Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) (19 page)

“I can set up surveillance on all the vehicles, but I’m not sure about being able to get onto campus,” Joshua, who was now lying on the ground with his head beneath the Humvee, said. “I can give you one of my dual-recording iPads to put in your studio, and I’ll have the feed sent both to my computers and the control room at The Den. I’ll make sure someone keeps an eye on them.”

“Someone is going to be watching me all the time?”

“Someone is going to be watching out for you all the time,” Charlie told her. “And just until we run down these assholes and make sure they can never hurt anyone again.”

Maggie wrapped her arms around her middle. Even from a distance, Scout could see the way her small frame trembled. “Did someone try to kill us tonight?”

“Yes.”

A single tear slipped free of Maggie’s eye, but before could trail down her face, Charlie’s thumb was there to brush it away. Scout waited for a pang of jealousy that never came.

“She’ll either be his salvation or damnation.”

Scout agreed with her mate, but unlike Liam, it didn’t worry her. Because either way, the shell Charlie had become since Toby’s death would finally shatter and her friend would join the land of the living once again.

By the time Halloween rolled around, Maggie had stopped thinking about the Alpha Pack as
The Alpha Pack
. She still felt awkward around Liam, and Scout wasn’t exactly what someone would term as “friendly,” but she was starting to feel like part of the group. It was a new experience for her. In high school, she’d always had a few friends, but when it came to actual groups, she was always on the fringes. Growing up dirt poor is hard enough for anyone, but when you’re too white for the black kids, too black for the white kids, and there aren’t even any other Asian kids around to tell you how you don’t fit in with them either, it becomes something of a trial. Maggie had never felt like she truly belonged anywhere before, so the fact she was starting to feel that way with a bunch of crazy-rich Shifters and Seers was somewhat astonishing.

Still, with the exception of being a target for a wannabe serial killer, life was pretty nice. Joshua kept track of her every movement off the farm with his unsettlingly advanced tech toys, but as long as she was on the Alpha’s property, she was able to go wherever and do whatever she wanted without someone looking directly over her shoulder thanks to their newly upgraded surveillance system. When she started feeling suffocated, which happened about every other day, she would just take off for a walk outside with her sketchpad and give herself a chance to breathe. The rest of the time, she was surrounded by people who didn’t mind her being around. And when it came to Joshua, Talley, and Layne, who decided she was the best board game player in the whole house, they actually seemed genuinely happy she was there.

The only time she felt like a prisoner instead of just another member of their pack was during the full moon. Those nights, she was forced to stay in her room while coyotes and wolves took turns patrolling the house. She would spend the entire night sitting by her window, watching the Shifters below and listening to the cries and howls filling the night. Even knowing it was the same people she’d been with every day, the sight and sound terrified her. If someone was to ask her why she stayed awake those nights, she would have spouted off something about worrying one of Mandel’s human thugs would try to attack the house when he knew the Shifters weren’t there to protect them, but that wasn’t true. Mandel hadn’t made a move since the night the Humvee’s brakes were cut, and any idiot who thought he could get past a pack of wolves and coyotes deserved to be torn to shreds.

No, the real reason Maggie refused to go to bed on full moon nights could be summed up in one word: Charlie. Over the past two months the two of them had formed the kind of friendship that involved a lot of hoping and longing for something more. Well, at least it did on her end. On Charlie’s end, there was mostly a robot, but she made it her goal every day to make him flash a real smile at least once, and as time marched on, she was finding success more and more often. It wasn’t really enough to be called encouragement, but Maggie didn’t let that stop her from hoping and longing.

Maggie had stayed up on the night of the first full moon because she was being nosy. She’d only ever seen Scout in wolf form, and she was curious about the others. Mischa had swung by her room around midnight and stayed until the early hours of the morning, pointing out who was who while narrating what was going on outside her window as if it were a show on
Animal Planet
. After she’d seen a glimpse of everyone except the one coyote she wanted to see, she’d asked Mischa where he was and got only,
“Charlie is off fighting his demons”
as a reply.

Mischa told her how in their animal forms, Shifters are ruled more by emotion and instinct than human reason, but Maggie could have figured that part out for herself. It was most obvious in Liam and Scout. The two of them were always so controlled and hesitant in their affections towards each other in human form, but the moment they were both on four legs it was another story. They danced around one other, nipping and rubbing their sides together so often it bordered on obsession. They were like the wolf version of Jase and Talley.

Watching Liam and Scout made Maggie wonder what Charlie was like when the robot exterior fell away. Even if he was fighting demons, Maggie wanted to see it. She wanted to see the passion and the fury she knew was raging beneath his surface. So, every night the full moon hung in the sky, Maggie sat at her window and waited to see the real Charlie Hagan, and every time she was disappointed.

The latest disappointment had been two nights before Halloween. Maggie was still a little depressed over missing a glimpse of Coyote Charlie yet again. She debated on asking him to come into the yard near her window, but she kept chickening out. Didn’t he deserve one night a month when he didn’t have to be her bodyguard? That was, after all, the only reason the others roamed into the yard. They took turns “guarding the fort”, making sure the house, the Seers, and the single Thaumaturgic inside stayed safe. Just because Maggie didn’t want to go a single night without seeing him didn’t mean he didn’t desperately desire a night without her.

“Where is your costume?”

Reid strode through the door of the studio wearing a vinyl nurse’s uniform showing what had to be an unhygienic amount of skin. She and Boyfriend were around more often than not, and while Maggie couldn’t say she enjoyed their company, she was definitely getting used to it. It was that, or go crazy.

“I’m being festive,” Maggie said, indicating her outfit with a hand. “Purple tights. Orange skirt. Black spider-web top. If that doesn’t say Halloween, I don’t know what does.”

Reid came into the studio and hopped up onto one of the stools. Or at least, she tried to. Turns out, it’s kind of hard to hop when you’re wearing skin-tight vinyl.

“Festive isn’t the same as in costume, and you have to be in costume to trick-or-treat. It’s, like, the rules or whatever.”

Maggie sat her cobalt carbonate on the table and began digging for the brush she wanted to use. “I’m not trick-or-treating.”

“What do you mean you’re not trick-or-treating?”

“I mean I’m not dressing in a costume and going around campus to beg professors for candy.” It was some weird Sanders tradition that was supposed to be raising money for juvenile cancer research, but Maggie couldn’t quite figure out how it worked since the only money exchanging hands was the fortune their professors were paying for all the chocolate they would be passing out. “Charlie and I are going to have a nice, quiet evening in the studio.”

“All you two ever do is have nice, quiet evenings in the studio. I can’t believe you haven’t put a cot in here and just moved in at this point.”

There were nights when Maggie had seriously considered it. She’d managed to get the Hulk set out in time, and the buyer had been enthusiastically impressed. So much so he’d ordered Captain America, Batman, and Goon sets as Christmas gifts. With all the assignments from her professors, her regular orders, and the vase project, she felt like she was working around the clock and still not staying caught up.

“Sorry, Reid, but I have to work tonight. You know what they say.”

“All work and no play makes Maggie a big freaking loser?”

“No, Maggie has to pass all of her classes or she’s going to get kicked out of college.”

Reid rolled her eyes, which was made all the more dramatic by the entire stick of kohl surrounding each eye. “Who says that?”

“The good people down at the scholarship office.” Finally locating her favorite brush, Maggie was ready to get started, with just one exception…

“So, I guess you and Davin are going to be leaving pretty soon…”

“Maggie McCray, are you kicking me out?”

“No!”
Yes.
“I just, you know, didn’t want you to be late.”

“It’s okay,” Reid said, sliding off the stool, an act leaving Maggie in the loop on Reid’s continued position on underwear being an inessential part of a person’s wardrobe. “My feelings aren’t hurt too badly.”

“I’m sorry, Reid. I’ve just got so much work—“

“Well, if you wanted to make it up to me, maybe we could hang out some this weekend.”

“Sure!”

Please God, let something better pop up on her calendar.

“Great! I’ll grab a pizza and come to your place on Friday.”

Maggie tried to stop the sigh escaping her mouth, but it was impossible. “You know you can’t do that. I’ll get in trouble. They’re really hardcore about stuff like that.” Which Reid knew, because Maggie had to tell her at least once a week. She was pretty sure the only reason her old roommate was still talking to her was because Reid thought Maggie could get her an invite into her “exclusive, secret society.” Too bad the Alpha Pack was the sort of thing you had to be born into.

“You,” Reid said, jabbing her finger into Maggie’s shoulder, “are no fun and a horrible friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Save it.” Reid leaned across the table and grabbed one of the granola bars Maggie had brought along as supper. “Oh, chocolate chip. My favorite.” She stuffed the stolen treat into the plastic pumpkin draped over her wrist before turning on her heel and sauntering out of the door without so much as a goodbye.

“Thank you so much for your assistance,” Maggie said once Reid was out of earshot. She took a deep breath to steady her hands before carefully removing the vase from its resting spot on the shelves. The second one she threw had been even thinner than the first. She wasn’t quite sure how it was holding its shape. If it worked, she really did have a chance at gathering the type of attention she needed to move up in the art world. “I do so appreciate how chivalrous you are. It’s nice to know I can count on you to save me from unwanted awkward conversations.”

Wanting to see if her sardonic chiding made the corners of his lips twitch in the slightest, she turned to where he was messing around with his computer only to freeze mid-turn.

Because Charlie wasn’t looking at his computer at all.

“What are you doing?” It came out way louder than she’d meant for it to, but she couldn’t help it. He was looking at her sketchbook.

Her sketchbook
.

“These are amazing,” Charlie said, oblivious to the hurricane of emotion swirling on her side of the room.

“You can’t look at those.” She was across the room in a few quick strides. She ripped the sketchbook from his hands, not caring if the pages ripped. Embarrassment burned her cheeks.

“Maggie, you should show these to people. You’re incredible. You should be working for Marvel or something.”

“You don’t just look through someone’s sketch book without asking.” Her voice was high and shaky. “It’s private. It’s… it’s…”

Maggie was pretty sure dying of embarrassment was a real thing because she was in the process of doing it.

As if noticing her distress for the first time, Charlie threw his hands up in surrender. “Whoa. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s how I think. When I have trouble processing, I just draw it out, and it helps. But it’s personal. It’s private.” She was rambling incoherent nonsense and she knew it, but she couldn’t make herself stop. “The reason there are so many of you is because I can’t finish them. The eyes. They’re all wrong. I can’t draw your eyes.” She felt something wet splash onto her cheek, which made her even angrier. Why was her body’s natural reaction to extreme emotion of any sort tears? “You shouldn’t have looked at this without asking!” The last words were practically a scream, and she could only imagine the look of crazy on her face. From Charlie’s reaction, it was quite impressive.

“I swear to you, I didn’t know it was supposed to be private.”

He reached for her and she jerked away, unable and unwilling to take comfort from him. The last thing she wanted was his pity. As if this moment wasn’t horrible enough. He couldn’t have looked at that sketchbook and not known everything. She put everything she thought and felt into those pictures. He knew every piece of her soul, including the piece of it that ached for his attention.

Ached for his touch.

Oh God.

A fresh wave of embarrassment threatened to leave her face in ashes.

“Maggie, tell me how I can make this right.”

“You can’t.” He couldn’t unsee what he’d seen, and now there was no way their relationship could go back to the way it was. She hadn’t realized how much she treasured the comfortable companionship until she knew it was forever destroyed. Now she would be self-conscious of her every word and action, knowing he was gauging the level of her obsession. She knew without a doubt there would be no more hard-worn smiles. Over the past few months, she hadn’t completely figured Charlie out, but she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t do anything to encourage her. No more smiles or late night conversations about comics. No more early morning donut runs or shared orders of fries. Their relationship would become that of protector and protected, and Maggie’s heart would break a little more with every passing day.

God damn him for looking at that book.

“Maggie—“

“I have work to do,” she said, turning her back to him so he couldn’t see how crushed she truly was. Like this situation needed to be any more awkward and humiliating. “This vase isn’t going to paint itself.” And maybe, if she tried hard enough, concentrating on it would keep her from digging herself into a pit of self-pitying despair. Doubtful, but there was the smallest of possibilities, and Maggie was going to cling to that with everything she had.