I was impaled.
How the hell am I still alive? And where did the pain go?
Having a touch of healer magic, I hold my hand over the gaping wound in my stomach and push my magic toward it as I look around the rubble where bodies of the special police lie. Am I the only one who made it out alive? Are there wounded mixed in with the rubble?
I need to see. I need to check, but I can’t even get up. All I can do is slowly heal my wounds and watch as Etienne faces the man who I think was responsible for the magic that’d taken down the building. At least he feels like he has the same magic. Etienne moves toward him with a purpose as the man catches sight of him.
The man seems reluctant to start this fight even though it’s clear Etienne is prepared to end it. He backs out as Etienne rushes after him.
It’s mere moments later that law enforcement and medical personnel begin to flood the scene. Seeing me, several rush my way and a true healer is quickly on me to assist, which is fantastic because my lower-level healing magic was just scratching the surface. Pain is starting to blossom as I’m assisted by a healer, and an officer who isn’t on my team rushes up to me.
“What happened?” the officer asks, trying to get my attention.
It takes me a moment to comprehend the question since my mind feels like it’s such a mess. “A magic user blew the whole building to pieces. A man… probably in his forties. He ran that way,” I say as I point. “But I lost sight of him once he left the building. Our original suspect, Etienne Russ, is trying to apprehend the perpetrator. Etienne is blond and gray-eyed—do not mistake him for the perp, he assisted me,” I say as I think about how sometimes Etienne’s eyes are black. Why is that? What is he?
The man gives me a sharp nod before relaying the information to his crew and moving forward. Now that I’m stable, I’m assisted onto a stretcher and strapped down to be escorted off to the hospital where a healer or doctor will take over. The number of healers in this city is limited and their magic is restricted to only those who are not “expendable,” so I’m one of the lucky ones who are allowed the use of a healer. Many aren’t so lucky.
As I walk into the department, a fellow officer by the name of Pete Keller gives me a pat on the back. “Good to see you. I know it has to be frustrating that the criminal got away again after killing five people and wounding ten others.”
I stare at Pete for a second. “The criminal got away again? Did someone get an ID on the man who did it?”
“I thought you were awake for it?” Pete says. “That Etienne guy you’ve been after was the one who blew up the building.”
What is he going on about? “No, he wasn’t,” I say.
Pete gives me a long, hard look as he raises his eyebrow. “I think you’re confused.”
“I am? I was there. I experienced everything that happened,” I say, unsure why I’m so pissed about this. I don’t actually get along with or know this Etienne guy, but I still don’t find it right to be blaming him for any part of this mess… especially when he… saved my life? What did he do?
Pete shrugs, so I head for the deputy chief’s office. The door is closed, so I give it a knock.
“Come in!” he barks, so I push the door open to face my superior Deputy Chief Terrance. He gives me a nod. “Glad you’re back on your feet after yesterday’s shitshow.”
“About that—”
But before I can get into the “about that,” the boss of the district, Tuck Anders, walks in.
“Why has this criminal continued to walk free? What are you being paid for if all you do is sit in your goddamn chair and do nothing I ask?” Anders asks, not at all bothering to acknowledge my presence or that he was interrupting anything. From what I’ve seen of him, he’s never been an overly friendly man.
“My forces were limited. We had a disturbance near the gate, but I still sacrificed fifteen of my best men to stop him, and I lost five of them,” Terrance says.
“Yet he managed to blow up a building and kill five people.”
“Etienne didn’t blow up the building or kill anyone, sir,” I interrupt, even though I know I shouldn’t. I guess when I’m tired and wounded, my patience can only last so long.
Anders turns his eyes to me. “And who are you?”
“This is my head officer Leo Maloy,” Terrance says.
“Well, you need to teach your lead officer to mind his business,” Anders says, tone cool.
Terrance inclines his head deferentially but responds, “He was at the scene last night.”
While I haven’t had much interaction with Anders, what little I’ve had hasn’t always rubbed me the right way. Since I was born in this district, it’s where I’ve spent my whole life. The previous boss was strict, but Anders is a whole new level. If I’d known how Anders would run things, I’m not sure I’d have joined law enforcement.
“And he’s claiming this criminal was not involved,” Anders says.
“If I could explain, I’d be more than happy to,” I say.
Anders just stares at me, so Terrance gives me a nod. “Proceed, Officer.”
“I had just tracked Etienne to the roof of a building near the point of a magic influx. I’d gone up to the roof of the three-story building where I saw Etienne. I asked him to put his hands into the air, which he did, and to turn around,” I say, refusing to tell them about the discussion we’d had prior to the attack.
“Around that point, Etienne mentioned a spike in magical energy, and that’s when our crew ran into the building and it exploded. Etienne wasn’t involved, and as I’ve shown previously, while I’m not a heavy magic user myself, I have an ability to feel magic surges, and I felt no magic from him at the time. After the building exploded, the two of us dropped from the roof, falling all three stories. When I hit the ground floor, I was impaled by a metal rod. Etienne pulled the rod from my body and… healed me or something,” I say, not mentioning the river for some reason. Was the river all part of a dream? Was it something more? Am I protecting him by not mentioning it? “That’s when I saw a man fleeing the building and could sense he was the one the magic had come from. Etienne went after him—”
“So he’s working with him,” Anders says.
“No, he went after him to stop him. If he was working with him, why would this other man have blown up the building with Etienne in it?”
“It clearly didn’t affect him.”
And I wonder if that’s the case. Was he affected by it at all? He seemed fine. Hell, he was able to walk right past me without qualm. And on the roof, he could have been distracting me…
But I don’t think that’s true.
“You’re the lead officer, then?” Anders asks.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“Good, you can get your team and find this Etienne, and you bring him to me. You have forty-eight hours.”
I grit my teeth.
“Understood?”
“Understood,” I say, dissatisfied but unable to show it.
“Then what are you still standing there for?” he barks.
I leave the room, wondering where my “light duty” for the day went to. I head out to my desk and sink down at it, exhausted when the day hasn’t even begun yet.