Damsel

Old and New Friends

Leland Hester

Leland committed eight federal crimes before noon, using his talent to give Atticus O'Rinn everything he asked for and more, from whimsical requests to offenses he hadn't the mind to dream up. But the O'Rinn's – Sage...well, Sage's often thought things you'd think unthinkable. The stores fully stocked with food and goods, he spent most of his morning robbing grocers and stealing from freighters, paying visits to local politicians, waiting on the other side of the door while Epona did whatever it was that made grow men scream. Then, poof, back to Atticus and repeat fifty more times. It made for a killer headache, forming over his left temple and the stain on his cufflink where Aeon lost his breakfast glared back at him whenever he doubled over. It was easy to forget certain people reacted poorly the first time they teleported. It wasn't as if he shifted with every other person he met. Actually, if at all possible, Leland avoided ever shifting with another living soul. Then, Ella happened. On her first shift, she passed out, not that she remembered any of it and whenever he took Sithe, the villain would stay bent over, clutching her stomach, cooing it like a sweet song bird.

Feeling low, Leland didn't go straight to her, but stopped in his room to wash off the smell of Aeon's throw up. Of late, Ella worked in the evening, when the children finished at school and the few slow to read stopped by for her private lessons, but Leland knew noon was when she liked to paint. He found her in the parlor room, staring out the window, her easel balancing on her knee, head tilted as she watched Madame Grass peddling loaves of fresh bread. He watched her watching Grass, not interrupting until she sighed, brush stroking at her canvas in a blur of gray.

"Would you smile at me if I said I got us an afternoon?"

Her back stiffened, but she didn't turn. "An entire afternoon?"

"Three hours, give or take one. Atticus is pleased with your work. He tells me...daily."

If she noticed the tone to that statement, Ella didn't show him. She did, however, smile a lovely, true smile that made his chest squeeze and then anger flare in its place. He wanted to rationalize why he did this for her, somehow claim he enjoyed it, that he merely took her with him out of a misplaced compensation for all the trouble he caused her. But it wasn't so. He did this for her and while that was not GOOD, he was learning that it wasn't necessarily BAD either. It simply was.

"Where are we going?" He asked, playing at bored, but really anticipating what happened next.

Ella danced her way to the door, it was the only way to describe how she moved lately, gliding everywhere she went, always up on her toes, swaying to a happy beat that only she could hear. Eyes searching over her shoulder, checking for witnesses first, before she tore down the plain white quilt draped over a tipped, rotting bookcase to expose the corkboard where Ella had tacked a map of the world. On that map, the color of a hundred pins freckled the land in waves, each marking a different city or state that they'd traveled to on their 'trips'. Rustling in response to her, the newspaper clippings lining the bottom of the map showed the fearless face of Anna Marie Bee. From a plush purple teddy bear Mika gave her, Ella yanked a yellow pin and rested with it thoughtfully on her bottom lip. She went to Olander once, hovered over the coast, between Cash and Nettle Grove, before finally pointing it north to Henrietta.

"What makes you think she's there?"

"She hasn't gone to a major family, we know that and Rocker isn't obsessed with hunting you and I down, which means he's still out for her blood, so she has to be alive."

"Somehow."

"Anna's clever, but she doesn't know how to survive the likes of the Rocker, not without some help, right."