Page 15 of Magnetic Temptations

I didn’t see Mason the entire day as he completed his paperwork and got the rundown of our daily operations. We may not be on the road or rescuing someone every day of the week, but we have plenty to do. There’s research done on every call, sometimes we’re too late but we can’t go into a situation blind. Those are the call outs that hurt the most. Unfortunately, in the beginning, we went in without all of the facts only to be brought into the middle of a tumultuous divorce where the woman wanted to get a new identity so that her husband couldn’t find her and take the kids. I’ll never understand a woman who is so angry with a man for whatever transgression she believes he’s committed that she’s willing to keep a good father from her babies. I understand the anger—divorce is hard on one’s soul and can rip your heart out, but there’s no need in punishing their kids for what’s happened between them.

It’s an adult issue. I find it sad that the children in these situations are the ones who pay the ultimate price. They’re like a rope in the midst of a tug of war.

“Mane,” Ella calls my name as she walks into my office. “Your updated certification arrived in the mail. Jeez, lady, how many educational hours did you have to put in to get these credentials?”

“About sixty hours of continuing ed classes,” I answer, going through the file that was in my inbox when I arrived this morning. “You do the same thing every year for your social services certificate.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t just graduate,” she harrumphs, shaking her head. “How often are you going to have to do this?”

“That all depends,” I remark.

“On what?” she asks, placing the manilla envelope in her hands on the edge of my desk.

“On if there are any new developments I’m interested in,” I return, hiding my smirk. Ella hates classes and loathes tests even more. She’ll never be able to grasp why I take as many as I do and did when they weren’t a requirement for my degree. The human mind is a mysterious thing and if I don’t take every opportunity presented to me to learn more about scientific and neurological discoveries, how can I perform my job properly here at Kings?

“Anyway, I want to talk about that file I put in your inbox last night. It was a last minute entry, but I have an eerie feeling about this one,” Ella conveys. Ella’s always had an acuteness when it comes to these things, so when she says she has a ‘bad feeling’ we pay attention.

“What makes you feel wonky about this particular case, Ella?” I’ve learned throughout the years to ask a myriad of questions, it’s the only way to get to the bottom of her gut instincts and get her to talk it out.

“I find it odd, that yesterday morning we helped Mason reclaim his identity and then late last night a case from his hometown pinged in my inbox and was marked as urgent, Mane. I don’t believe in coincidences, and this is a colossal one.”

“That is… odd. Ella, do you think somebody is watching for his name to go into the system?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. We need to do a lot of research before we jump into this one.”

“I have a suggestion,” I start. “What if we ask Mason if he still has any contacts back home that he trusts and can have look into this woman and her homelife?”

“I considered that,” she sighs as she takes a seat in one of the armchairs that rests on the opposite side of my desk. “But I don’t want to put him in a position he’s not ready for being in yet. He’s still wrapping his mind around rejoining the society he was forced to abandon. He hasn’t been in contact with anyone back home since he left. They’ll have a lot of questions and it isn’t fair to him that we force his hand and put him in a position where he has to explain himself when he’s still trying to suss out where he fits in.”

“Suss out?” I snort. “Are you trying to work on your vocabulary?” She flips me off and tilts her head backward, closing her eyes. “You alright?”

“I’m just fucking tired,” she tells me, expelling a huffed out, defeated groan. “The emails that come through, the ones that aren’t legit, take resources away from the ones needing us most. It’s time consuming weeding out the fake ones from the real ones.”

“I think we should call a team meeting and let everyone go over this file,” I suggest.

“Yeah,” she agrees, lifting herself up from the chair as if she’s decrepit. It’s the first time I’ve taken a good look at her and notice the dark circles under her eyes.

“You need to get some sleep, Ella.”

“I’ll sleep when there’s time, Mane. We’re getting an influx of requests, and they’re on opposite sides of the country. It’s almost like someone is attempting to separate us.”

“That’s a problem. We can’t split up,” I impress upon her. “It’s too dangerous to go in for a rescue with only half our team.”

“That’s another thing we need to discuss. It may be time to start searching for qualified people to add a secondary team to our roster.”

“Bring in outsiders? We don’t do that, Ella.”

Just then, there’s a knock on the door and I see my dad, as well as a few of my uncles, standing in the doorway with their arms crossed. “Don’t call in strangers, call in your brothers and sisters,” Dad interjects. Ella and I turn and look at each other, a silent conversation taking place between us.

“Could it work?” I silently ask.

“I don’t see why not,” she answers.

“What do we have to lose?” I question.

“Nothing… absolutely nothing,” she responds.

CHAPTER

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