Natalie Damschroder - Heavy Metal

“Gone where? ” Quinn leaned forward. “It can’t just disappear. Energy changes or moves; it can’t be destroyed.”

“I don’t know,” Sam insisted, “but it’s gone. No trace. You know it. You can feel it.”

“Well, not right now I can’t.” Quinn gestured outside. “Moon’s off. But Riley and Tanda say you’re right, so what the hell?”

Sam shrugged and loaded pasta onto his plate, covering it with a healthy serving of meat sauce. “I’m not complaining.” He definitely wasn’t acting like a guy who’d just come out of a coma. Maybe he really was going to be okay.

“No.” Quinn shook her head. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come back to haunt us.”

They spent the next half hour discussing approaches to the Numina problem. Sam had enthusiastically agreed to join the task force, alongside Riley. When they finished eating and cleaning up, Sam took Riley’s hand.

“Would you come outside with me?”

Her heart began pounding the moment he looked at her and only picked up speed as they stepped out onto the balcony and he carefully closed the door behind them. He leaned against the concrete wall, facing her, but crossed his arms and legs. Defensive, closed posture. She tried not to assign reasons for it, but folded her own arms, pretending the breeze was chilly.

“How are you really?” Riley asked him. “I don’t mean physically. But with the power all gone?”

Sam studied her, his mouth curling up on one side. “Of course you’d ask me that.”

“Well, nobody else did.”

“Exactly.” He drew in a deep breath and looked out over Portland for a few seconds. “I’m okay. I don’t think there’s an addiction issue. I’m just…normal.”

“Good. But you know that’s not what I meant. Do you miss it?” A person didn’t have to be addicted to something to become obsessive about it when it was gone.

“Maybe.” His brow puckered. “I mostly miss seeing you.”

Riley blushed.

“Your power, I mean. All the other stuff…I didn’t have it long enough to get acclimated to it. And, yeah, it felt good to have a weapon against Anson when I needed it, but…” His mouth turned down, and he shook his head. “Nah. I don’t need that. I have other weapons at my disposal.”

“Good,” she said again. The lengthening silence shifted toward awkwardness.

Sam sighed. “I have so much to say,” he said, “and no idea where to begin.”

Riley took a deep breath. “Then let me start.” Encouraged by Sam’s smile, she decided to just go for it. Lay it all out. Self-protection meant nothing compared to everything that had happened even today.

“I know we’ve only known each other for a week.”

Sam blew out a breath. “Seriously? That’s all?” He stared at the wall above Riley’s head while he counted. She waited impatiently until he said, “Wow. You’re right.”

“Can I continue?”

He smiled again, wide enough to show the dimples that sent a zing through her entire body.

“You just made my point,” she said. “A psychologist would probably say my feelings are intense because of the intense circumstances, but my mother would say these circumstances meant we showed each other our true selves. And Sam…” She swallowed hard. Okay, this wasn’t so easy. What if he didn’t feel the same way? Didn’t need more than the woman who’d balanced him against power he wasn’t supposed to have?

He didn’t move, and his eyes never left her face. Their golden brown had deepened, despite the watery evening sunlight that followed the rain. He didn’t look wary or dismayed, but anticipatory. Riley’s anxiety faded.

“I’m falling in love with you.” She tempered it at the last second—it sounded more believable this way than I love you . More of an acknowledgment of the extreme circumstances. More realistic considering it might not last in a normal, mundane life.

Except she didn’t know what normal and mundane were anymore.

“I don’t want you to settle,” he said.

Riley’s heart stopped racing. It stopped completely at his first words, and even with the qualifier it didn’t seem to resume—though it had to or she wouldn’t be enduring this tearing pain in her chest. This was the goddess-world version of it’s not you, it’s me .

“Settle for what?” she demanded.

Sam sighed, long and painfully. “I thought when this was all over, when Quinn finished the transfers and she and Nick could focus on themselves, that we could do the same. Get to know each other. See what can happen between us.”

“And now you don’t want that,” she guessed miserably.

“No, I’m saying we can’t have that. Numina’s splinter group is still out there, still desperate to take goddess power to augment their own. I want to say I can walk away from that and just be with you, but I can’t. I could never do that.”

Angry, Riley dropped her arms and stepped toward him. “Of course you couldn’t. Neither could I, not if I believed I could really help.” That sounded like she still didn’t believe… “I can help. So I can’t walk away.” She forced herself to face her deepest fear about his feelings. “Do… do you not want me anymore now that we’re not connected by the energy? Now that moon lust doesn’t drive you, you don’t—”

“No!” He lurched off the wall. Since the balcony was only about two feet deep, that put them toe-to-toe, practically face-to-face. “I’m saying the opposite! But I don’t know why you’d believe me.”

“Believe what? ” Riley spread her arms. Her heart pounded again, throbbed in her neck and ears, muffling his voice and narrowing her vision. “Stop beating around the bush and tell me what you feel!”

“I love you, dammit!” He shoved his hand through his hair and shook his head at the sky. “I started to fall in love with you, God, I don’t know. That first day, when you charged out there and confronted Vern and Sharla.”

It seemed a decade ago. Riley’s joy at his confession couldn’t get past her confusion. “So what’s the problem? I don’t understand why you’re holding back now. Quinn is fine, the power is all transferred, and you’re you . The guy I started falling for when I saw that video on the Society website.”

“That’s the problem. You needed help, and I was able to provide it. I brought you to the Society, where—”

“Where I learned my family lied to me my whole life, and your vaunted Society kicked us out. They never bothered to find out why my grandmother and aunt had no power, or to determine if their descendants did. They just forgot about us.”

Sam dropped his head. “I know. I’m sorry. I wanted it to be—”

“That’s not the point!” she yelled at him. “What I feel for you is not fucking gratitude!”

Movement beyond the glass caught her eye. Nick watched them from the living room. His feet were braced wide, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a beer, but his expression told Riley he’d be through that door like a shot if he thought either one of them needed his protection. She was surprised to realize it didn’t matter which one.

She blinked back warm tears, overwhelmed, and nodded at Nick to reassure him they were okay. She turned back to Sam in time to see him give a dismissive, placating hand movement. Nick moved back, out of their view, but Riley would bet he was still watching. She hadn’t had friends like that, ever.

“I’m not grateful,” she said again in a much lower voice. “I don’t care that we don’t have a magical connection anymore. I can’t prove to you that things wouldn’t be different if we went on to live quiet, boring lives together, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? We can live exciting, dangerous lives together and be happy. Can’t we?”