Fury (Institute of Unpredictable Magic Book 2) Page 3

  He’d say yes. I can feel it. He’s as good as told me so. Out of the two of us, Logan isn’t the one being dodgy here.

  But I can’t quite do it. I’m still… I don’t like to think of myself as a coward, and yet, that’s exactly what I’m being. I’m still scared to plunge in with both feet.

  Ironic, I know. In other aspects of my life, I always want to jump in with both feet. But this is… this is just so much. I’ve never felt like this before, about anyone, and now I’ve got these overwhelming feelings that are just filling me up to the brim, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with them or how I can even possibly handle them—

  So I step back, clearing my throat. Logan doesn’t look surprised, but he does look a bit disappointed.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him, and if the words stick in my throat, I ignore it. I’m just not ready yet. This means a lot to me—he means a lot to me—and I don’t want to risk fucking it up.

  Logan nods. He’s smiling softly at me, like he’s figured something out. At least he doesn’t look disappointed anymore, which is a relief. I don’t want him to feel disappointed or think I’m not interested in him.

  Because I really, really am.

  “See you tomorrow, Rae,” he says quietly.

  “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He heads to his car, and I get into mine and go back to my simple, quiet apartment.

  But still, even as I eat dinner, catch up on some work stuff in front of the TV, and finally crawl into bed, I can’t help but think about what might’ve happened if I’d invited him to come back with me.

  It haunts me like a ghost all night.

  Chapter 3

  On Sunday, I go to see Saint.

  I’ve been heading to Darkstone Penitentiary to see him every few days since we got back from our mission. He was surprised to see me at first, which kind of made me sad.

  He literally kissed me right before he had to go back to prison, and he thought I wouldn’t want to see him or even maybe write to him? It makes me wonder what kind of people he’s had in his life that he’s so alone.

  My siblings don’t know about Saint.

  I don’t think they’d be happy to know that one of my partners on my first mission was a convicted murderer that we got out on parole from magical prison. Even if he did protect me and save my life.

  No, more than that. He kept me from having to kill someone.

  But he’s still a murderer, and that would make Penelope and Max worry.

  Honestly, I would worry too if I didn’t know Saint. But I do know him. I don’t know the details of what he did and why he’s in here, but I know him, and I know that he took care of me while we were on our mission. He never did anything to hurt me or make me feel unsafe with him.

  I can still remember curling up with him to sleep that one night out in the woods. The way I turned into a dog so that he could pet me, so that he could cuddle a fluffy animal, and how broken he seemed, how desperate for affection.

  He reminded me of a dog himself in a way, one that had been abandoned and left to be a stray and had become fierce because he had no choice. Not because he wanted to be. If he was given a home, given love and affection… then I just know he wouldn’t be so closed off and prickly.

  I don’t mean for that analogy to make him seem less than human or anything like that. It’s just… since one of my Unpredictable powers is shifting into different animal forms, sometimes I end up comparing the people in my life to animals as well. It helps me, sometimes, since I’m not exactly the best with people anyway.

  After his initial surprise at seeing me show up at Darkstone, I like to think Saint looks forward to my visits.

  The visitation setup is a little awkward and cold, which I hate. We can’t touch each other, and Saint so clearly needs human touch, human affection. And there are guards watching us the whole time. I’m pretty sure my visits with him are recorded. But I don’t care. I’m not doing anything that I would be ashamed for anyone to see.

  Sure, my siblings would need some explanations because they’re protective of me, but I could explain. I know what I’m doing is right.

  When I reach Darkstone, I sign in at the front, where the guard is starting to recognize me and gives me a small smile as I fill out the paperwork. I’m checked for weapons or other forms of contraband next so that I can’t sneak in anything, and then I’m led into a visiting room.

  I’m sure there are people in this prison who deserve to be punished for whatever it is they did. But every time I come here, I feel like I’m becoming less than human. Like some part of my individuality, some of what makes me, well, me, is being taken away, and I don’t get it back until I’m outside again. I can’t imagine what being here all day every day is like. How it must strip your humanity away.

  Saint’s brought into the visitation room after I am, and he sits down in his chair across from me. We’re not allowed to touch. I know that, but it seems more real every time when he first sits down. Because the instinct to reach out and take his hand is so fucking strong. But I can’t, and it drives me insane.

  Kissing me, cuddling with me… it was probably the first time Saint truly touched another person in years.

  “Hey,” I say, smiling at him as he meets my gaze, his face set in hard lines.

  When we were out together on our mission, he was softer. He liked Nick and would smile and laugh at Nick’s jokes. By the end of it, Logan was getting Saint lunch and wrapping his arm around the guy’s shoulders. Now, the man who became our fourth partner is hunched down, closed off, the way he was when I first met him.

  “How’s it going?” I ask, and then wince. That’s probably the last thing he wants me to ask about. “Never mind. You don’t have to talk about prison stuff if you don’t want to. Um, my week was pretty boring, but in a good way. These days, I’ll definitely take boring over anything else. We helped out this girl named Jessica whose Unpredictable powers just sparked.”

  I tell him all about Jessica. Saint’s older than I am by a few years, so he got his powers when people were still very prejudiced against Unpredictables. His eyes light up a bit as I describe the girl’s happiness, and how she was more excited than nervous about the appearance of her strange new magic.

  There are seven pillars of magic. Elemental magic accounts for four of those pillars, and then there are illusionists, enchanters, and potion brewers. Anything that doesn’t fall under those seven pillars, anything outside the norm of what most magic users develop, is referred to as Unpredictable magic—and as the name suggests, it can encompass pretty much anything. It’s hard to categorize, and it’s hard to predict what it might be, which is why people were scared of it for so long.

  “We didn’t have to threaten to take her magic,” I tell him, and this time my smile doesn’t feel forced. I’m just so happy that Jessica doesn’t have to go through what Saint and Logan and almost every other Unpredictable over a certain age had to experience once they got their powers.

  Saint gives me a small smile. It’s there and gone like quicksilver, but it is there, and I feel warmth spread through me in response. I feel triumphant whenever I can get that softness inside him to show, if only for a moment.

  “You’re doing good work,” he says. His voice is rough and quiet, and his gray eyes focus intently on me. “Even if it seems boring to you. It means a lot to people like Jessica.”

  “I know that, I just wish it was more exciting so that I’d have more fun stories to tell you when I visit you.”

  Saint doesn’t smile with his mouth this time, but his eyes seem to soften. “Just having you here is good enough.”

  My nose scrunches. “Well, I’m sure I’m pretty boring company.”

  I do most of the talking, about ninety percent of it, but I doubt that’s because I’m actually interesting. I’m pretty sure it’s because… well, what is Saint going to talk to me about? Prison is boring and awful, so there’s not much about it that he seems to want to sh
are.

  “You must have more interesting visitors,” I add. “Like family.”

  Saint’s face grows impassive. I’ve learned that he doesn’t really get more expressive when he’s upset. Instead, he folds into himself. Puts walls up.

  I know I must’ve said something wrong, but I can’t think what it is until he says, “Not really. You’re my only visitor.”

  “What?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “You don’t have any family?”

  Shit, that was rude. This is why I’m not good with people.

  “They’ve basically… after everything that happened… we’re not close. They don’t visit.” Saint scrubs a hand over his short dark hair and gives a tilt of his head, his version of a shrug, as if to say that it’s not really a big deal.

  Of course it’s a big deal. My siblings are everything to me. They raised me after my parents died and I’m close with both of them. I don’t really have friends—okay maybe I kind of do now, sort of, at IUM. But growing up, I didn’t have friends, so Penelope and Max were kind of my friends too.

  When Max first started dating Cassidy, I was super nervous, worried that things would be different and that my brother wouldn’t want to spend as much time with me anymore. But Cassidy is warm and bubbly. She matches Max perfectly since they’re both so easygoing, and I love her. I love my nephews too.

  I can’t imagine life without any of them. If my family cut me off, I’d be devastated.

  “Saint, I’m so sorry.” The fact that I can’t reach out and take his hand hurts as if someone’s punched me in the chest. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Why are you here? Why do you come?”

  His voice is abrupt. He hasn’t asked me that question yet, and honestly, it’s a fair question.

  Why am I here? Why am I taking time to visit a murderer in a prison that I met once before on a mission instead of doing, oh, just about anything else with my Sunday?

  “Because I don’t want you to be lonely,” I say honestly. Then I pause, taking a deep breath as I organize my thoughts. “I’m lonely too sometimes. Probably often, honestly. I’m so used to it I can’t always tell anymore. But I know that it sucks. And I kind of chose to be lonely. I ignored anyone who wanted to be friends with me while I was growing up. I was too busy studying. Being the best. And I can’t imagine how bad it is for you here—and you didn’t choose this.”

  Okay, so maybe he did, a little, by murdering someone. But I remember the look in Saint’s eyes when he killed that crazed Unpredictable for me, and when he told me that I shouldn’t have to be the one to do that. That I shouldn’t have to know what it feels like to murder someone.

  I don’t know anything about the circumstances of Saint’s crime. Maybe he didn’t want to do it. Maybe, like with our attacker, he felt like he had to.

  “I chose to be lonely,” I continue. “I had a ton of chances to change that. And I could still change it.” As I say that, I realize it’s true. I am lonely. “But you don’t really get that chance and that’s not fair to you.”

  Saint gives that tilt of the head again, and then says, “Why’d you choose to be lonely?”

  I chew my lip. “Well, I guess I thought it was the price of achieving great things. As soon as IUM was founded, I knew I wanted to work there, so while I was at Griffin Academy, I did everything I could to rise to the top of my class. I had to have a perfect application.”

  A flicker of amusement crosses Saint’s face. “You were pretty determined to do well on our mission. Didn’t stop you from reaching out to me. Or goofing off with Nick. Or kissing Logan.”

  He’s got a point. None of that stopped me from getting close with them. Or at least, closer than I’ve been to anyone in a long time. I don’t bother to ask how he knows about Logan and me making out—okay, doing more than that—in the woods. With his super senses, I’m positive Saint heard us well enough to guess what we were doing.

  I can’t help but remember how it felt to have Logan kiss me. The hot thrill down my spine, but also the cold clench in my stomach. It was overwhelming, like riding a rollercoaster with your hands up.

  “Doesn’t make sense to me,” Saint goes on. “Your determination and your hard work. I like them. They’re good things. But they’re also not… they don’t cancel out the other stuff. You were able to do both, last I saw.”

  Huh. He’s got a point. Maybe it hasn’t so much been my determination. Maybe it’s been the fear that I felt when Logan kissed me, or when I thought about asking him to come home with me and then changed my mind. I didn’t do it because I wanted to go home and do work. It wasn’t that I had grades to worry about.

  It was that I was scared.

  Maybe I’ve been letting fear rule my choices more than I should. After all—you can’t be rejected, either by a potential friend or a potential lover, if you never let yourself try in the first place.

  Is that what I’ve been doing? Trying to protect my heart from the possibility of being broken?

  Saint leans in a little, not enough to get the guard to step in, but just enough that I notice the movement. He’s got a knowing gleam in his eyes. “You look like I’ve hit you over the head.”

  “Just… thinking,” I say quietly.

  He nods. “How’re things with Nick and Logan? How are they?”

  “They’re fine. Nick’s still curious about the magical signature we picked up. He texts a lot, usually ridiculous stuff. Logan’s enjoying his work.”

  Saint gives me another small smile. “That’s it?”

  “Should there be more?”

  He cocks his head. “Maybe.”

  I can feel my face heating up. “Look, it’s… we’re not anything.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Hey, who’s doing the interrogating here?” I purse my lips, although a smile is tugging at them and ruining the effect a little. “Am I under arrest now? Did you set this up?”

  Saint actually laughs, and I grin in triumph. I haven’t gotten him to laugh the entire time I’ve been visiting. “I’m serious, Rae.”

  “So am I. I have my job. I have—”

  “And it’s your job that’s keeping you from them?”

  “Logan and I are partners.”

  “You could work around that. I might be locked away in here, but I’m not totally cut off. I hear things. We all know about Sinclair.”

  Ah, yes, Elliot Sinclair, the savior of Unpredictables. She’s got four boyfriends. One of them is a part-time professor at Griffin, so he’s the only one I know, but I’ve briefly met the others. She even works with them on her missions at IUM. I don’t know how she does it, but I admire her immensely for it.

  “I’m just saying,” Saint points out, “it doesn’t sound to me like you have to choose between your job and your relationships, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “You can’t love a job as much as I do and have a relationship,” I say quietly, trying to drag our conversation out as long as possible. “Whoever you’re with will eventually make you choose between them and your work.”

  “Maybe if you’re with a stupid person,” Saint replies. “The right people will appreciate that you can love both.”

  Something blooms in my chest at his words, spreading and expanding like ink dropped into a glass of water. He sounds so certain of that, so confident in his words, and I wonder if he’s referring to himself at all when he says “the right people.”

  It might be stupid of me, but I really hope he is.

  We spend the rest of our short visit talking about lighter subjects, and I work hard to entertain him and brighten his day, hoping to give him enough joy and peace that it will last for a while even after I’m gone.

  Our time is never long enough, and when the guards step forward to bring Saint back to his cell, I promise to come back again soon.

  He nods, holding my gaze until they lead him out of the room.

  When he disappears from view, it feels like a
little piece of my heart goes with him.

  Chapter 4

  Okay. So maybe Saint has a point.

  Maybe it’s just been my own fear and my own choices that’ve been holding me back this whole time.

  I decided that nobody could ever appreciate my dedication to the career path I’ve chosen, and that I would end up brokenhearted. I decided that nobody could keep up with me. I decided that I was going to be unable to have both and I let that decision dictate everything.

  But the truth is, I don’t know the future.

  What about Saint? What wouldn’t he give to be able to make friends and have people in his life?

  This is flattering myself, but he did kiss me right before he was taken back to prison—maybe if he was out of prison, he would want to date me.

  But he can’t. He doesn’t even get the chance to decide about that.

  And I do. I get that chance.

  I’m allowed to take that chance and make that choice, with Logan at the very least, and I’m squandering it because I’m scared. I know I’m not good with people, but I have Saint, who likes me. I have Nick, who seems to enjoy my company. And I have Logan, who’s made it pretty clear he wants us to have… something. I’ve got these people who seem to like me against all odds, and what kind of idiot would I be if I don’t take the chance that they’re offering me?

  I drive back to my apartment, and when I’m about halfway home, I call Logan before I can change my mind. He’s on my ‘favorites’ list in my contacts—the only one besides Nick, Penelope, Max, and Cassidy.

  And isn’t that kind of pathetic? That I don’t have any other people to call?

  You’re going to fix that, I remind myself. That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m calling Logan, and I’m going to take a chance. Because Saint would if he could, and because he clearly wants me to and thinks that I should.