met him and I’m talking him in.”

“How is that working for you?” Mother asked. “Because you looked half dead when I found you on the doorstep.”

“That wasn’t Adam Pierce. That was Mad Rogan.”

Mother recoiled. Leon made a choking noise.

“I thought he was out,” Bern said.

“He’s in. Apparently he does care about his cousin.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Mother’s voice cracked like a whip. “Do you have any idea what kind of fire you’re playing with?”

“Yes, I do.”

“It’s just money.”

“It’s not just about money.” My voice went up. “It’s about our family. I won’t let them push us around just because they feel like it. I won’t let them uproot us. They don’t get to do it.”

“Nevada!”

“Yes, Mother?”

“We can start over!”

“And how long will that take? Without equipment, without a house, without our client database? You know most of our business comes from word-of-mouth recommendations, and those recommendations are for Baylor Investigative Agency. MII will take our name. When our phone is disconnected, and our website is down, people will assume we’re out of business and move on. It will take years before we rebuild. The answer is no.”

“It’s not worth your life!” my mother snarled. “If you’re doing this out of some misguided obligation to your father . . .”

“I’m doing it for us and for me. When I took over, the business had slowed to almost nothing. I built this agency on the foundation you and Dad made. It’s my business now because I worked my ass off for six years to get it running. I sacrificed for it, and I love it. I love what I do. I love our life. It makes me happy and I’m good at it, and nobody, not you, not Grandma, not MII, or Pierce, or Mad Rogan is going to take it away from me!”

I realized I was screaming and clamped my mouth shut.

Shock slapped Mom’s face. The kids sat frozen. Bern kept blinking.

Grandma Frida set her coffee cup down with a clink. “Well, she is your daughter.”

Mother turned and walked out of the room.

I faced the kids. “Bed. Now.”

They took off.

Bern got up. “I’m going to go too.”

I landed next to Grandma Frida. I felt all raw inside. Fighting with Mom was always difficult. She used to drive me insane. I would scream and she would counter with these perfect, logical arguments. And then I grew up and realized how brittle she was.

Grandma glanced at me. “You look like hell.”

“Mad Rogan sedated me, kidnapped me, chained me in his basement, and then tried to pry information out of me with a spell.”

Grandma Frida blinked. “Did you give him what he wanted?”

“No. I broke his spell.”

Grandma Frida looked into her cup. “Your mother will get over it. She knew you’d butt heads sooner or later. Hell, if you didn’t, I’d take you to have your head examined. Your mother survived in that hole in the ground for two months. She’s more resilient than you give her credit for.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. “Grandma . . .”

“Yes?”

“When you said you knew someone who could install shockers, did you mean it, or were you kidding me?”

Grandma Frida set her coffee back down. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t.”

“That bad?”

I had been beaten up before and I’d been shot at four times. But what happened today bothered me more. “When I get into a fight, I know I can cause damage. When I am shot at, I can shoot back. But this . . .” My hands curled into fists as I struggled to find the words. “I had no chance. His magic was off the scale. I felt it when he picked me up. It was like looking into an outer space shot of a supernova. It made me feel helpless. Vulnerable. Like nothing I did would even make a dent in him.”

Grandma sighed.

He could’ve killed me. He could’ve cut my head off while I was chained up, and there was nothing I could’ve done about it. I caught myself before I told that to my grandmother. “I need a way to have a fighting chance.”

“You can walk away.”

I shook my head. “Oh no. No. Maybe before he attacked me, but not now.”

“You have to be very sure, darling. Once they go in, they stay in forever.”

“How likely is it to kill me?”

“Less than one percent of the bindings go wrong, and if Makarov installs them, you won’t have an issue. But bindings aren’t your biggest problem. It’s using those bastards. Do it wrong, and it will kill you.”

“Then I’m sure.” The next time Mad Rogan came near me, he would be in for a hell of a surprise.

“Let me make a call.” Grandma rose.

I got up and went to look for my mother.

I checked the living room, the media room, and the hiding room, which had started out as a spare bedroom but had turned into another hangout room. I checked the door to Mother’s bedroom and found it locked. Knocking didn’t seem to produce any result. Calling “Mom . . .” in a sad, conciliatory voice didn’t work either. I gave up and headed to my bedroom.

When I was picking out the spot for my bedroom, I wanted privacy. There was a time about seven years ago when I couldn’t get away from my sisters no matter how hard I tried. When we moved into the warehouse, my parents took that into account and built me a small loft apartment. My bedroom and bathroom sat near the top of the warehouse, on top of the two storage rooms. My bedroom faced the street and my bathroom, along the same wall, was right against the separating wall that segregated our living space from Grandma’s motor pool. A wooden staircase led to a landing, which connected to my loft by a sturdy folding ladder. If I wanted, I could stow the top ten steps, making my bedroom unreachable.

I climbed the stairs up and flicked on the light. Generally the warehouse had no windows, but when we set up the bedrooms, if you wanted a window, one was installed for you, and I had wanted a window. I had wanted two, actually, one in the bathroom, overlooking Grandma’s garage, so I could glance out and see the back entrance, and one in the bedroom running the entire length of the room. If I lay on my bed, I could look out of my window at the city. The city could also look back at me, so I invested in pleated blinds in addition to two sets of curtains, one gauzy and white, the other thick opaque white. I had left the blinds drawn up and the opaque curtains open, and the night unrolled past the glass in all its dark glory. If I’d still had a screen, I’d have opened the window and let the night in. But I had managed to accidentally push it out a month ago when I’d been cleaning the window, and getting it back at that particular moment had proved to be too frustrating. If I opened the window now, I’d let in the night and a swarm of mosquitoes.

Let’s see, I had blackmailed a mechanic; called my employer, who was probably a Prime, a terrible person—again; met with a pyrokinetic Prime and gotten kidnapped by a telekinetic Prime; gotten into a fight with my mother; and made the decision to have a weapon that could possibly kill me implanted in my arms. Some day I’d had. Too many Primes all around.

I was tired and threadbare, as if today had worn holes in me. I didn’t want to think about anything, most of all about what I had to give up to break Rogan’s spell. I just wanted to numb myself somehow and go to sleep. I had a bottle of nonprescription sleeping pills in my medicine cabinet, but they gave me nightmares.

I can’t believe I’ve been obsessing over his eyes. I can’t believe I thought he was hot when I was watching him walk toward me. I should’ve known right then he was trouble. A man like that didn’t just take a stroll through botanical gardens. I saw a tiger with glowing eyes and teeth as big as my fingers, and instead of running for my life, I sat there and admired how handsome he was while he got close enough to pounce.

Something bounced off my window. I jerked back. Too small for a bat. Too dark outside for a bird. What in the world . . .

I unlatched the window and pulled it open. A small fireball shot at me from the street. I leaped back and slammed into the bookshelves six feet behind me.

The fireball landed on my rug, still on fire. Aah! I kicked it across my bedroom floor into the bathroom, onto the tile. Then I raced after it, yanked the shower door open, grabbed the detachable shower head, and drowned the flames.

A charred tennis ball.

Well, wasn’t that lovely? I pulled a pair of scissors out of a drawer, stabbed the tennis ball, and marched to the window, carrying my trophy. Adam Pierce stood on the street below me.

I scraped the tennis ball off on the outside of the window. It fell to the asphalt below.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill me?”

“If I was trying, you’d know. Come talk to me.”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“It’s two, but who cares.” He waved at me. “Come on. I’ve got something to show you.”

To go or not to go? If I went, he would learn that when he said “Jump,” I did. But if I didn’t go and he was thinking of surrendering, I would kick myself for losing this opportunity. I had to make up my mind fast. If my mother saw him in her current state, she’d shoot him in the eye. God, that would be all I needed right now. Ugh.

“There’s a tree over there, behind the wall.” I pointed to an old oak behind a four-foot-high stone wall. “Wait for me behind it.”

He put his foot out and bowed with a flourish. “Yes, my lady.”

I climbed downstairs, grabbed the keys in case someone decided to lock me out, and made a beeline for the tree. I hopped over the wall. He was waiting where I told him to be, behind the tree, shielded from the house by the massive trunk. His motorcycle leaned against the wall. I came over and sat next to him on the mulch around the tree.

He grinned. “Why here? Scared your mother will see me?”

“Scared she will shoot you. My mother isn’t feeling charitable toward you at the moment.”

“It’s like that, huh?”

“It is.”

He peered at my face, picked up a fallen branch, and lifted it up. The branch burst into bright orange flame. “What happened to you? You look like hell.”

“I have competition and he wasn’t nice.”

“I’m popular, what can I say.” The flame vanished, and he blew ash from his fingers.

“Yes, let’s make it all about you.”

He startled.

“Did you come to surrender?” I asked.

“No.”

I sighed. “What will it take for you to see the light?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged and grinned. “Try sleeping with me. It might convince me.”

Did he just hit on me? Yes, he did. “No, thanks.”

He leaned back on his elbow, his black leather pants tightening over his legs, and smiled. It was his famous “come-hither” smile, the one the media loved to broadcast, the kind of smile no woman who’d gone through puberty would ignore. It promised things, wild, wicked, hot things. It probably almost never misfired. Well, he was in for a surprise.

“If you’re really hard up, I can introduce you to my grandmother. She’s a fan.”

Adam blinked.

“She doesn’t typically sleep with pretty young things, but she would make an exception in your case. You might even learn a trick or two.”

He finally regained his ability to speak. “Your grandmother?”

I nodded.

He laughed. “Well, at least she would die happy.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“It’s not flattery. It’s a fact.” He leaned over to me. “I can set your sheets on fire.”

I had no doubt of that. “Will I be burned to a crisp?”

“Kiss me and you’ll find out.”

No, thanks. “Your family is worried about you.”

“You’re fun. I like fun. I like new and exciting. Did I tell you that your voice is hot, Nevada?”

The way he said my name was almost indecent. He couldn’t have sunk more invitation into it if he’d stripped in front of me.

“When you talk, it makes me think of fun things I could do to you. With you.”

Good catch there.

“And your skin is like honey. I wonder how you taste.”

Bitter and tired. “Mhm.”

He reached over to touch a strand of my hair. I pulled back. “You don’t have the touching rights.”

“How do I get those?”

Stop being a self-absorbed spoiled baby. “You get those if I fall in love with you.”

He stopped. “In love. You’re serious?”

“Yes.” That would shut him up.

“What is this, the sixteenth century? Should I write you a sonnet next?”

“Is it going to be a good sonnet?”

He leaned back on the grass and swiped his thumb across his phone. “Watch this.”

The screen turned white. The pale background shattered, breaking into individual pieces and flying off in a complicated pattern. A woman appeared on the screen. She was older, probably past fifty, although it was hard to tell her exact age. A navy business suit hugged her pencil-thin frame. Her makeup was expert, her caramel hair styled with artful precision into a loose, yet formal, hairdo. Her heart-shaped face, big dark eyes, and narrow nose gave her away. I was looking at Christina Pierce.

“I got a message from my mother,” Adam said. “Emailed to my private address from a public location and encoded with the family encryption. Very cloak and dagger.”

He pushed Play. Christina Pierce came to life.

“I have a plane on standby ready to take you to Brazil,” she said. Her voice had the overtone of a Georgia accent, but there was nothing soft about it. “It’s a non-extradition country. This is the house.” A picture of a mansion replaced her image: white walls, tropical greenery, and an infinity pool, dark blue silhouetted against the lighter blue of the ocean. Christina reappeared. “While you’re gone, someone else will take the blame. You can return in as little as a year to a clean record and a tide of public support and sympathy for you being wrongfully accused. A year in paradise, Adam, with your every need attended. You have my word that you won’t spend a single minute in jail. Think about it.”

I’d asked Augustine for reassurance. House Pierce had obliged.

“My mother says she loves me.” Pierce studied her image. “Love is control. People say they love you when they want to run your life. They wedge and pound you into a shape they find comfortable, and when you try to escape, they hog-tie you with guilt. My family figured it out years ago. We’ve been marrying and breeding for profit for over a century. No love involved.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“The only reason you’re sitting here under this tree is because my mother twisted Montgomery’s arm, and he twisted yours by threatening your family. If it wasn’t for them losing their house, would you have taken this job?”

“Probably not. But in the end the choice was mine.”

“Why? You don’t owe them anything. You didn’t ask to be born. They dragged you into this world kicking and screaming, and now they expect you to conform. Well, I say fuck ’em.”

You didn’t ask to be born . . . In some ways he was still fifteen years old inside and as volatile as the fire he made.

“Look, at least you have your parents,” I said. “My dad’s gone. Nothing can bring him back.”

He tilted his head. “What is it like?”

“It hurts, still. He was in my life for so long and now he’s just not there. My mother loves me. She’d do anything for me. But my dad was the one who got me. He understood why I did things. We tried so desperately to keep him alive, but he still died, and our world collapsed. I was older, but my sisters were young, and it hit them really hard.”

Adam shrugged. “I have a father. I never had a dad. He’s diligent. If my mother explained to him that a football game or a piano recital needed to be attended, he would make sure to show up. He was present but not there. I don’t know what he loves, but I know he likes money. My oldest brother works for the company. My other brother is in the military, building those vital business connections. My father talks to both of them. He starts taking an interest in his kids when we start making money. Until then we belong to Mother.”

“At least she cares enough to worry about you. She must love you.”

“She indulges me. There is a difference. Indulgence implies tacit disapproval. The House is doing well. Her professional life is healthy; she has an IQ of 148 and could do her job in her sleep. Our finances are robust, and my father would never embarrass the family by a scandal. I’m her excuse to be emotional. Every time I do something that shakes their palace, she can grab the lion’s share of attention with her dramatics. If it wasn’t for me, what would she bitch about? I make it a point to be a disappointment as often as I can.”

Wow. “Have you ever just accidentally stumbled into meeting their expectations?”

“I went to college. When I started my master’s, I realized that it would never be enough. All my life the House would expect me to climb the ladder of their expectations. Get a degree. Make money. Marry right. Produce intelligent, magically gifted children. Make more money. They had me for twenty-four years. That’s all they get.” Adam leaned toward me. “Look, bottom line is, parents and sisters is something you do when you’re five. I’m giving you a shot at being free. Shoot your family the bird and come away with me.”

I’m a known fugitive who likes to set people on fire. Come away with me so we can have hot sex while the entire city is trying to shoot me in the head. If I get bored, I’ll barbecue you for my amusement. Sure, let me get my shoes.

“It’s not a good idea.”

“What if I pretend I’m in love?” Adam flicked his fingers and a tiny flame flared above his hand. He held it like a candle to my face. His eyes, fringed in thick eyelashes, were so dark that they turned into two bottomless pools. “I guarantee nobody would find us. The cops can look for a thousand years, and they still won’t get me.”

He was really pushing the whole run-away-with-me thing. I played dumb. “Are you just leading me on?”

“Me? No.”

Lie. He was lying to me. Why?

“I really am in lust, I mean, in love, with you.”

Well, the lust part was true. I had to play it cool. “Do you have any intention of letting me bring you in?”

“I’m considering it.”

Lie. Damn it.

“Nevada,” he purred. “Come on, sunny girl. Live a little.”

Cornelius’s words came back to me. Adam takes what he wants, and if you tell him no, he will hurt you. He wanted acceptance. He wanted to be reassured he was special. If I outright rejected him, the sting of that rejection could turn into hate in a blink. I had to bring him in and not end up like that security guard.

“Forget your family and jump off the cliff with me. We’ll fly away.”

I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Not tonight. Maybe one day, if I grow wings.”

I got up and walked toward the warehouse.

“They’re pulling you down and you’re letting them,” he called after me.

“Don’t get killed, Adam,” I called over my shoulder. “I still have to turn you in.”