Ronin met Kaliope by the car, where she waited for him. Distracted by thoughts of Juniper, she missed his approach, starting when the car alarm chirped.
“Another dizzy spell?”
“You ask like you care.” Knowing her boss’s ability to read her emotions by the color of her aura, Kaliope guessed he’d brought her along for the trip to test her. She’d play the ignorant fool for now.
Ronin tilted his head, his smile mocking. Kaliope glared at him.
“Why wouldn’t I care? If a member of my team’s sick, it hampers productivity.”
Ronin’s words from the night of her accident surfaced.
Your purpose here is to lighten the team’s workload, Ms. Barnes, not to compromise the operations and reputation of the team and the company. Act accordingly.
A flush of heat rose in Kaliope’s face and neck, and she squared her shoulders. “I can do my job.”
“I’ll believe it when the doctor gives you the all-clear.”
Back at Sage Tower CMT, Kaliope followed Ronin into his office. He’d escorted her to Dr. Joriah and loomed until the doctor performed all his fancy tests. Kaliope spent another thirty minutes in the magic vacuum as Dr. Joriah detected residual magic. After receiving the doctor’s report confirming her fitness for work, Ronin stopped scowling at her. Mostly.
He frosted the glass partition of his office for privacy before he spoke. “You seem to believe I’m picking on you, Ms. Barnes.”
“Aren’t you? You keep surveilling me as if you’re waiting for me to fail so you can kick me to the curb.”
“You thought it was unfair that I sidelined you at the beginning of this case. That I was making you read some dumb book out of spite, yes?”
Kaliope suppressed an outward reaction to the correctness of his assessment. Ronin smirked.
“Then look at what happened the same day. You almost died. Why? Because you wandered off on your own thinking, you knew better. Here’s the truth.” Ronin narrowed the distance between them. “I don’t trust you not to cause trouble or get yourself killed out of your compulsion to be defiant, Ms. Barnes. Unlike other 9-5 jobs, a disciplinary hearing is the least of your worries when you step out of line at Sage. So yes, Ms. Barnes, I am watching you when I have better things to do with my time, like stopping an entire society from imploding.”
Ronin dismissed Kaliope. She exited the office, resisting the urge to slam the door in her wake. Her blood boiled. She wasn’t trying to make a statement when she entered Kelmor. It was an honest mistake. First, she was rash, and now a compulsion to be defiant?
She wanted to storm back into Ronin’s office and scream at him to fire her and be done with it if he thought she was such a fucking burden.
The nerve of him.
Kaliope gritted her teeth.
“Told you it was a bad idea to let a human join the team.” Gale settled in his chair with exaggerated casualness. “Ready to quit yet?”
Gideon chided his friend for his comment.
Kaliope lost it, her anger finding a new target.
“You know what, screw you, you little witch. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for your people’s antiquated worldviews.” Juniper wouldn’t feel she ruined her family because she fell outside their discriminatory societal expectations. She empathized with the woman—another misfit. Not entirely fitting in anywhere she went.
Gale flew to his feet, hands bunched in fists at his side. The monitors around him went crazy, glyphs and static filling the screens.
“Guys.” Gideon positioned himself as their referee. “Stop this.”
“We don’t need her,” Gale jabbed a finger at Kaliope, “here.”
Kaliope drew herself to her full height. “My absence won’t make you any less of a bigot with a light pole-wide stick up your ass.”
“Say that again, you—” Gale skirted his desk as he spoke, and several things happened simultaneously.
An immense pressure descended on the room. Gale’s magic sputtered out like a snuffed candle. Gideon’s face lost all color, his gaze fixed at a point over Kaliope’s shoulder. The tiny hairs at the nape of her neck stood on edge. Kaliope touched her tongue to her lip and expelled a long, quiet breath before turning, her movements mechanical. Rooted in her spot wide-eyed, she stared into the terrible amber eyes of a very pissed-off lycan.
~
Later, when Kaliope recounted the incident to Inola, the fox demon whistled. After Ronin quelled the discord, his aura extinguishing the spat instantly, he’d sent Gale to the IT Division and her to her desk. Gideon, after a glass of warm tea, regained his color. Ronin’s lycan aura affected him the most because of their origin-ties.
“Boss rarely loses his cool.” Disappointed she’d missed it, Ronin’s aggressive display amused Inola.
Kaliope shook her head, no longer affected by her coworker’s proclivity towards anything remotely associated with trouble.
“So? How’d the Falgors take the news that someone is stringing them out?”
“No idea.” Kaliope recapped what happened during her visit with the headache. She skipped the part about the random images, not seeing their significance.
“Ouchies.”
“I’m fine. Dr. Joriah signed me off for work. Anyway, I need your help.”
Intrigued, Inola perked up. “With?”
Kaliope invited Inola to Sky Park, out of their lycan boss’s earshot. She explained her dilemma, as highlighted by Juniper’s revelation human auras were kaleidoscopes. Besides Ronin, Eli read her like a book because of this ability.
The professor always sensed when she or one of his students was in distress. And he always said exactly the right thing. He was in for an earful. As she understood it for what it was, the ability was creepy, weird, and oddly intrusive. Kaliope needed a workaround for her time at Sage. However long it might be. Her prospects remained on shaky ground.
We don’t need her here.
Gale’s words cut deeper than Kaliope wanted to admit.
She expected the contention. The unexpected twist was the dread twisting in her stomach at the idea of leaving Sage Tower and the conflicting emotions attached.
Inola contemplated Kaliope’s plight. “There is a way.”
The fox demon lapsed into silence, and Kaliope’s legs bounced impatiently. “Well?”
“I’ll bring it tomorrow. It’ll mask your aura. Do you prefer a ring or necklace?”
“Necklace.”
Inola nodded. “Alright. I’ll ask my sister to sort it out.” Inola retrieved her phone to send a message.
First, her brother, who dared her to break into Ronin’s family home, her mother, and now her sister. An old, bitter emotion rose, and Kaliope swallowed it. “You and your family seem close.”
Inola grinned. “Tight as thieves.” She paused. “Or is it thick as thieves?”
“Either way works.”
Inola’s phone chimed. “Oh. Duty calls. See you later.”
Kaliope watched Inola leave. An old part of her reared its ugly head for the briefest flash. The Old Kaliope. Who compared herself to others and scrutinized every detail of their lives with a mixture of longing and loathing. Their happiness was like daggers to her heart, reminding her of everything she didn’t have and all she thought she deserved.
She slumped against the edge of the table. Tired. Drained from the aftereffects of her magic poisoning. It rubbed her brain raw. Kaliope massaged her temples, eyes closed. Was working at Sage worth the danger? Why stay? Besides the health risks, it was the same contentious scenario all over again.
Her father once told her: Think of not fitting in as a virtue. We don’t belong everywhere.
Less than a year later, he divorced her mother and vanished from her life. Kaliope understood why he left his wife. When Myra Norris-Barnes strode into a room with her signature air of superiority, she surveyed everyone around her with a critical gaze. Her words were always sharp, designed to wound and belittle. With every breath she took, a cloud of negativity emanated from her, enveloping everyone in her vicinity. It suffocated their family.
Her mother’s face formed in front of her, her smile a thin, unpleasant line. Myra enjoyed sowing chaos, causing drama, and being the center of everyone’s attention. No kindness existed in her heart, only a black, bitter resentment towards the world and all those who inhabit it. And for a time, Kaliope became like her mother.
Kaliope tried to hide her envy behind a mask of false cheerfulness. Still, it was always there, simmering right beneath the surface, waiting to rear its ugly head at any moment. It was a constant battle that left her drained and defeated.
It took years for Kaliope to reclaim who she was. To leave the toxicity of Myra behind, accepting her mother was incapable of loving her as she was. Incapable of loving anyone. And Kaliope wanted to be loved. But that level of acceptance always came with strings attached in all of her relationships.
Bittersweet memories trickled from the old wound. Kaliope’s usual defenses buckled, weakened by the stress of her condition. She swiped furiously at the tears. What the hell was wrong with her?
Pull yourself together, Kaliope.
Tears under control, she stood, resolute not to dwell on the past.
You did the right thing. You had to leave. You had to get away.
With one last, steadying breath, Kaliope turned and froze. Ronin McIntyre watched her from across the park.
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