Page 46 of Tricks for Free

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” I hesitated again, this time to review my memory of the crowd. There had been a few people standing frozen in their shock and terror, but that was normal. Drop an alien monster into a tour group and it’ll have plenty to eat, because not everyone will be able to recover in time to run away. “Because there wasn’t anyone who seemed overly happy about what was happening. It could have been sabotage, I guess, if someone was looking to hurt the company, or reduce competition for another theme park, but that seems extreme. I think we’d have seen signs before this.”

“So what? Mechanical failure?” Megan frowned. “I thought they’d have safeguards against that sort of thing.”

“All the safeguards in the world won’t stop something that really wants to break.” I rubbed my forehead with one hand. The skating had cleared away the fog, making it easier for me to think. That didn’t make any of this comfortable. “It doesn’t feel like intentional sabotage. It was too big, without having any convenient gloating.”

“That’s terrifying.” Megan wrapped her arms around herself. “I’d almost rather this be something somebody had done.”

“It’s easier to fight a person than an accident,” I said. It was hard to stop replaying the scene over and over in my mind. Now that Megan had caused me to knock the mental scab off, it was like all the infection that had built up behind it was leaking out, coating the world in a thin veneer of screams, blood, and burning.

There was still no fire in my fingers. I never would have thought I’d miss it this much. It had been with me for so long that it felt like a normal response to trauma or stress, and now that it was gone I felt almost numb, like something essential had been taken away. I could feel it burning deep down, when I forced my attention inward and looked, but it refused to come, no matter how hard I called. Part of that might have been the proximity of my roommates. Fern knew about my semi-controlled magic. Megan didn’t. Neither of them had actually seen me play pyromaniac with a touch. It was only reasonable that I’d be holding back in their presence.

(And I could tell myself that as much as I wanted. The fire still wouldn’t come when I was alone, no matter how hard I begged, because it hadn’t come last night, and it hadn’t come when it could have helped me. I wasn’t an infant anymore, where magic was concerned. My body was forgetting how to scream.)

“Do you have a shift in the morning?” Fern asked.

Megan nodded. “I start at nine, and I’m on the clock until nine tomorrow night, at the absolute earliest. You should probably figure on not seeing me for a few days. That’s part of why I decided to sit up tonight. I wanted to know that you were okay.”

“I don’t have an email from scheduling yet,” said Fern.

I glanced at her, startled. I hadn’t even thought to check. Then again, I was the one with the cheap phone that was only a phone and couldn’t receive anything more complex than a text message. I was used to getting my shift information at the start of the week, and not having any updates until the end. The float disaster changed things. The whole Park, or at least the Fairyland section, could very well be closed.

“I’m going to go check my email,” I said, and took a step toward the hall.

The doorbell rang.

All three of us froze—more than three, if I counted the sudden stillness of the snakes on Megan’s head. With the living room light on, it was impossible to pretend nobody was home. Indeed, the thought had barely managed to form when the doorbell rang again. This time, the person outside leaned into the act, sending the tone belling loud and clear through the apartment. They were going to wake our neighbors if they didn’t stop.

Megan bolted to her feet and ran for her bedroom, where she kept the wigs. Fern didn’t move.

Right. I didn’t have a weapon and I didn’t have fire in my fingers and I didn’t have a clue, but I didn’t want our neighbors reporting us to corporate, either. Taking a deep breath, I straightened my spine until it creaked. That helped. I always feel better about walking toward my certain death when I do it with good posture. I shot a reassuring glance at Fern and started for the door, intending to answer it before our unexpected guest could ring the bell a third time.

I opened the door. Sam’s hand was raised, finger poised to press the bell again. He froze. I froze. We stood together yet apart, two statues staring at each other across a gulf of less than two feet.

I knew what he was seeing: sweat-caked hair plastered to my neck and shoulders, tattered secondhand tank top and yoga pants, skin that bore a sheen of sunscreen and the omnipresent glitter that coats everything in Lowryland. The urge to slam the door, run to the shower, and come back when I was presentable was almost overwhelming, and yet he looked at me like I was candy, cake, and Christmas all rolled into one. A girl could get used to being looked at that way.

As for me, I was looking at a tall, brown-skinned man of mixed Chinese and European descent, broad-shouldered in that way that comes with spending too much time on the flying trapeze, floppy-haired in front and close-cropped in the back. His ears stuck out a bit too far and his hands were a bit too big for the rest of his frame, but I liked those things about him. They proved he was real. Actually, I liked everything about him, and had since he’d stopped glowering at me and started smiling instead.

He wasn’t smiling now. He looked stunned, like he couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I understood the sentiment.

When we finally started moving again, he was faster. He’s always been faster than I am, a blessing of biology enhanced and improved by training. He closed the distance between us in a single step, his hands coming up to cup the sides of my face, and his lips tasted like bad coffee, diner pie, and terrible decisions, and none of that mattered one damn bit. Sam was here. Sam was kissing me. Everything else, good, bad, or yet to be determined, could wait.

The heat coming off of his skin was intense. As a fūri, Sam runs hotter than a human man, even when he’s in his seemingly-human form. It was a comforting piece of proof that this was really him, enough so that I leaned even closer, his hands holding my face like an anchor, my body seeking his in the open, liminal space of the doorway.

The doorway. We were standing in the doorway. The doorway to the apartment, which meant the door was open, which meant anyone who looked would see me standing there, kissing a strange man who most definitely did not work for Lowry Entertainment, Inc.

I broke the kiss. Sam looked at me, wide-eyed and betrayed. And adorable. God, he was adorable. Had he always been this adorable?

Fucking hormones, I thought, before grabbing his shirt, growling, “Inside,” and yanking him into the apartment. He had the presence of mind to catch and slam the door behind himself. He even used one of his hands to do it. The boy was staying human until he had the full lay of the land. That pleased me, although I couldn’t say I’d expected anything else. I’d been maybe-dating him for less than a month. He’d been a therianthrope for his entire life.

Fern, still standing next to the couch, was gaping at us, open-mouthed and shocked-looking. “Are you going to do a murder in our living room?” she squeaked.

“What?” asked Sam.

“No,” I said firmly. “No one is getting murdered.” I hesitated before amending, “Right now. Murder is always on the table for later.”

Fern looked reassured. Sam did not. That was fine: Sam was about to become a lot less reassured about everything. I whirled on him, finger pointed at his chest.