The kid was lucky I just happened to be here.
Ricci hugs him again and then gets to her feet, body trembling. “Thank you.” More tears leak from her eyes.
I swallow hard and look at Abby, hoping she’ll have a logical way to explain this. She’s an ER doctor after all. She’s good at thinking on her feet.
Ricci looks at the balcony and then back at me. “He…he…f-fell.” She looks at me in awe again. “But you…you…saved him.”
“No I didn’t,” I blurt but Ricci shakes her head and crawls over, still on the ground with the kid in her arms. Ben is trying to wiggle free, seemingly unaware of how close he came to falling to his death. I get that chairs and benches along a balcony rail look nice, but even I know that’s an accident waiting to happen with kids in the house.
Ricci lets out a ragged breath and turns from me to her son again. “Thank you. Thank you, Callie.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I insist, knowing it’s a moot point. The woman is going to be traumatized from seeing her kid almost splat to the ground.
“You…you stopped him from falling.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I try but Ricci looks at me like I’m even crazier for denying it than for having some sort of powers. “He fell and you caught him.” Over the years I’ve discovered it’s actually easier than you’d think to convince nons that glaringly obvious paranormal activity was just the wind or something mundane like that. I’ve never understood how someone can just accept something that doesn’t really make sense, but people are so desperate for that normalcy, they’re willing to accept lies.
Ricci looks up at a camera in the corner of the room at a security camera. “I know what I saw. How did you do that? You…you just caught him. But you didn’t move.”
Dammit. I could get into her mind and remove this memory, but seeing that she has a camera… Motherfucker.
“I know what I saw,” she repeats. “And you saved him. But what…what are you?”
I swallow hard and look at Abby again, but she’s staring blankly forward with wide eyes. “I was kidnapped by the government and injected with mutant genes that gave me superpowers,” I blurt.
Ricci’s lips part, eyes narrowing. Yeah, she’s not going to buy that.
“A radio-active spider bit me?” I try instead. “I’m actually an alien from the planet Krypton and I’ve come to earth to save humanity.”
Ricci slowly nods and looks at Abby. Out of all the lies, that’s the one she believes? “But…h-how?”
Abby steps in closer. “Let’s be thankful that she was here.”
“You know,” Ricci breathes. “You know what she is, don’t you?”
“What she is, is my sister,” Abby says firmly, eyes narrowing. “What she is, is the person who just saved your son. I know you don’t want to risk getting marks on the wall, but you really need a baby gate.” Abby angrily shakes her head, and I’m assuming this subject has come up before. That’s the reason there aren’t baby gates? Ricci doesn’t want to get marks on her walls? Marks you could paint over later?
“I…I didn’t…you’re right,” she forces out. “And thank you, Callie.” More tears roll down her cheeks. “You saved him.” She staggers to her feet and throws an arm around me. “That…that was incredible.” She hefts Ben over onto one hip and pulls her phone from her back pocket. “He was falling and then he just…he just…stopped.”
“What are you doing?” Abby asks her friend, striding forward. She’s in big-sister-protection mode again, and I like it.
“Look!” Ricci holds up her phone, replaying the footage of Ben climbing up on the bench, gripping the rail as he pulls himself up, and then tumbling over.
I know how it ends, but it still makes my stomach twist to see that tiny little body falling.
There’s no mistaking the timing of me throwing out my hand and the boy’s fall slowing to a stop.
“You’re a hero.” Ricci brings the phone back in front of her face. “This is incredible.”
“Please do not tell me you’re thinking of posting that,” Abby starts as Penny pulls on her hair. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” Ricci turns her head up, looking almost more shocked to be told she can’t post footage than she did to see her kid fall off the balcony.
“I’m in the witness protection program and if my face is seen in your house, the Russian mob will show up and torture you all in your sleep,” I say seriously.
“You have photos of yourself posted on your bookstore’s page.”
Dammit, I really need to get better with lying. I’m no good at it.
“And I can post whatever I want on my page.” Ricci doesn’t take her eyes off her phone. I’m starting to understand more and more why Lucas says he can’t stand most humans. “I’m entitled to my own opinion.”
“You are entitled to your own opinion,” I say, feeling magic through me. This attitude of entitlement pisses me off. “But you are not entitled to being a dick, which is what you’ll be if you post that video on social media.”
“Delete the footage,” Abby tells her. “Think about it, Ricci. People will see your son falling from your balcony. They’ll point out your parenting flaws. It could get you investigated for child endangerment.” There’s the fast thinking I was hoping for. “You’re not a bad mom, and we both know that. It was a freak thing that Ben was able to pull himself up that fast and if Callie wasn’t here, it would be an honest accident. But you know how people are online.”
Ricci’s micro-bladed brows pinch together as she realizes that she’ll be the subject of scrutiny, probably more so than seeing someone use superpowers. That’s the lovely thing about the internet, after all.
“Do the right thing and delete the footage,” I tell her, closing my fist to keep the strings of magic at bay. “Don’t make me force you.”
A few seconds of silence pass but Ricci agrees. “Fine. But please…tell me what you are.”
“Delete it first.”
Abby takes the phone from her. “We have the same security system. What’s your password?”
“Three-three-five-one,” Ricci tells her, almost pained to see Abby delete the footage.
“Is it gone?” I ask.
“From her account, yes, but she could still call the company and have them recover it. It’ll be saved for the next twenty-four hours.”
I nod as I think. “I’m a witch,” I tell Ricci, and am surprised at how good it feels to say it out loud…as well as have someone thank me for using my powers. Holding out my hand for her to take, I press my finger against the pulse point on her wrist. She tries to jerk back, and when someone fights against me physically, it makes it ten times harder to get into their mind.
I wish Lucas was here. He’d have her spellbound in under a second.
“Mentis imperium,” I whisper, and Ricci stops struggling. If I had some powered acacia to hold in my hand and then blow in her face, this would work just as smoothly as the control Lucas holds. I have black salt, Devil’s Shoestring, and lavender in my purse, but I don’t usually carry acacia with me.
I close my eyes and force my way into Ricci’s head. “You will not have the footage recovered. You don’t want anyone to know what happened and you won’t utter a word about it to anyone. I’m only letting you remember so you know that it can happen again.”
Ricci nods. “Right. I…I won’t tell anyone.”
I release my hold, and blink a few times, vision a little hazy. Getting into someone’s head is never easy, and when they resist, it’s like a workout for my brain.
“Now, I believe you had offered me a drink.”
“Right.” Ricci blinks rapidly. “Would you like sparkling or still water?”
“Sparkling would be nice.”
Ricci kisses Ben’s forehead and turns, eyes filling with tears again. I’m sure she’s totally overwhelmed emotionally right now. Though seeing her want to immediately post the video for likes and comments only reinforces my original first impression with her.
Fucking twat.
“You can control minds?” Abby asks in a hushed voice as Ricci gets two bottles of sparkling water from the fridge.
“It’s not really mind control, like you’re thinking. But yeah, I can use magic to alter her memory and change her desires. It’s not as effective as when a vampire does it, and the spell might wear off in a day or two. But by then, it’ll be too late to get the footage, right?”
“Right. It only autosaves for twenty-four hours unless an alarm was triggered, which it wasn’t.” She sets Penny on the floor and runs her hands through her light brown hair. “That scared me,” she says, bringing a shaky hand to her chest. “If you hadn’t been here…”
“I was here.”
Penny comes over to me and raises her arms. I pick her up and she grabs my hand and then points to ceiling.
“Later,” I tell her with a smile. “I’ll do the magic later.”
Ricci’s hands are shaking as she fills three glasses with sparkling water. The air is tense between us, and I go over to the counter and pick up my glass of water.
“Thank you,” I tell her and she just nods. Ben is still in her arms, and he’s twisting and fighting to get out. “I, uh, should get going.” I take another drink and look Ricci right in the eyes. “Don’t make me regret letting you keep your memory.”
“I won’t.” She tears up again. “Ben could have…he could have…” She can’t bring herself to say it, and while she might be an attention-hungry twatwaffle, she really does love her son. “You saved him.”
“Yeah. I did. Just, uh, invest in some baby gates, like Abby said. And you should probably move that bench away from the railing.” I let out a tense breath and turn to my sister. “Do you need a ride to your house?”