#WitchcraftWednesday | ✔

Chapter 18: The World Can Wait

Nathan drops Veronika and Jinx off first, driving all the way back to the scholar's home in Olivera from the harbour. Somehow, Morales traffic still manages to suck even with midnight creeping closer and closer, but Nathan feels he gets to his destination fast. Too fast. Maybe his foot lies heavier on the gas pedal, maybe the ride just passes by in a surreal blur, or maybe he can't bring himself to feel bad about a little speeding while a gunshot still ricochets in his mind, while Derek McLaren's blood still stains him red.

It's a silent ride, though he isn't sure if it's a comfortable or a suffocating kind of silence. It could be neither; sometimes silence just is. Veronika, in the backseat, absent-mindedly strokes the bobcat draped across her lap. Nathan's lost in his thoughts and the road and so is Jamie, who sits a little slumped against the car door, staring through the window at neon lights and billboards and strangers in passing cars. Nathan keeps thinking she might turn on the radio, bouncing between channels until she finds the one with the right soundtrack for the occasion, but she never moves to touch the buttons. Perhaps that's for the best.

When Veronika and her cat remove themselves from his car in their driveway, Nathan rolls down the window so the woman can tell him to keep the book safe, for God's sake, don't let anybody take it from you, and her face really does look unblemished now, though still pale and gaunt and with that broken canine that might never fully heal. The book's magic erased the bruises and cuts left by Derek's fists and golden rings, Veronika's pained furrowing of her eyebrows the only indication she was ever hurt in the first place. Nathan can hardly bring himself to look at her regardless.

They promise to get together later once Jamie's set up the Iceland trip, once they can take their next step in getting rid of the book and putting Bishop Nikulasson's spirit to rest, and then he drives off again, allowing Veronika the rest she could desperately use. That only leaves one more passenger to get safely home.

Jamie said her goodbyes to Veronika, but she reverts to her quiet state while Nathan's car makes its way to her house—probably the shock of the night finally kicking in, subduing thoughts that normally scream so loud. Just this morning, Nathan would've driven himself crazy worrying about the implications of her silence (what is it, what did I do, do you hate me, what do you think of me?), but he's not too concerned now. Though he can only catch glimpses of her face when the streetlights briefly chase the shadows away, she doesn't look uncomfortable. She sits in his car like she belongs in it, like the shotgun seat's always been her spot and she's never been anywhere else. Nathan kind of likes it.

She didn't run away screaming before, he tells himself. She won't do it now.

"Are you okay?" Nathan asks her when he pulls up in her driveway and kills the engine, for once the first to speak. They're sitting in a dark car together after everything and it feels like the only right question to ask.

"Yeah," Jamie says, "yeah, I'm fine. I'm alive and I wasn't sure I'd still be around to say that by now, so that's—that's cool. But this is just... It's just weird."

They have a watery bag containing a magic book and stray bits of human flesh in the backseat. Jamie played poker with the mafia for reasons Nathan still doesn't quite understand. He sank a ship and killed his supplier. And it's just done now, and seriously, what part of the whole ordeal isn't weird?

"You're going to have to narrow that down for me, Jamie. Just a little."

Jamie gestures wildly at nothing in particular. "I mean this. Everything. Like, I was just getting some work done at home, okay? Then I get threatened and taken to this yacht where I'm told I get killed unless you show up with the book, and you do show up and sink the ship and now we're back here. But what the hell am I supposed to do after all that, Nathan? Just say thanks and goodbye and step out of the car and get back to business as usual like nothing ever happened? Maybe Veronika can do that, but I can't."