Page 6 of Her Dreadful Will
Soleil swore under her breath, wishing that her mind-flex magic worked on animals. She stared around desperately, squinting through the gloom for a water source. Maybe the downspout at the corner of the house? The rubbery trough it fed into was warped, concave, with a small puddle of water still lingering from last night’s rain.
Someone was shouting at the dogs now—a man, probably Mya’s husband. He was coming closer—he would look out the window or the front door in a minute and he would see her. Her mind-flex magic couldn’t alter perceptions, or memories.
Frantically she scraped a green glass bottle through the puddle of rainwater and stoppered it, hoping it would be enough.
“Shut up now. There’s nothin’ out there.” The man’s voice was right above her now, filtering through the window screen.
Soleil cringed down into the bushes. She could sense the man’s will, just barely. Just enough to prompt him to turn his back to the window for a moment while she broke from her cover and ran.
The rustle of her departure brought a fresh round of frenzied barks from the dogs. Soleil clutched her bag with one hand, holding her hood in place with the other. She didn’t stop running once she reached the sidewalk. Heart thundering, she raced full-speed down the concrete path toward the welcoming shadows of the magnolia she’d passed earlier. Its deep dark shut her in protectively—
And then she slammed into something—a column of bone and flesh.
The impact sent the person crashing to the sidewalk, with Soleil flailing on top of them. She heard a sickening hollow thud that sounded horribly like skull striking concrete.
Between the panic and the shock, she couldn’t breathe for a second.
“Oh my god.” She scrambled off the person’s body. “I am so sorry.”
The person—the man—she had knocked over lay still, his eyes closed. His head was turned aside, his throat and profile dappled in black leaf shadow and white moonlight.
Soleil drew in a shattered breath.
No one in Wonderland, Georgia had features so perfect, like frosty white ice carved into a sleek jawline and wicked cheekbones. His mouth was soft, almost girlishly pretty. A pair of rectangular black glasses hung halfway off his straight sharp nose. Gingerly Soleil nudged them back into place.
“Sir, are you—are you all right?” She felt for his volisphere, his will. Nothing.
“Oh god. Oh no.” She placed two fingers on his pale throat. A pulse, strong and steady. So he wasn’t dead, just—knocked out cold. Concussed, probably.
With shaking fingers, she extracted her phone from her bag, her thumb poised over the “9.”
She could call 911 and get him some help. She’d have to wait with him, explain what had happened. She might have to field questions aboutwhyshe was wandering around a neighborhood that wasn’t hers in the middle of the night. Nudging Mya’s husband to look the other way wasn’t technically a breach of her thesis commitment; but she couldn’t excuse manipulating the will of first responders just to avoid their questions.
She could leave. Slip away, and pretend this never happened. Abandon this unconscious stranger on the sidewalk.
He’d be fine. He’d wake up in a few minutes and he would be justfine. She wouldn’t have to talk to him, interact with him—attractive guys always made her nervous anyway. At college she’d been asked out a few times, but no one ever showed any lasting interest. Maybe it was the bird-skull ring she wore, or the way she stenciled runic symbols onto her fingernails, or the fact that she often smelled of herbs, more medicinal than aromatic. The boys that did ask her out were usually role-playing game nerds who thought her unique jewelry and affinity for alchemical symbols indicated a mutual obsession with all things fantasy-related. Not that she didn’t enjoy a good fantasy—
She snapped herself back to the present. Okay, step one: check the man’s skull to see if he was bleeding.
She placed her hands on either side of his head and lifted it, running her fingers through the wavy dark hair at the back of his skull—surprisingly soft hair, with a hint of crispness from gel. No sticky blood.
As she gently set his head down, he moaned, his dark brows pinching together, and his eyelids began to flutter open.
Soleil jumped aside, away from his body, and ran.
She didn’t stop until she reached her house. The lock was twice as tricky in the dark, and she cursed herself for not leaving the front light on.
Finally she got inside, snapped the lock, and strung the chain in place.
She leaned over, panting.
Cerberus—Carebear for short—rose fluidly from his bed and stalked to meet her, stopping a few feet away. A gift from her father, the Doberman was a police training dropout. Soleil had balked at first, reluctant to take on the responsibility of a pet.
“It’s the only way I’m letting you set up shop alone in a strange town,” her father had insisted. “Take him.”
On the plus side, Cerberus was already trained, though he had a habit of placing his personal desires above his owner’s commands. On the downside, he wasn’t quite used to life with Soleil yet. He viewed her with a kind of lofty tolerance. And she could tell he was pissed that he hadn’t been allowed to go along for the walk.
“Don’t be mad,” she said, sinking onto the green patterned sofa. “I took you for a really long walk this afternoon, and you had the run of the backyard after that.”
