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“Oh, thank the Fates. You’re awake.”
I blinked, shifted onto my elbows, feeling like I had one helluva hangover. I pinched at my forehead, my arms wobbly.
“How much did I drink?” I muttered. “Man, I need an Advil and some water.”
Emmy’s face split into a grin. “You really are okay.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a hangover—” I stopped myself abruptly as the truth hit me.
One memory after another pummeled my consciousness. The misty alley. The creepy reporter, the glow of magic, the fade into nothingness. The pair of strong arms carrying me to bed.
“Oh, no,” I grumbled. “Did Dom call you?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Emmy handed over an Advil and the water I’d requested. “You’ve got bigger problems than who helped you.”
I groaned. “I hurt everywhere.”
“You’re probably exhausted. From the sounds of it, you really wrecked that guy with your magic.”
“That’s right,” I murmured. “Dom stopped me before I could...”
My breath hitched as a panic set in.
“Emmy.” I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “I could have killed that man.”
“You wouldn’t have killed him,” she assured me. “You would have stopped even if Dom didn’t find you.”
“This is why magic sucks!” I threw my head back onto the pillow. “I don’t know what to do now, Em. Do I turn myself in to The Circle? Do I beg Dom not to say anything? Do I find the reporter and, I don’t know, apologize?”
Emmy was looking at me like I was crazy. “Take a deep breath. No, you don’t need to turn yourself in. I think both you and the reporter are best just going your separate ways at this point, though it really wouldn’t hurt you to file a police report. If he’s blackmailing you, then he’s probably doing it to someone else too.”
“That would open up a whole can of worms,” I said, wincing. “Who knows what he’s going to tell the police? Then they’ll want to investigate and arrest me for attempted murder, and maybe kick me out of The Hollow for magical repression—oh, Emmy.”
“Or maybe we circle back to the idea of you and the reporter both going your separate ways and hoping he got the bejeezus scared out of him enough to learn his lesson?”
I blew out a painful breath. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Eat, calm down, let’s go home,” Emmy encouraged. “You are okay, and that’s what matters.”
I nodded, feeling robotic. I went through the motions of eating and showering and dressing in my normal clothes, mostly to appease Emmy and let her know I was fine.
Physically, I was fine. I felt tired, like I’d been wrung out, but it was the sort of fatigue that I knew I’d recover from, like how I imagined it’d feel to run a marathon. Not that I possessed the gene that would cause me to run twenty plus miles for absolutely no reason at all, but still.
We gathered up our things, leaving this place a lot more somber than we’d entered it. The drama in the alleyway last night had me almost forgetting the reason we’d come here in the first place. With any luck, the reporters would drop off when they realized that I was serious about not campaigning and there was nothing interesting to say about me.
We made it out to my car after tunneling through a scraggly group of reporters that were much more receptive to my “no comment” mumbles than the group from last night. Or maybe most of them were remembering Dom’s warning and were smart enough to back off.
When I finally looked up from staring at my feet, I found an unwelcome figure leaning against my car.
“What are you doing here?” I dropped my bag, completely exhausted from the walk out to the car. “Where’s your girlfriend?”
“My head of security, Vix, chose life over riding in a vehicle with you,” Dominic deadpanned. “I, however, like to live life on the edge. Are you taking a fare home?”
“Nope.” I moved around him, feeling the crackle of electricity as I brushed against him to open my door. “Cab’s closed.”
“Not according to your profile.” Dom held up his phone. “You’re BadWitch13? I requested a ride from you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re BigBadWolf? How creative.”
