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It was already pitch black by the time Aria and Jason rolled to a stop at the edge of a backlit parking lot within walking distance of Hyde Park. The driver sped away quickly, rolling down his window with a cryptic, “Have fun,” as the kids turned slowly to look at the building in the distance.
...what is this place?
It took Aria’s eyes a moment to make sense of the barrage of flashing neon lights. The lot was nearly deserted, yet even from a distance she could hear the scream of a large crowd. The music was blaring just as loudly. A pounding bass shot through the wet pavement, vibrating her shoes.
Then all at once, the door cracked open and she understood.
“Your mom works here?”
The Dancing Bare.
As if the name of the club wasn’t enough, there was the picture of a scantily clad woman wrapped around a pole above the entryway. The people coming and going didn’t give it a second thought, but Aria couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Suddenly, the taxi driver’s purse-lipped smile made sense. Suddenly, she wondered how angry Camille would be to discover her boyfriend happened to know what time the place opened.
But the most important opinion belonged to the man standing by her side.
Jason was frozen to the stop, staring white-faced at the doorway. His blond waves shivered with each deafening crash of the bass. His lips were slightly parted.
Then the sound of women’s laughter echoed from inside, and he took a sudden step back.
“No,” he said instinctively, “she doesn’t work here. Kraigan must have gotten it wrong.”
Aria’s gaze travelled slowly back to the club. Supernatural trackers didn’t have the same margin of error as people who worked in the common world. If Kraigan had written down this address, then that’s exactly where Jason’s mother happened to be.
But that wasn’t the easiest thing to say out loud.
“Maybe there’s something on the other side...” he ventured hopefully before trailing off.
Like a vet’s office. A hospital. A library. Any of a thousand places he’d rather his mother happened to work other than at a strip club, taking off her clothes for the delight of strange men.
“Do you want to go home?” Aria asked quietly, providing a simple escape.
He knew where she was now. There was no need to press it further. He could always come back the next night. Or the next week. Or the next month. Sometime after he’d had time to catch his breath and process what had happened—
“I’m going inside.”
Aria’s eyes snapped shut for a split second, then she nodded.
Of course he is.
“But you should head back to the school,” he continued suddenly, pulling a phone from his pocket to call for a cab. “There’s no reason that both of us—”
“You want me to let you go in there alone?” she interrupted incredulously.
He tensed, then shook his head. “It’s bad enough I dragged you all the way to Kraigan’s—”
“Let me rephrase: you want me to let my boyfriend go into a strip club alone?”
True to form, the second she asked the question she regretted it—mostly because there was only one way to finish the sentence.
...to find his mother.
He stared at her for a moment, then glanced down at the pavement as the phone froze in his hand. It was quiet for a few seconds, then he forced himself to speak.
“If she’s really in there...I don’t want you to see her like that.”
Aria’s heart shattered a hundred times over. But she stepped up firmly and took his hand. “And I don’t want you to see her like that alone.”
For a split second, he looked profoundly relieved. Even the smallest bit grateful. Then he nodded curtly as all those walls went flying straight back up.
For once, she was glad. He was going to need them.
“Then let’s go.”
* * *
THE SMELL OF WHISKEY and cigarette smoke hit like a battering ram by the time they got within ten steps of the entrance. When Aria saw the bouncers she was terrified they weren’t going to get in, but Jason calmly produced their IDs and handed them over, waiting with his hands in his pockets. The bouncer scanned the pictures carefully, then handed them back with a little smile.
“This is a weird first date, man.”
Jason stuffed it into his wallet, looking a little sick. “Yeah...thanks.”
The velvet rope parted and they passed awkwardly beneath the neon arches, stepping quickly to the side to avoid getting trampled by a man rushing outside to vomit.
They glanced at each other before Aria looked deliberately away.
“I’m not counting this as our first date.”
Aria Wardell wasn’t exactly the kind of person to admit when she’d made a mistake, but the second they were indoors she wished she’d taken Jason up on the cab after all. The place was everything she could have imagined and so much more. There was your standard bar and tables, along with a stage for the dancers adorned with several poles, but there were also ‘rooms in the back’. Places for VIP dances and small cages mounted on the ceiling where scantily-clad women reclined with a drink, stretching their long legs and staring out over their shadowy domain.
She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want Jason to see it. But she was still glad she’d come with him. Especially because anyone who made it past the bouncers was apparently fair game.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Two heavily-manicured fingers slid up the back of his neck, losing themselves in his hair. “You want a dance? First one’s on the house.”
He tensed in surprise as a woman stepped around in front of them. She was probably late-twenties, early thirties, with bleached hair, bleached teeth, and such a thick set of false eyelashes Aria wondered how well she could actually see. The black rhinestones strung around her body glittered under the dim lights as she flashed a seductive smile at them both.
“Honey,” Aria chided with a tight smile of her own, “the lady asked you a question.”
He quickly blinked back to present. The woman’s hand was still in his hair. “Uh, thanks...but that’s not why we’re here.”
“Oh.” She dropped her hand immediately, looking suddenly businesslike as the flirty exterior fell away. Instead of focusing on Jason, she turned to Aria. “Are you looking for an application?”
This time Aria was the one who froze. Her boyfriend nudged her with a secret smile.
“Honey, the lady asked you a question.”
She flashed a look that reminded him she could throw fire.
“Actually, I’m here looking for someone.” He caught the woman before she could move on to the next customer. “I don’t know what name she would have given, but she’s blonde, with green eyes, wavy hair...”
He trailed off as they realized the obvious problem. Everyone who worked in the club had been styled to look exactly the same. A look of helplessness washed over him as he glanced at the parade of woman, then Aria stepped forward suddenly and bent the lady’s head to her own.
“Listen, it looks like you’re really busy so I’ll get right to it. This woman would have to be at least a few years older than you.” Her eyes flashed discreetly to Jason, still staring out hopelessly over the crowd. “And I’m guessing...she looks a little like him.”
The woman stared blankly for a moment, then her eyes widened in sudden understanding.
“Oh...I get it.” Her eyes fixed on Jason, taking in the details of his face. “I don’t know of anyone who’d have a kid his age, but you never—wait! You guys are looking for Destiny!”
Please tell me that’s not actually her name.
Jason tuned back in to the conversation when she shrieked.
“What’s wrong?” he asked Aria in an undertone. “What’s happening?”
Before she could answer the woman took them both by the hand, leading them to one of those forbidden rooms Aria had noticed earlier. They followed stiffly, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the other side. When they got to an empty one, the woman opened the door.
“Wait here,” she whispered excitedly. “She’ll be along in a moment.”
The door whisked shut before either of them could answer. The second it did, Jason glanced up at the plastic chandelier and leather booth seating before turning to Aria in a mild panic.
“What are we doing here? What’s going on?”
A low moan filtered through the walls, and her shoulders fell with a little sigh.
“You’re in luck...we have a date with Destiny.”
* * *
OF ALL THE WAYS ARIA would want to spend a Sunday evening, this had to be at the very bottom of the list. She and Jason stood in perfect silence in the center of the room, waiting for the door to open and a new form of psychological torment to come inside. At one point both had considered taking a seat, but had glanced over the slick leather booth and thought better of it.
“What if it isn’t her?” Jason asked quietly, breaking the long silence. His voice was hoarse and his usually tan skin was looking disturbingly grey. “That woman’s just guessing.”
Aria slipped her hand into his, giving it a tight squeeze. “If it’s the wrong woman, then you’ll know. You’ve already seen what she looks like, and there can only be so many women in this place.”
She had yet to ask anything about his trip back in time with Kraigan. A single look at his face had said he would need some time to process that on his own.
“Do you know what you’re going to say to her?” she asked instead. That question he must have had plenty of time with already. “Is there something specific that you—”
But at that moment, she fell utterly silent.
Because at that moment the door opened, and a beautiful woman walked inside.
In hindsight, ‘beautiful’ was underselling it by quite a ways. There were levels and degrees of that sort of thing, but no matter which way you measured it this woman was clearly at the top.
With emerald eyes, creamy skin, and a bone structure that made Aria wonder why she hadn’t gone into modeling instead, she shone with a natural kind of beauty that the others—despite all their products and styling—somehow lacked.
Not that she’d avoided the general vibe.
After the initial jaw-dropping reaction, Aria couldn’t help but cringe. The woman’s body might have been flawless, but she certainly wasn’t hiding it. Quite the contrary—she was wearing the same crisscrossed black ribbons as everyone else. The kind that were studded in cheap, gaudy rhinestones and left very little to the imagination. Those sparkling eyes were masked in a heavy coat of paint, her feet were strapped into a pair of astronomically towering heels, and when she turned to shut the door they saw a pair of angel wings tattooed across her entire back.
But those were all the second things Aria noticed. The first thing was that this lovely, tragically-employed woman was unequivocally, without a shadow of a doubt...Jason’s mother.
“Well, hello there.”
They even sounded the same, with a soft rhythmic way of speaking designed to pull you in.
“The two of you requested a dance?” She lifted her eyebrows ever so slightly. “Together?”
Jason took a quick step back, looking like he’d been slapped across the face. His lips parted with a hundred things he’d never be able to say before he gave Aria a look of pure panic.
“No,” she interceded quickly, biting the bullet and sitting down after all. “We’d be happy to pay for your time...but we really just wanted to talk.”
The woman didn’t blink. She simply turned from one person to the other.
“And what about you?” she asked quietly. “You just want to talk?”
When he still wasn’t able to speak she smiled faintly at his stricken expression, not thinking for a moment that she might be the cause. A bit of the seductress fell away and she took a seat in the center of the stage, leaning back against the pole.
“Are you kids with a school paper or something? Writing another of those op-eds about the dangers of sex work in the modern age?”
Aria froze in dismay, cursing herself for not having prepared a script ahead of time, but the words ‘sex-work’ seemed to have shaken Jason out of his trance. He took a step away from her, a bit closer to the woman by the pole. Then, without thinking, he knelt down to eye-level.
“What’s your name?”
The woman cocked her head curiously, but in a small act of mercy she didn’t say Destiny. If she had, it might have permanently broken her son’s heart. Instead she looked him up and down, trying to get the measure of him like she’d done with so many before.
“I don’t need to reform, kid. And I don’t want you showing up at my house in the middle of the night, trying to teach me there’s some better way—”
“I won’t do any of that,” Jason said quickly. “I swear. I just...want to know your name.”
The two locked eyes for what felt like an eternity before she tilted her head with a smile. “My name’s Elaine. What’s yours?”
His eyes closed and his head bowed to his chest.
Elaine Hobbs.
E.H.
“My name’s Jason,” he said softly. “I think I’m your son.”
* * *
THE PAVEMENT FLEW UP faster than Aria was expecting, smacking her right in the chin.
“Ow!”
She slowly pushed herself up, cursing strip club bouncers and the supernatural law that she wasn’t allowed to use ink in front of anyone from the common world. Jason crashed down beside her, thrown with even more force. He let himself hit the ground as well, shielding only his face before pushing tenderly to his feet, backing away from the entryway with a glare.
“That’s for harassing one of our girls,” the bouncer warned him, holding up a meaty fist. “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. And don’t ever let me catch you back here again.”
Jason wiped a smear of blood from his lip before turning on his heel. “Don’t worry,” he muttered. “I won’t be coming back.”
Aria lingered long enough to pick up her scattered purse before racing after him, lifting her collar with a shiver as the sky around them opened up with rain.
“Jason, I—”
“Well, you were right,” he interrupted, throwing up his hands. “This was a terrible idea; we shouldn’t have come. Life was perfectly fine back in Guilder. Don’t know why I felt the need to change it.”
She was cold, wet, and scraped enough to be bleeding. But when she stopped in the middle of the darkened lot, there was nothing but tender sympathy in her eyes.
“Hey, it wasn’t a terrible idea. The woman is your mother. How were you supposed to know that
she’d—”
“—that she’d throw me out on the street?” he interrupted again, unable to slow himself down. “Right outside the strip club where she works? You’re right. I didn’t see that coming.”
Aria watched in silence as he paced back and forth, wondering if he realized neither one of them had actually called a cab. Streaks of rain poured down his face. His hair was soaked and his hands were shaking, but he didn’t seem to notice. His every thought was back in that club.
To put it lightly...his little revelation hadn’t gone well.
The second he said the word ‘son’, Elaine turned the color of spoilt milk and leapt to her feet—screaming for security. Aria and Jason had stood there in shock as the bouncers body-slammed the door and dragged them back through the club, throwing them into the parking lot with unnecessary relish. There had been no chance to say goodbye. There had been no time to ask that one all-consuming question. Not a single word had been spoken after son.
“Can you call for a cab?” Jason asked suddenly, staring off into the night. “It’s going to be a nightmare getting someone to take us back to Guilder at this hour, but you never know.”
“Jason.” Aria froze suddenly behind him, staring back toward the club. “Hang on—”
“And you’re letting me buy you dinner—no protests, Wardell. All day I’ve been dragging you over this bloody forsaken city, the least I can do is make sure you get a warm meal.”
“Jase—”
“Not that dinner is going to be our first date either,” he continued in a manic rush. “I don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s going to be special, Arie. And it’s not going to have anything to do with this nightmare of
a—”
“Hello, Jason.”
“—club.”
He froze where he stood, breath billowing out in frosty clouds as he stared across the wet pavement at his mother. She was still wearing the same lingerie from the club, with only a thin bathrobe thrown on top. It was freezing. And odds were, she didn’t know it had started to rain. But she didn’t seem to care about any of that. Her eyes flickered across his bloody palms instead.
“They hurt you—”
“You told them to throw us out.”
“Yes...I said that.”
An awkward silence fell between them. Jason was glaring fixedly at the pavement. Elaine seemed torn between averting her eyes and taking in every detail of his face.
“I panicked,” she said softly. “That was a long time ago. To be honest, I try not to think about that time in my life.”
He flinched involuntarily, while Aria shot her a look of furious disbelief.
Not helping, lady. NOT helping.
“That came out wrong,” she murmured. “What I’m trying to say is...you were a lot better off growing up without someone like me. I never even wanted a kid. Wyatt was the one who...”
He lifted his eyes, looking at her for the first time.
“Did you even check—after the fire? Did you even check to see if I was alive?”
At this point, Aria would have been willing to bet a lot of money that she hadn’t. But a truly devastated look flashed across her face and she nodded, unable to look away.
“Believe it or not, I tracked you down. I had some old friends on the police force, and they told me about a guy who’d shown up at the flat. Wyatt didn’t talk much about his other life—I knew he had one—but he’d mentioned a friend named Gabriel. From how the cops described him, I figured it was the same man.”
She took a step closer, completely soaked through with rain.
“I went to his house one day, but no one was home. Then, on a whim, I drove to the nearest park...and there you were.” Her eyes glistened, either with rain or tears, as she stared up at him. “So small and so happy. You were running back and forth across the grass, chasing a boy with bright red hair. I sat on a bench across the street and watched for the better part of an hour. Watched as, every few minutes, you’d run back to check in with a man sitting by the playground. You brought him all sorts of little treasures—acorns, rocks. When you fell off the jungle gym he picked you back up, set you on his knee, wiped away the blood, and said something to get you smiling again.”
She paused a moment, then smiled herself.
“And that’s when I knew.”
Jason was listening, spellbound. It took him a second to ask the question. “Knew what?”
“That I’d made the right decision, walking away all those years ago.”
Just like that, the quest was over.
Just like that, all those burning questions were finally put to bed.
Jason blinked rain from his eyes, then bowed his head quickly—finding himself far more preoccupied with the image of himself and Gabriel than he was with the woman watching from the other side of the park. It wasn’t until she shivered that he glanced up again.
“Here,” he offered, taking off his jacket and slipping it around her shoulders, “take this.”
She shrugged out of it with a smile, draping it back over his arm. “No—you keep that. But as a matter a fact, I have something for you.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the two friends followed her over to her car. Waiting in the rain as she rummaged around in the glove box before pulling out the last thing they’d ever expect.
Is that—
“It was your father’s,” she said wistfully, pressing the vintage pistol into Jason’s hand. “He gave it to me when I refused to stop dancing, said it would make him feel better to know that it was at least in my car. We’ve had a couple of rough customers.”
Jason forced himself not to think about that last part and slowly lifted the gun, turning it over in his hands. Considering so many of the weapons they were used to playing with, the thing was almost an antique. An outdated model that would have looked more at home on a movie set than on a mission. But there was something undeniably stylish about it all the same.
His lips twitched as he ran his fingers over the polished sides.
“This was his?”
She smiled faintly, staring at the gun. “Got it when he was nine years old. His father was this nut job from the Australian outback, loved that kind of stuff. Most of it he kept for himself, but that piece he passed on to Wyatt.”
Jason lifted his head suddenly, a hundred more questions poised on his tongue.
How did you guys meet?
Did you ever think of getting married?
Why did you leave him?
Why did you leave me?
A hundred questions, but he settled on two simple words.
“Thank you.”
She nodded briskly, suddenly eager to get back inside. “Take care of yourself, all right? I don’t expect I’ll see you here again.”
Whether it was a subtle command or merely an observation, they would never know. But Jason nodded quickly before lifting his bloodied palm in an awkward wave.
“Sorry for dropping in.”
“Sorry for throwing you out.”
They shared a quick smile before he turned back to the city and she started walking back to the club. She’d made it halfway there, when he called out one question after all.
“That day you went to my dad’s house,” he hesitated, “were you coming to take me back?”
She paused where she stood, but didn’t turn around. “No...I was going to give him my blessing.”
* * *
AS IT TURNED OUT, ARIA and Jason didn’t call that cab right away. Instead they strolled quietly along in the dark, arm in arm, thinking over the bizarre events of the day.
It was impossible to know what had gained the most ground. Kraigan baking muffins in a beret. The drunken man retching outside the strip club. The lovely yet bittersweet memory of Elaine.
Strangely enough, Aria kept coming back to that dancer’s false eyelashes.
But if she had to make a guess about Jason, she’d say that he wasn’t actually thinking about what had happened. His mind was preoccupied with someone who was no longer there.
“It’s a beautiful pistol,” she murmured, leaning against his arm. “You know Benji’s going to be jealous. Ten pounds says he tries to steal if from you in the first week.”
Jason grinned faintly, tracing his thumb around the grip. “You’re on.”
By now, they’d made it all the way down to the waterfront. The rain had stopped, but a freezing mist was blowing in from across the waves. He slipped the gun into his pocket and wrapped both arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest.
“Thanks for coming with me today.”
She leaned back against him, smiling when he pressed a secret kiss to her hair.
“Someone had to supervise, otherwise there’s no telling where you might have ended up. At a strip club, freezing down by the waterfront in the middle of the night.” She twisted around to face him. “There’s a chance you might have even gone to my crazy uncle’s house...”
His head bowed with something between a laugh and a shudder. “You know he’s blowing up that fountain right now.”
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
They fell quiet for a while.
She was staring back at the city. He was staring out at the waves.
“All this time, she’s been so close,” he said softly. “Right here in London.”
Aria lifted her head, staring into his eyes. “Do you regret meeting her? Do you regret coming?”
He considered for a moment, wondering the answer himself.
“No,” he admitted. “But I feel no need to come back. She’s right, I think. I’m better off because she left. After all, look at the family I ended up with.” He rolled his eyes in frustration. “Not that I have any idea how that came to pass...”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Enough mysteries for one night, agreed?”
“Agreed.” He kissed the finger before tilting her face up to his. “From now on, everything’s going back to the way it was. Our lives are going to be perfectly normal—”
There was a wild shout as his body flew into the air.
What the—?!
“Jason!” Aria shrieked, whipping around with hands at the ready. “Jason, what—”
But it was at that moment she realized something very important. Something that Jason was only just starting to realize himself. He hadn’t been attacked. Nothing had thrown him into the air.
...he flew.
SHIT!
She clamped her hands atop her head, staring slack-jawed as he careened wildly over the water, legs flailing beneath him like they were still trying to touch ground. So far the place seemed to be deserted, but there was no telling when someone would round the corner and see.
“What the heck is happening,” she gasped under her breath.
“What the hell is happening!” he cried much louder, focusing all his energy on trying to stay right-side up. “Arie—are you doing this?”
She shook her head, still gripping fistfuls of hair. “No, I’m—”
“Stop doing it!”
“I’m NOT doing it!” she insisted, raising her voice as well. “Jason, whatever’s happening...it isn’t me. I think...I think it’s you!”
Her eyes brightened with sudden illumination, remembering the moment Elaine joined them in the private room. She’d thought it was strange, how the woman had those giant wings tattooed across the length of her back. But maybe it wasn’t strange at all.
Maybe she was using one tattoo to cover another.
“Jase—I think it’s your mom!”
He spun around uncontrollably, limbs flailing to the side like a rag doll. “You think she’s doing this?!”
She shook her head, standing on the tips of her toes. “No—I think she has ink! I think she gave you half of your tatù!”
It wasn’t unprecedented for such encounters to activate something that had previously lain dormant. There was a reason most teenagers spent the days after their sixteenth birthday with their parent or parents, trying to tap into the shared power as best they could.
A look of sheer astonishment flashed across his face, then he shook his head quickly.
“I don’t care! I don’t want it!”
Um...flight? Yes, you definitely do.
“Tell me how to make it stop!”
At this point, she almost smiled. She remembered Benji screaming the exact same thing the night of his sixteenth birthday, when those first few bolts of electricity started rippling up his arms.
“Only you can make it stop,” she shouted back, trying to sound as calm as possible. “Just try to come down.”
Even so far away, it was impossible to miss his expression.
“You think I’m not trying to come down?!” But even as he spoke, the wind picked up and carried him farther across the icy waves. “Arie—”
“Hang on!” She ripped off her jacket, bracing against the cold. “I’m coming!”
She may not have been able to fly—one of her biggest all-time regrets—but she could still levitate. If she could just get close enough, maybe there was a chance she could grab him and float them both back to safety before they broke enough laws even Carter would be unable to save them.
With a mighty push, she lifted off the ground—floating gracefully into the air, trying to catch a bit of that same wind to move her in his direction. It wasn’t easy. As the seconds flew past he was drifting farther and farther away, like a balloon cut from its tether, losing itself in the frosty night.
“Anytime, Wardell!”
She gritted her teeth together, propelling as best she could towards him. It didn’t matter whether the two happened to be dating or not, they were still childhood friends of the supernatural community. And that meant they expected rather impossible things from one another.
“It’s not like you’re making it easy,” she muttered, taking a wild swipe at his hair. “If you could just hold still for one bloody minute—”
But at that moment, the wind shifted and the two went crashing together. They held on for dear life, hearts racing, before pulling back to look at each other for the same time.
“Crazy night, huh?” he panted.
She let out a breathless laugh, kissing him at the same time. “Yeah...crazy night.”
However, as fate would have it, their night was about to get a whole lot worse...
Flash.
The two blinked suddenly, pulling out of the kiss. At first, they thought they’d imagined it, but there it was again—another blinding neon flash, illuminating their frozen position in the sky.
With a sense of indescribable dread, Aria twisted around to see a man standing on the edge of the shore. A camera was still raised to his eyes, but his jaw was hanging open like he could not believe what he was staring at. Then the camera flashed again and they both fell into the water.
COLD!
For a split second, it was the only thing Aria could register. It hit her like a slap to the face, freezing all other motions as her muscles slowly locked down. Except that she couldn’t let them.
Because something even worse was waiting on the shore.
With a mighty kick, she pushed to the surface—gasping aloud as Jason broke through at the same time. They took one look at each other, then began swimming wildly towards the pebbly beach where the man was still clutching the camera in both hands.
“Hey!” Jason shouted when they got close enough. The guy had started backing away, and the last thing they wanted was to lose him in the park. “Come here for a second—we just want to talk.”
Probably not the best approach when the guy clearly thought they were insane.
“Stay away from me!” he cried, wanting to run but unable to move. “Freaks!”
Okay, maybe ‘insane’ was a generous assessment.
Aria dragged her body onto the shore, shivering violently but trying to smile as she pushed to her feet. “Look man, this isn’t what you think. Just give us a second to explain—”
Would you look at that—turns out he could run after all.
“Damnit!” Jason cursed under his breath as they took off after him.
It shouldn’t have been hard. Even if they didn’t have powers, the guy was almost fifty and they were at the prime of their youth. But they were also battling mild hypothermia, and fighting through the kind of panic that was making it hard to breathe.
“Hey!” Aria called again, stumbling as she tripped on the underbrush. “Come back!”
Her first instinct was to slip into a simple speed tatù, but she didn’t want to risk it. The guy had already seen enough without trying to explain any extra powers.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Jason called, sprinting by her side. “We just want to talk—”
There was another flash as they burst through the trees, freezing them in their tracks. The man was standing between the pedestrian path and a trashcan, holding up the camera like a gun.
“I don’t want to talk to you!” he cried in a shrill voice. “And there’s nothing you can say! I saw everything! Got it all right here!”
Aria and Jason glanced at each other before returning their eyes to the camera. They might not like it, but the path in front of them was clear. Even if things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Without a word of warning, Jason bolted towards him—leaping skyward at the last moment and catching him completely by surprise. There was a deafening shout as the two crashed back down to earth—one scrambling for the camera, one scrambling to hold on to it.
“Just give it to me!” Jason growled, pinning him roughly whilst trying to wrestle it from his grasp. When that didn’t work, he simply started bashing it against the rocks. “Let it go!”
Again—it should have been simple. But his head was spinning with the temperature and every muscle was shaking beyond his control.
“HELP!” the man cried, throwing back his head to the clouds. “ATTACK!”
With a damning stroke of luck he actually twisted in such a way that he was able to hit Jason right across the jaw, throwing him backwards, momentarily senseless. The gun slipped out of his pocket and Aria raced forward, scrambling to pick it up before anyone could see.
“I’m not attacking you!” Jason insisted, clawing once more for his flailing arms. “Just give me the damn—”
“FREEZE!”
In a single second, the entire world changed. It wasn’t the sudden flash of lights. It wasn’t the sudden click of guns. It wasn’t even the squad of policemen who’d rushed on to the scene.
It was the row of tiny cameras mounted onto the hoods of their cars.
Cameras that were preventing any hope of escape.
Aria fell to her knees with a silent gasp, eyes widening in panic as someone she couldn’t see twisted her arms behind her back and cuffed them into place. The men were already being pulled to their feet. Both were shouting their defenses. The camera lay on the ground between them. Just waiting to be seen. Her mind raced for something she could do. Anything. But it was no use.
They had broken rules before, but this was something different. This was the one law any person with ink was never allowed to break.
A radio crackled with static as strong hands shoved her into the back of a car.
I was wrong again. Our night just got a whole lot worse...
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THE END
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