Page 10 of Throwing Shade
3
I hadquestions about the sudden resurgence of my powers and about letting Alex go. Many, many questions, starting with, “How the fuck?” followed by, “Why the fuck?” and topped off with, “Am I fucked?”
I hit the wrong button on the fob twice before I unlocked my car and got inside.
How could I have let my powers out? I’d been so careful for so long, lived under the radar, staying far from the magic community despite the slow and methodical shriveling of my soul. It was the price of a peaceful life.
Nervously, I jerked the car into gear and hit the gas.
Had Alex known that I was one of the Banim Shovavim, the “rebellious children” born to Lilith and Adam? Our kind was rare, but our magic was infamous.
Was word already getting around?
I wove in and out of the lanes, cursing every vehicle on the road going at a snail’s pace.
Was Sadie safe? Had I made the worst mistake of my life by choosing to walk through that door and unleash these abilities? I didn’t just have myself to think about. It wasn’t like I could run like I had the last time. Much as I hated to admit it, the past cast a much longer shadow than I could escape.
I closed my eyes at a stop sign. Shadow master, what a joke.
Blowing through a red light in my dash back to East Vancouver, I finally pulled crookedly up to the curb in front of home and unclipped the seatbelt that had been pressing against my shoulder wound.
“Sades?” I shut the front door behind me and kicked off my heels, relieved that my voice sounded normal.
My daughter’s bedroom door creaked opened upstairs. “Yeah?”
“I’m home and—” I started for the stairs to get a hug, but at the sight of my banged-up and bloody reflection, stopped. Yikes, I was lucky no one had stopped me on the way to or from my car.
“What, Mom?”
“Nothing, sweetheart.”
“Okay. I’m going to bed. ’Night. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” I tossed my keys into a red glazed ceramic bowl in the foyer that Judith had made me, and dumped my purse on the ground, hissing as I pulled my shirt free of the bloody glue plastering it to my skin. The gash on my shoulder throbbed and my movements were stiff, but it was scabbing over.
Still, I liberally doused it in a topical antibiotic, slathering the stuff over the bruises on my neck as well, which hurt more than my side. Under the crappy bathroom light, they were a sickly shade of yellow, interrupted by five purple fingerprints.
When puberty finally kicked in at fourteen and my magic manifested, I’d named my shadow Delilah, after the woman who brought down Samson, the strongest Israeli warrior. Oh, to have that invincible conviction of youth. Mine had been shattered years before because of magic, but I’d rebuilt my life, fighting to regain some sense of security, which now lay in shredded tatters.
While Delilah had no senses or ability to feel pain, I did. If she took a punch, it was my body the injury translated to, and she’d been thrown about pretty roughly tonight. My poor shoulder was really tender. I shook my head, wincing, and headed for the kitchen, where I swallowed a couple painkillers, grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, and slapped it on my shoulder.
Delilah shot double middle fingers at the beige void I lived in, but I ignored her, my brain doom-scrolling through all the ways that having released my magic could go wrong.
All my fears notwithstanding, I danced through the rooms, punch drunk. It was as if my entire body had been cramped up and I’d finally stretched out those muscles, leaving a delicious ache and a deep sense of satisfaction.
The house hadn’t undergone the same radical shift as the rest of my universe. Each room was still painted in a sensible light taupe, Sadie’s laptop and homework dominated half of the dining room table, and a jumble of pillows were thrown on the plush sofa next to a folded knit blanket. Nothing too messy, but not anal retentive in its tidiness. Nice and average.
Sinking onto the couch, I pushed aside a few pieces of the Broadway posters jigsaw puzzle that I’d been beating my head against. A blobby red and blue piece that I’d picked up and discarded about a dozen times fell off the coffee table, and from my weird angle when I retrieved it, I suddenly knew where it fit. I popped it in to the middle; then, convinced I had this section solved, tried three more pieces.
None of them worked. I swept them onto my puzzle mat with a sigh. Slow and methodical was the only way to succeed.
If the universe cut me a break and my actions tonight went unnoticed, then I’d tuck away the memory of how good it had felt, and never use magic again. How could I? Magic was dangerous, full stop. I cared too much about my kid, my job, and myself to risk it.
My fingers drifted up to the bruises on my neck. However, I couldn’t in good conscience allow Alex to remain free and prey on any other woman. He’d picked me out because Chambers was frequented by Sapiens—powerless humans who had no idea that magic existed—and he thought I couldn’t fight back.
He was a predator who had to be stopped, but how could I do so and keep my magic under wraps? If I went to the Vancouver Police Department to lodge a complaint, I’d be putting them in jeopardy.
With an ex-husband on the force, I’d heard a lot about his various colleagues. Hell, we’d had a bunch over for BBQs when we were still married, so I could easily reach out to one. And as a cop’s wife, I’d accepted the danger that Eli faced every day on the job, but I couldn’t knowingly send some unwitting officer up against someone like Alex.
