A Little Night Magic (28 page)

“Go away!” I hollered, dizzy from the gas. I fell to my knees, frantically motioning for her to get back. All I could see was her head shaking back and forth, a simple
No.

I experienced the explosion in phases, my mind unable to process it all together at once. The first thing I saw was Betty’s face, illuminated in red as the flames flashed through the dining room. Then, she was gone, thrown back by the force as all the windows and doors blew out in a million screaming shards. I pushed myself down to the floor and covered my head as the oppressive heat consumed the air around me. Then there was the concussive boom of it, making my ears ring. I gasped for air, unable to hear anything aside from the ringing in my ears, unable to feel anything but the heat from the flames.

A moment later, I felt myself being dragged out, and after a few gasps of fresh air, I realized that Tobias had me. I clutched at him and yelled, “Betty! Where’s Betty?” but if he answered me, I couldn’t hear him. The street was a mass of emergency vehicles, blue and red flashing lights, and the first thing I was able to focus on was Cain, breathing through an oxygen mask, an EMT next to him inspecting a wet rag. She must have snuck up behind him with chloroform or something.

Someone was prodding at me, asking me questions, but I couldn’t answer. There was a mask over my face, and the tanked oxygen felt stringent against my ruined breathing passages. I pulled the mask down and grabbed the EMT attending me by the arm. “Betty? Where’s Betty?”

The EMT shook her head, then pointed across the street. I turned just in time to see Stacy crawling into the back of an ambulance and sitting next to a body strapped to a gurney.

Betty.

Then the doors shut to the ambulance and it started away, and I watched it go, my eyes filled with helpless tears. The sound around me started to come back, and when I heard my name being called, I turned to see Tobias moving toward me, covered in soot but seemingly okay. He sat next to me on the edge of the truck, hesitated for a moment, then pulled me into his arms. He put one hand on the back of my head and kissed my forehead, then my cheek, and then held me to him again. Every muscle in my body was shaking, I had no strength left, so I leaned against him and allowed his to seep into me until I had enough to pull back and look at him.

“Millie?” I said, pulling my oxygen mask down. “She’s still in there?”

Tobias shook his head. “They pulled her out. She’s on her way to the hospital in another ambulance.”

My eyes filled with hot tears. “And Betty? Is she…?”

“She’s alive, but…” He let out a rough sigh. “Stacy said she’d call as soon as they knew anything.” He pushed my hair back away from my face. “What the hell happened?”

I swallowed, trying to soothe the rawness in my throat. “I didn’t want to trick her. I told her what was going on. I was so stupid, and now Betty…” I crumpled against him. “It’s all my fault.”

“She knocked Cain out and turned on the gas before that conversation ever started,” he said. “It was going to end badly, no matter what you did.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a harried EMT stuck my oxygen mask back on my face. “Take that off again, and I’ll put you in restraints,” she warned, and then went to check on Cain.

I leaned my head against Tobias’s shoulder, and watched as the EMT fussed over Cain. He looked up, and our eyes met for a long moment, and then we both looked away to watch the firemen as they hosed down the hollow, charred remains of Crazy Cousin Betty’s.

19

Stacy came back from the hospital the next day, somewhere around 11
A.M.
I had crawled onto the porch roof outside my bedroom window, and saw when she pulled up, but I didn’t make a move to go down and talk to her. The news, whatever it was, would come and find me, I was sure. In the meantime, I stared out at the neighborhood where I had grown up, feeling disconnected from this place that had been a part of me as far back as I could remember. I remembered riding bikes into town with Peach and Millie and Stacy, remembered getting our prom pictures taken out front by my tree. It all seemed so far away from me, as if it had happened to someone else. I was just the observer, the one who came in to finish the story off. The rest of it had belonged to someone else, and somewhere, that Liv was still completely herself, serving waffles at a whole CCB’s, living a mundane but reasonable life.

I wasn’t that girl. I was the girl who, when she closed her eyes, could only see and feel fire. The roiling flames of the explosion, the oppressive, sickening heat of it as I was crumpled up, helpless on the floor. The hellish glow flashing over Betty’s face before the explosion tossed her into the street. The dancing shadows on Millie’s face as she made me realize what I should have known all along.

I was going to lose.

“Liv?”

I opened my eyes, but I didn’t turn around. A few seconds later, Tobias was crawling out onto the roof through my bedroom window. Somehow, despite his size, he gracefully managed to settle down next to me.

“Stacy’s here,” he said.

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the neighborhood. “How’s Betty?”

“The swelling in her brain seems to have gone down, and the doctors are really hopeful, but … she hasn’t woken up yet.”

“And Millie?”

He sighed. “Left the hospital this morning. No one knows where she went. She’s not answering her cell phone.”

I nodded. It didn’t matter where Millie was, really. It would be over before she had a chance to do any more damage. I took a deep breath, and raised my eyes to meet his. I was still the Liv who loved Tobias; no matter how disconnected I felt from everything else, I hadn’t lost that.

I found that interesting.

“People are starting to worry,” he said. “Cain asked about you, and when Cain notices a person’s emotional state, I think it’s pretty bad.”

I smiled at him. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay.”

I held his gaze for a bit, then motioned back toward the room. I crawled inside and he followed me. I waited while he came in through the window, and then I placed the flat of my hands against his chest and looked up into his eyes.

At first, he seemed wary, but then the pull between us got the better of him, and he let his arms find their place around my waist. I moved closer to him, my hands traveling down his chest, around to his hips, and he had a sudden, sharp intake of breath that was so simple, raw, and real that it made me smile. It was all simple, really, and we’d spent so much time making it so much more complex than it ever needed to be.

I leaned into him, pushing up on my tiptoes to place a gentle kiss at the base of his jaw. He moaned and his hold on me tightened; I could feel him hard against me, and the sensation was accompanied by a rush of raw desire that would have knocked me over had he not been holding me up.

“I need you inside of me,” I whispered. “Right now.”

He groaned and took my mouth with his, hard, punishing kisses that spoke to the breaking of restraints we’d both held in place for far too long. Clothes peeled off easily as our need to touch and feel overwhelmed us, and when we fell back onto my bed, there was nothing in the world but the two of us, the one of him. His lips set off explosions under my skin, and I writhed under his touch as he tasted every part of me until my hands gripped his hair as his tongue made me forget everything but the feel of him. I closed my eyes and let it take me. I wasn’t worried about anything, not the past, not the future, just this moment now when he was making explosions of color dance behind my eyelids as I moved beneath him. Moments later, we rolled together and he was underneath me and I was taking him inside of me, watching his face as I moved rhythmically, loving what I did to him, the power I had in that moment. He was mine, to do with as I pleased, and this was what I pleased, to see him helpless beneath me as I loved him with everything I had, until there was nothing left of me. Nothing to hold back, nothing to save for later, nothing to do but collapse upon him, my ear to his chest as we both gasped for air. His arms tightened around me and he kissed the top of my head, and I listened as his heartbeat drummed out the chant.
Mine-mine, mine-mine
 …

Mine.

We shifted to lie side by side and fell into an exhausted sleep, the peaceful darkness of his naked embrace keeping me from having to deal with my pressing reality until about a half-hour later, when I opened my eyes to find him propped up on one elbow, watching me.

“Don’t say it,” I said.

“What?” He reached for my hand and kissed my fingertips.

“I can see the gears working in your brain.” I snuggled up next to him, nuzzling his bare chest with my nose, loving the solid, manly scent of him, wanting to remember it forever, however long that was. “If you start thinking, we’ll lose this, and I’m not ready for that.”

He held me to him, running his fingers down my side, kissing my forehead, my face, my shoulder. I could feel him hardening next to me, but when I reached for him, he took my hand in his and pulled it to his chest.

“Stop,” he said, his voice coarse and breathy. “I can’t think when you do that.”

“No thinking,” I said. “Please. Not yet.”

He opened his eyes and focused on me, and despite my pleas, I could see the pieces coming together for him, the worry creeping in.

“What’s your plan?” he asked, and I sighed and pulled back from him. Quietly, I gathered our clothes from the floor, passing his to him. Once we were both dressed, I sat on the edge of the bed and said, “You should go now.”

“Wow.” He let out a sharp laugh, but there was nothing happy in his tone. “Give me a minute to process the whiplash.”

“You know how I feel about you,” I said softly. “You know that was all real. It’s just that now … it’s over. And you should go.”

He got up off the bed and stood before me. “Yeah? Why?”

I looked at him, then pushed up off the bed and stepped away from him; the closer I was to him, the more it hurt, and I’d made up my mind. There was no point in making it any harder than it already was.

“You know why,” I said.

“I want to hear it from you.”

“It’s my decision, Tobias. My life, my call. It’s over.”

He crossed the room to stand next to me, his hand gripping my arm. “No.”

I pulled out of his grip and felt the first pang of fear and regret since I’d made the decision. “Stop it. You’re only making this harder.”

“Goddamn right,” he said. “You’re not committing suicide by Davina. We can still win this.”

I laughed outright at that. “No, we can’t. I’m done. Betty almost died last night, so did Millie, and why? Because I thought I could take her on. I can’t.”

“They got hurt because they’re part of this fight, because they chose to be. People get hurt, you can’t prevent that. But if you go and give yourself to Davina now, then you make it all meaningless.”

“And if I don’t? People die. We got lucky last night. No one died.”
Yet,
a black voice whispered in my head. “But if I keep up this ridiculous fight, they will. And who’s next? Stacy? Cain?
You?
” I shook my head, my entire body recoiling at the thought. “No. I have the power to stop all this, and I’m doing what needs to be done. As soon as the sun sets, I’m going to her.”

He gripped my shoulders and pulled me to him. “No.”

“Go, Tobias.”

“No.”

“I can’t do this if you’re here.”

“Good.”

“Tobias … please.” I felt a tear slip down my cheek, and I could see the response to my pain in his face, and suddenly, I knew.

“You love me,” I said, my voice quiet with wonder.

He put his hands on my face. “Yes.”

“I love you, too.”

“Then stop talking like this,” he said. “Let’s think of something else.”

I angled my head, kissed the inside of his palm, and pulled his hands into my own. “There is nothing else. I have to do this, and I need you to go.” I reached up and touched his face, the sandpaper scruff tickling my palm. I breathed in the earthy scent of him, and remembered the taste of his skin. For the first time in my life, I understood why my mother had been the way she had been. I didn’t need to imagine what it felt like to leave someone you loved and who loved you back. At least I wouldn’t have to live with it for too long, the way she did.

Tobias, however, would. But there was nothing I could do about that.

“I’m asking you to go,” I said. “I’m asking you, please. For me.”

He didn’t say anything, just kept his eyes on mine. I leaned into him, kissing him lightly on the lips, and he pulled me tighter against him. We stood together like that for a long time, and then, without a sound, he was gone, and I was alone in my room. At first, I felt like my heart was being ripped out of me, and it was too painful to even cry.

And then, slowly, all feeling receded, and I was back to the mild numbness I would need to hold onto if I was going to get through this. I exhaled a long, low breath, and turned to go toward my porch roof again.

I was halfway through the window when I noticed something flat, square, and a little charred at the edges laying on the edge of my desk. I reached for it, and it took me a moment to realize what it was.

The magic square.

I leaned against the desk, angling it in my hands to play with the sunlight streaming through my window. Tobias must have gone and gotten it for me while I’d been sleeping this morning. Of course, he would know the one thing that would mean more to me than anything else in that place; my magic square, my beautiful illusion.

I crawled out of the window and settled on the porch, then held it in my hands, allowing the energy to build up. I concentrated it, letting it flow into the square, which began to curl in on itself, the sparkly part forming the outside of the blue bird. By the time it was done, it looked and moved like an actual bluebird, its glittery wings flapping in the air as it flew in little loopy circles by my head. I laughed—a hollow, pained laugh, but still a laugh—as I noticed it sending little shards of light onto my skin like a disco ball.