My phone buzzed as we were walking to Gretel’s car. It was Angie texting me that she had the flu and there was no way she’d be at work tomorrow. She’d alerted security about my encounter and reminded them about it today, but she wouldn’t be in for at least a couple days.

Maybe it was me trying to push past the fact that this asshole had tried to compel me to tell him something, had attempted to access my fucking mind, that made me so concerned about this. I was blocking out what had just happened because if I didn’t, I was going to scream.

“Dar?”

I shoved my phone in my pocket and kept walking, trying to ignore the way the wind was blowing in my face. But Gretel caught up and walked silently beside me for the rest of the short walk to the car. Joel stayed a few steps behind, clearly looking out for Declan. 

We got to the car and I glanced in the backseat, then got in the passenger side. The others were in a second later and we sat silently, the car off.

“Dar,” Gretel said again, reaching to stroke my hair.

“He tried to compel me.”

“We’ll deal with him.” Joel said.

“No, I don’t want-” I took a sharp breath, trying to tread carefully despite the fear and anger. “I don’t want this.”

“I know,” Gretel said.

“I mean, I’m trying. With all of it. The magic. I want all of this to work. But there’s so much and he just tried to get in my fucking head.”

Neither of them said anything, and when Gretel went to reach for my hand, I let her. “I just want to go home,” I said. “Angie just said she has the flu, so tomorrow is going to be awful. I just want to go to bed.”

The silence became a bit more tense. Right, of course neither of them would want me going to work. I sighed, falling back against my seat. “There’s a conference arriving tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “Angie can’t be there, so I need to go in.”

“Dar, enough’s enough,” Gretel said. “I get it, but this guy is dangerous. You’re not safe until he’s-”

“Until he’s what?” I asked, wiping my eyes as discreetly as possible. “We can’t just kill him or lock him up. So what do I do? Just stay at home forever?”

Looking at Gretel’s face, I could tell that she was, in fact, thinking along those lines, but trying for a softer approach. “Don’t go to work,” she said. “Just for tomorrow, at least.”

She pulled out of her parking spot and started making her way toward the exit. But as she was pulling onto the main road, Joel gasped.

“Stop the car!”

She did, and he leapt out of the back seat, sprinting back toward the restaurant. As I looked in the direction he was headed, I spotted Ezra and…oh shit.

“Stay here.”

Gretel got out and started running too. I hesitated for a second, then got out and followed her. Joel was far ahead of us by this point, and I saw a flash of red sizzle through the darkness ahead of him as he ran toward Ezra and Declan.

“Leave him alone!” Joel yelled as he got closer.

Declan was shaking his hand out. “Shit, you burned me,” he said. “That was wicked cool, but could you have aimed somewhere else?”

“Fuck off, Declan,” Joel snapped. “What are you doing to him?”

“Him? We were just talking,” Declan said as Ezra glared at him, looking a little dazed. 

“Are you hurt?” Joel asked, grabbing Ezra roughly and pulling him away from Declan.

“I’m…wait…” Ezra stumbled slightly, and I took his arm and steered him away from where Joel and Declan were sizing each other up.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He grabbed me on my way out,” Ezra said, shaking. “I tried to pepper spray him, but he knocked it out of my hand. And he did that…that thing he did to you.”

He motioned toward the back of his head in a circular flip of his hand. “He made you answer questions?” I asked.

Ezra nodded. “He asked about you and it forced me to tell him the truth. And he was mad, so he shoved me. I was still out of it so I landed hard, but I’m okay.”

“Did he do anything else?”

“He started asking me about Joel. Like what I knew about him. Turns out I don’t know much. But I got kind of…” He groaned, burying his face in his hands. 

“Kind of what?” I asked.

“Detailed.”

I would have laughed if I wasn’t so afraid and angry on both of our behalf. “I said he has nice eyes.”

Now I did laugh, just a little, giving him a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” Ezra said. “You’re his ex, I shouldn’t talk to you like this.”

I shook my head. “He does have nice eyes,” I admitted. “It’s his mouth that’s the problem.”

“Are you hurt, Ezra?” Gretel asked from behind me.

Ezra shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”

“You said you fell hard.”

“Yeah, but I’m alright.”

“Do you mind if I check you?”

Ezra shook his head again. “Thanks, but my mom’s a doctor. I’m just going to go see her. I think I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Gretel asked, stepping a little closer. “If there’s anything wrong, I can just heal it. You don’t need to-”

“Gretel,” I said softly, realizing I was tightening my grip on Ezra protectively.

I didn’t know if she noticed that or not, but she stepped back, moving toward where Joel seemed to literally be chasing Declan off with firebolts. “My mom knows what she’s doing,” Ezra said with a slight shudder.

“We’ll give you a ride home,” I said. “Sorry, we should have waited for you.”

“I told you guys to go,” Ezra said, letting go, but staying very close. “I live up the street, I was just going to walk back.”

I couldn’t help noticing that neither of the others had pushed for him to stay, the way they had me. But maybe that was just because Declan had been targeting me this whole time.

“He left,” Joel said breathlessly from nearby. “Ezra, are you hurt?”

He wanted to hug Ezra, I could tell from the way he was hanging back just a little. “I’m fine,” Ezra said. “I just want to go home.”

“You can come stay with us,” Joel offered.

“Thanks, but I’m going to go see my mom,” Ezra said. “I… She’s a doctor, so I just want to go to her. I hit my head when he pushed me over.”

Joel looked horrified, like Ezra had just said Declan shot him point-blank. “Yeah,” he said, nodding rapidly. “Yeah, go see her. Where is she?”

“Over in Peabody.”

One town over, that wasn’t bad. “What did he do to you?” Joel demanded.

“He asked questions about you and Dar,” Ezra said, squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment. “And made me answer them.”

“So he can compel people to answer and glamor himself disguises,” Gretel said.

“Could he make me do anything?” Ezra asked, looking like this had just occurred to him as a possibility.

“No,” Joel said, before Gretel could say anything. “That’s a separate power. There are…really powerful wizards who can control people. But Corman’s the only one I’ve actually met. Compelling someone to tell the truth is different. It’s…”

He trailed off, but that was because I knew he was thinking about the fact he had that ability. He’d accidentally used it in college to compel a classmate into confessing to cheating on an exam. And he’d been mortified. For all his arrogance, Joel wasn’t a manipulator. And that was the one ability he’d never attempted to strengthen.

“It’s different,” he repeated. “Not good, but different. And there’s no way to keep it going once the original connection is broken.”

Ezra looked relieved, and honestly, I felt the same way. Both for him and for me. I’d recognized that initial itch that meant Declan was trying to get in. And the only reason I did was because Joel and I had experimented with it once. After the situation with the classmate, he’d been unsure how he could actually do it or whether it was a fluke. So we tried with playing cards. I’d pick a card, then he’d try to compel me to tell him what was on it. Just a game.

But after four rounds, I’d started crying too hard to breathe. I’d been a willing participant the whole time, but the invasive feeling of him trying to push his way into my mind had been too much. Joel had been good. He’d apologized unnecessarily and put me to bed, holding me tightly under the covers until I stopped crying and eventually fell asleep. For the next few days, he’d been so protective and remorseful that when I realized why, I’d had to remind him that he hadn’t done anything I hadn’t agreed to. 

That said, when that itch hit the back of my skull tonight, throwing Joel’s beer in Declan’s face had been equal parts anger and panic as the familiar sensation had hit me. 

“Dar?”

Gretel’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “What?”

“I said we’re heading back to the car.”

“Yeah, right.”

Joel had an arm over Ezra as they walked back. Gretel stayed beside me, keeping an eye out for Declan the whole time.

Ezra’s mother lived on a little cul-de-sac in Peabody, maybe fifteen minutes away from The Scarecrow Grille. It wasn’t that late, so there were lights on in the front windows. As we got there, Ezra spoke for the first time since we’d gotten in the car. “Thanks,” he said to Gretel.

“Of course.”

Joel, who had been in the backseat with him, got out to walk him to the door. I watched as they made their way up the neat stone path that cut through the little front yard. There were flowering bushes in front of the windows and, as Joel rang the bell, a large, middle-aged woman passed by the window on her way to the door.

She answered and I could see Joel talking to her, but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Ezra said something too, and the woman scooped him into a hug, then said something else to Joel, who motioned toward the car. Ezra hugged Joel, then followed his mother into the house.

Joel came back, sliding into the backseat. “He’s okay,” he said. “He’ll stay with her tonight.”

“Is it safe?” Gretel asked.

“Yeah.”

I waited for some kind of detail on that, considering everywhere I ever went was dangerous and I hadn’t even been physically attacked by Declan. But he didn’t say anything and Gretel started driving again.

“I wish he’d stayed with us,” Joel said. “But I get it. I know, Dar-” he said quickly, holding up his hands before I could do more than spin around to face him. “I know. His mom said he looked alright, but she was going to check him over.”

“He should have just come home with us,” Gretel said. “It’s safer there. And I know he wants to see his mom and have her check, but if there was something wrong with him, there’s only so much she can do.”

I turned to her, that same unsettled feeling back as I tried not to jump to the worst interpretation of her comments. “She’s a doctor,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” Gretel said, and for the first time she sounded impatient with me as she said it, somewhat dismissive. “I just mean, if he was hurt, it’s a lot more efficient to have me heal it.”

“He didn’t want you to.”

“I know that,” she snapped, and I blinked in surprise at her harsh tone.

Gretel sighed. “Sorry,” she said. “Let’s just go home.”

I didn’t have anything to say in response, nor did I know what to do right then. So I just nodded and looked out the window.

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Continue to Chapter 11