Earth Awakened, page 11
“No,” she said.
To her surprise, he stopped. Silence stretched between them, the rain filling in the gap. She breathed in the heady, wet air. Her lungs still burned, and she couldn’t breathe deeply. She could feel the water running tracks in the dirt on her face.
“God. They were right. You are a piece of shit.” She let out a sigh and turned her head down. With a thought, she summoned the four sigils he’d taught her earlier.
He was useful for something, at least. Better than some of the men in my life.
Light flashed, a great crack that put the entire broken warehouse in a brief flicker of bright light. Kitty reappeared in roughly the same spot she’d been in before.
And she was pissed.
She rounded on Gobardon. “What the actual fuck, Gobardon?”
He grimaced. “Stay out of this, Kitty. This is between me and McKay. I—”
“Shut the fuck up, you gods-fucked moron.” A strike of electricity compounded her anger, with a second following close behind and cracking with the sound of train wheels. Gobardon’s still-active shield absorbed both hits without so much as a ripple.
Kitty turned to her. “I’m so sorry, McKay. I didn’t know—”
“It’s not on you, Kitty. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still friends.” She played with the sigils in her palm. Their energy tingled her skin as she rocked them back and forth, glowing under the dirt on her palm.
God, she needed a shower. And to do laundry. Hopefully, her regular soap would get the piss out of her pants.
Too bad she couldn’t just add soap and launder this entire day away.
“Well,” she said. “I’ll see you around.”
“Wait!” Kitty jumped forward. “McKay!”
Across the room, Gobardon hadn’t moved. He didn’t move to speak, either. She met his eyes once more, then closed hers and drew her thoughts inward.
With the cat, she built the power, focused on Finnevar, and initiated the teleport.
Chapter 12
Regular soap wouldn’t work for urine. She needed white vinegar or bleach, neither of which she had. And by the time she got it, the pants would likely be a lost cause.
She looked up at them from the screen of her phone, her jaws clenching together.
Fuck. Those ones actually fit properly.
She’d bought them last month, one of the first times she’d been confident enough to venture into town and actually spend some of the stipend they’d supplied her with.
She wondered if they’d cut her off now, given she’d fucked up part of the dorm building.
They still hadn’t fixed it. Right now, the main entrance was blocked with caution tape, and a series of support wards glowed faintly in the building’s façade. Only the back and side entrances were open.
She’d bypassed them all, teleporting right through the building’s anti-port warding and directly into her room. It had been a bit iffy—she’d just learned teleporting, and hadn’t been sure that the cat would be able to get around the warding like Meese’s Phoenix could, plus it was illegal…
But screw the rules. They’d already thrown her in court once today. She highly doubted someone would take a second stab at her—especially when she wasn’t supposed to know how to teleport yet.
Fuck.
She blew out a disgusted breath, got up, and walked over to throw the pants in the trash, extracting two dollars from one of the pockets, then swore under her breath, washed the coins with a liberal amount of soap, and vowed to spend them in the nearest vending machine as soon as she possibly could.
After, she turned and looked back at her room.
God, she just wanted to go to sleep.
But that wasn’t an option. Not here, anyway. Whatever had set the cat off had been in this building, which was once again filled with students.
She couldn’t stay here.
She sighed. Good thing she packed light.
She pulled her old rucksack out from under the bed and unzipped the top. She’d already cleaned the gun—it had been the third thing she’d done when she’d gotten back, just behind ‘take off the piss pants’ and ‘have a very long, very hot shower.’ The air still smelled strongly of gun oil, tinged with humidity and a bit of the leather conditioner she used on the holster.
When she opened the second drawer of her dresser, every shirt was folded precisely and sitting in line with the edges, as if someone had taken a ruler and measured the distances.
They had, actually. Back in Basic, they’d done a lot of things. About half of them had been pure bullshit, meant to catch you up, but it had certainly ingrained certain habits.
She grinned suddenly, reminded of some of the shit they’d pulled. Once, she’d gotten a DS who’d come into her room inspection with a chip on her shoulder and, upon finding both herself and her room spotless, immaculate, and absolutely perfect, had rounded on her tin of boot oil, unscrewed the lid, and berated her for failing to clean the inside of the lid.
God, it had been stupid.
But she missed it. Maybe not Basic, but she missed her squad, and she missed the comradery.
And she missed knowing what the hell she was supposed to do.
In the military, everything had been a flowchart. Either things were her responsibility to fix, or someone else’s, and mostly, it was someone else giving her orders.
She liked that. She liked doing things. She had been good at that. Excellent, even. And she’d done good with it.
Now, she was putting innocent lives at risk by simply being in the same space.
She couldn’t stay. Hannah needed the school building to remain upright this year. And Rosie—
God, Rosie.
She hadn’t had a chance to talk to her yet. Maybe she could find her online, apologize. Though, she got the feeling Rosie already knew she was sorry.
Fuck, she must have been so scared.
It took less than five minutes to pack her meager belongings inside the rucksack. The only thing that took longer was making sure her laptop was off before she slipped it in. She put her old fatigues on top to cushion it.
She paused when she got to the gun, taking a moment to stifle a huge yawn.
God, she was tired. She never had gotten to finish that coffee from this morning. Plus, she hadn’t eaten dinner.
She checked the time. Half past six. The cafeteria would still be open, but she had to leave now.
She tucked the gun in the now-empty wardrobe and closed the door, then made sure she locked the door to her room when she left.
Not the best gun safety, but she wouldn’t be gone long—and she’d emptied the magazine when she’d cleaned it.
If anyone wanted to go on a shooting rampage, they’d need to put a bit more effort in.
Besides, this was a building full of Mage students. Even the youngest person here knew how to shield.
The halls had a busier feel than when she’d last walked them—the difference between five a.m. and six p.m. in the life of a student. She caught sight of familiar faces scattered in the halls. Students tended to clump and cluster, she’d found, especially in the main lobby and garden area, which she suspected had been designed for that behavior. Small encampments of backpacks, computers, and food trays occupied the benches in the garden’s nooks, a few loners sitting with their headphones on among the trees.
She spotted Hannah working at a node by the second entrance, her back to McKay. By the orange screen that shivered in front of her, the network access must have been restored.
She almost veered off to say hi, but stopped herself.
No. She needs to study. I’ve already done enough damage to her day.
Plus, people had noticed her now. She was beginning to get stares. She watched one girl lock eyes on her, then lean in to whisper to the boy next to her, who also looked up.
They were both so young. In their teens.
I should go.
She ducked her head and veered toward the cafeteria, sparing a look at the windows to the library.
Two of them had cracks in them now. A strip of green-tinted warding pulsed quietly on their surface.
Supporting magic, keeping the building from falling.
Up ahead, a student walking toward her looked up from his phone, saw her, and veered into the garden instead.
She sighed.
Yeah. She couldn’t live here anymore. She needed to leave.
But—food first.
The cafeteria was just winding down its dinner service when she entered, with the dishwasher clacking plates and bowls in the back and the cook busy cleaning the second griddle, but the smell of burgers and fries lay heavy in the air.
McKay’s stomach gave a heavy gurgle, and a pang that felt like it twisted her entire abdomen.
She winced.
When was the last time she’d eaten?
Searching her memory, she realized that she hadn’t. Only the coffee from this morning, and she hadn’t even gotten to finish that.
Christ. I can’t even be trusted to feed myself.
No wonder she was such a goddamn wreck.
Well, that and the multiple occurrences of random bullshit that had happened today.
But it wasn’t the first time she’d forgotten to eat.
She went to the display fridge first and picked out a yogurt and a banana from the counter to help her stomach, and an empty cup to take to the soda fountain/station, then wandered up to the main order area.
The cook, a thin Caucasian woman with black and pink hair, took a few extra seconds to scrape the second griddle, then turned around and did a double-take.
McKay winced, bracing herself.
“Oh, honey—are you okay?”
She blinked.
What?
This was the first time anyone had asked her that today. And the woman seemed genuinely concerned.
“I’ll survive,” she said. “I’m just happy that no one got seriously hurt.”
The woman shook her head. “This place has been through more near-misses than I can count. No one talks about it, but teenage hormones combined with an Awakening—that’s just asking for trouble. Everyone has a sordid tale of a near-miss they had when they first got their powers. I’m surprised they don’t just ship kids off to the country for a couple years, get it out of their system. All this repression can’t be good for them.” She sighed and waved her hands in a dismissive way. “Anyway—what can I get you?”
McKay picked her jaw up from the floor. “Just a burger and fries, thanks. I’m a simple girl.”
‘Awakening,’ huh? So that’s what the kids were calling it these days.
“Sure thing.” The cook nodded forward and dropped her gaze to McKay’s chest area. “Would you like some ice for that? I can put it in a bag.”
At first, McKay thought she was talking about her empty drink cup and got confused—had the ice dispenser in the drinks machine broken?—but then she realized the woman was looking at her hands and arm.
Ah. She’d forgotten about that.
The cuffs had started the bruise, which was why parts along her wrist and the bone of her forearm had a deeper tint than the rest, but the fight with Gobardon had grown it into a massive, yellow-ish green, disgusting mess. And her knuckles had obvious scrapes and bruises, along with a bit of swelling, from where she’d hit a few punches into Gobardon’s shield.
She grimaced. “Unless you got a tub of it back there, I don’t think it’ll make much difference. Don’t worry. I’m planning to bathe in liniment later.”
The woman nodded and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Well, you take care of yourself. Sit down, make yourself comfy, I’ll come by with the fries in just a minute.”
McKay nodded. “Thanks.”
She dropped the banana and yogurt on the nearest table and was about halfway to the drinks machine when she realized that she didn’t even know the woman’s name.
She wasn’t wearing a name tag. Maybe she doesn’t want anyone to know.
Before the war, McKay had worked enough customer service jobs to know just how shitty people could be sometimes.
But the woman had been really nice to her. She’d remember that.
God. Now I’m getting emotional. I definitely need to eat.
Her jaws clenched together. She felt hollow, like all the normal parts of her chest had been scraped out and she was about to collapse inward.
Movement came from the entrance. As if on cue, Blondy, one of the Mageguard from this morning, walked in.
Great. Absolutely fantastic.
He was still wearing his Mageguard black and gold. Normally when she saw it, it made the wearer look impressive with its sharp, clean lines and impeccable detailing—and she’d always had a thing for men and women in uniform—but, after her experience with him this morning, it just made him look like a giant douchebag.
She decided to ignore him.
Unfortunately, he gave the cafeteria a scan, spotted her, and made an immediate beeline.
So, he had a bone to pick with her. Even more fantastic.
Within seconds, he was breathing down her neck.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
And you should back the fuck up, Buddy.
Instead, she kept her eyes forward and focused on pouring her drink. “Why? You got something you want to charge me with, or are you just here to soak up the overtime? You’re welcome for that, by the way.”
She probably shouldn’t have said that. There were probably a million and a half obscure things he could charge her with, and he’d already proven willing to do so.
But she was tired, hungry, and completely out of shits to give him.
Instead of the canned, gruff reply she expected, he surprised her with an edge of righteous anger.
“Don’t play dumb. We found the warding you broke. It’s in the logs. What were you doing around the library?”
Er… what?
She stopped pouring her drink. “You’re going to have to be more specific. Greneinta broke a lot of warding this morning.”
“How about the warding on the advanced section of the library for which you have no access? Where we store the information for some of our most powerful spells?”
She turned around. “Mate, have you met me? I can barely control myself these days, let alone figure out a spell with umpteen layers of complexity.” She shook her head. “Hell, I don’t think I’ve even set foot in the library beyond orientation.”
He pushed forward. “Don’t bullshit me. You used one of them on the building this morning. It took six separate engineers to prise it apart—”
She sputtered. “How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through your thick skull that I have a giant, pissy, magical spirit inside me that has a shitload of magical knowledge and generally does whatever the fuck it wants?”
A sneer twisted his lips. “In which case, why would it need to strip the warding and access restricted databanks? We have evidence that you copied it. Who are you selling it to?”
Wow. This guy was off his rocker.
“Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask whatever ambitious library tech was there at the time? I’m sure they’d know what I’d do with it more than I would, considering I’ve spent a whole of five minutes in that place, zero of which happened this morning.”
He stepped forward and pressed a finger into her sternum. “Don’t bullshit me, thief. Who are you selling it to?”
A low calm descended on her. Inside, the cat let out a warning rumble only she could hear. A flicker of its Elemental power flashed through her nerves.
For once, she agreed with its sentiment completely.
She looked deliberately slowly from the finger on her chest to the sneer of his face less than three feet from hers.
Did these tools forget that she’d fought in a war? Because she’d happily teach him the lesson she’d taught to Gobardon only a few hours ago.
Except—then it would escalate, and magic would get involved.
And then the cat would get involved.
“Sir, please remove your hand,” she said.
“Hey, what’s going on over here?” The cook—she would definitely have to get her name, but another time, when Blondy couldn’t hear it—had turned around, her thin face etched with alarm. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” Blondy grunted. “Mageguard business.”
His voice had a distinct growl to it. An edge of a threat that she did not like.
Yeah, no. That’s not going to fly. I have witnesses now.
“He’s accusing me of stealing something from the library this morning, despite the fact that I haven’t set foot in it for the past three months.” She lowered her voice, twisting her face to reflect his sneer right back up at him. “And if he were to check the security cameras, he would know that I hadn’t been in there.”
“Cameras were turned off this morning,” he said. “Just before the time of your incident.”
“Then ask the people who were in there! And take your fucking hand off of me!” she yelled. “I am not your scapegoat.”
He pressed forward, driving her back and shoulders into the machine. Earth magic flared, but she caught it before it could do anything, her right hand forming a fist next to her leg at the effort it took.
“There was no one in there,” he said, leaning in until his breath was pouring across her lips. “No one. Just you.”
She frowned.
He might be a complete douchebag, but it didn’t feel like he was lying.
“Then you might want to check that,” she said softly. “Because I definitely saw lights through the window this morning. Flashlights. Three of them. That’s why I went into the field. I didn’t want to hurt them.”
Maybe it was her words, or maybe it was her low, soft tone, but he hesitated. His gaze shifted inward for part of a second, and his expression faltered.
“You saw flashlights?” he asked.
In the next moment, someone else’s voice interrupted them, calling from near the cafeteria’s entrance.
“Guard, stand down!”
Professor Tachun stood partway across the cafeteria, his stance strong and his expression hard.
