"Wait, what's goin' on?" Maddie hissed to Jeremy as he walked her back up the driveway to Rachel's little hideout.

  "You're representin' the people who elected you. You're about to meet the leader of their people."

  "...You know I gotta be appointed to do that, right? That's all part of the Executive."

  "Goddammit, Maddie, she's not a foreign country."

  "Just sayin', if you want to play political metaphor, you gotta get 'em right."

  Jeremy shook his head. "Just get in there and do your thing."

  Maddie took a second to glance at her reflection in the front window. "Shit, I look terrible."

  "No you don't. Come on."

  Jeremy opened the door and pulled a reluctant Maddie over the threshold. They made their way back into the rear bedroom. Rachel sat next to Will's bed, waiting for them. She was typing away on a laptop, but set it aside and stood up to greet them. Maddie's eyes slowly made their way up to her face, as if she couldn't believe what she was looking at.

  Jeremy nudged her, and she instantly reverted to her professional self. "It's an honor to meet you, Miss DuValle," she started, holding out her hand.

  Rachel shook it gently. "Likewise." She glanced at the doorway, where her mother had appeared. "Can we offer you anything? Coffee, tea?"

  "No, thank you."

  Rachel nodded, and Andrea disappeared back into the living room. As she did, Rachel reached into an expensive-looking leather pouch with a gold buckle at her side, and withdrew a handful of small rocks. She set them in Will's hand. His eyes closed in concentration, before his hand jerked upward in an uncomfortable way. The rocks vanished.

  The monitors by his bed flickered off, as did the lights in the room. The room was suddenly lit only by the pale sunlight streaming through the window.

  "Sorry, but it's a necessary precaution."

  "What did you just do?" Maddie asked curiously.

  "Disabled all electronics in the room."

  Maddie spun around to her brother. "She can do that?"

  Jeremy shrugged. "I've stopped askin' that question."

  Rachel coughed gently. "I needed to ensure this conversation was not recorded by electronic means. Feel free to take notes if you wish." She held out a notebook and pencil.

  Maddie shrugged. "I've never liked being on record anyway."

  Jeremy frowned. "If you're ever gonna return to society, though, then you'll have to have somethin' on record."

  "I don't ever plan on that," Rachel murmured.

  "Your people, then. I'm guessin' not all of them feel the same way?"

  She hesitated. "You're right, of course. When the time comes, if it is necessary I will testify under any form you require. For them." She glanced away. "Besides, she's already made it clear that I'm not ever going to stay in hiding."

  Maddie smiled. "You're already a better leader than half the people I work with."

  "Only half?" Rachel asked, the corners of her lips twitching. Oh thank God, she still has a sense of humor. This isn't gonna be as bad as I thought.

  She laughed. "Okay, a lot more than half. But you work with what you get, you know?"

  "Yes." Rachel pulled up her legs onto her chair, which was a wide comfortable one she clearly spent a great deal of time in. She settled in, obviously expecting a long conversation. "Do you go by Madelaine, or just Maddie?"

  "Either works."

  She shrugged. "Everyone I've ever met has had a preference for their name."

  "Honestly, I couldn't care less."

  "Well then." Rachel cleared her throat, as if speaking officially. "Maddie, my name is Rachel DuValle, and until May of this year, I was an elected member of the Council of the Awakened, representing the entire population of magic-wielding persons in the world."

  Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Finally, Maddie broke the silence. "Uh… huh."

  Rachel glanced at Jeremy. "She's never seen any magic, has she?"

  He shrugged. "Not like we've had a whole lot of chances."

  She nodded. Setting aside her drink, Rachel held up a finger and pointed at the notebook she'd set aside. A page ripped itself out and floated up into the air. Maddie's eyes were locked on it, quickly widening in amazement. As she watched, Rachel floated it into the middle of the room, before forcing it to crumple into a ball.

  A moment later, she set it on fire.

  "Shit!" Maddie fell backward over her chair onto the floor. The paper burned up into a tiny pile of ash.

  "Cute," Jeremy deadpanned, watching Rachel. As he'd expected, even the small demonstration had still taken a toll on her. He was beginning to see some massive power disparity between the so-called Awakened.

  "...You said was," said Maddie, getting back to her seat with a few shreds of dignity.

  "Yes. The council was dissolved following the… incident." Rachel glanced away.

  "What about the other councilors?"

  "One survived. The other… did not."

  "...I'm so sorry."

  Rachel nodded. "Thank you. We weren't exactly close, but I regret what happened to her."

  "What did happen to her?" cut in Jeremy. Both of them glanced at him. "What?"

  "If we're gonna do this," said Maddie, "we should start at the beginning. Or at least as early as she's willin' to go. We want the whole story, right?"

  "...Right."

  Rachel shrugged. "Whatever you prefer."

  "The beginning, then. If I'm gonna help you figure out how to start bringing this into the world, I want to know everything you can give me."

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  "I wasn't there at the beginning. The Council was the first real attempt at organization. It was founded by the Three Gods—"

  "The what now?" Jeremy interrupted.

  "I'm sorry. There were three people, the very first among us, who had far greater power than we thought possible. They were the ones to form the original Council." She nodded at Jeremy. "You met one of them."

  "I did?" It took him a moment to figure it out. "...The teleporting girl."

  "Among many other talents." Rachel glanced at a corner of the room. Jeremy followed her gaze, but there wasn't anything there. She looked back to Maddie and resumed her story. "This was in March of twenty-seventeen. At first, the Three Gods ran the show and made every decision for us. Most of us were so inexperienced and inept that we didn't even consider leadership ourselves. But it only took a few months for that to break down."

  She took a breath. "The Three Gods never really saw eye to eye. Alpha and Omega argued almost every time they met."

  Maddie snorted. "Sorry. They really went by that?"

  "Someone coined their names, and it stuck." Rachel shrugged. "It's hard to change a name once everyone's started using it. I never liked the term 'awakened', but here we are, years later."

  "Well, seems like the perfect time to change it. If you're gonna finally come out into the world, you could pick somethin' new," Jeremy pointed out. "You're in charge."

  She shook her head. "I'm not in charge, and I wouldn't feel right making that decision. I don't deserve that sort of authority."

  "The Council broke down," Maddie prompted, trying to get them back on track.

  She nodded. "Toward the end of June. Alpha and Omega's arguments about how the world should handle magic went too far. A fight broke out, and people took sides. It was so severe that they nearly destroyed the old library."

  "I saw it," Jeremy muttered. "Looked like an earthquake."

  "No earthquake could have caused that," Rachel continued. "They could have destroyed the whole town, and us along with it, but for Hector."

  "Hector Peraza?"

  She nodded. "Hector had learned a few tricks none of us understood. Not even the Gods knew how to beat him at the time. He forced them apart with his bare hands and stopped the fighting. Between him and Grey-eyes, the third God, they forced Alpha and Omega to a sit-down, where they made an agreement with the approval of a newly elected Council. They'd both leave the town, never to return, and let us govern ourselves."

  "Your doing?" Maddie asked.

  Rachel shook her head, looking embarrassed. "No. Actually, I… I didn't get elected to the Council until September. I wasn't… well I wasn't exactly Council material at the time."

  Jeremy could have sworn he saw an attempt at a smile from Will's face, still motionless on the bed.

  "It didn't go entirely smoothly. There were several attempts to overthrow the Council system. The first attempt occurred only a few weeks later, as a group that purported to worship the Gods as — well, as gods — the group tried to take over the Council and return it to its original state. They failed, and I doubt the Gods would have returned anyway, even if they'd managed it.

  "The second coup occurred in November. I was a Councilor by then. It was much more organized, and we were nearly killed in the attempt. No one had really used magic in combat before, and none of us were particularly inclined toward it, so they had a huge advantage. We were saved at the last minute by a friend of mine who had practiced it, but her actions were… well, they went over the line. I made a choice to force her away to unify the rest of the Council."

  Jeremy stood up. Maddie glanced over at him. "What's up?"

  "Nothing. I just need something to drink. Keep going." In truth, Jeremy wasn't particularly interested in all this ancient history. Fascinating for his sister, and probably for a great deal of people in the future, but all he cared about was what destroyed the town, and what they were planning on doing next. From the sound of it, those answers weren't coming any time soon.

----------------------------------------

  In the small kitchen bordering the living room, Jeremy found Rachel's parents. They fell silent as he walked in. He ignored them, fishing through the cabinets for a glass, until Andrea finally pulled one out and shoved it into his grasp.

  "Got any beer?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "Sorry."

  "S'okay." He opened the fridge and, seeing nothing else worthwhile, poured himself a glass of orange juice. After draining it, he turned back to Andrea. "So. Where do you two play into this?"

  "We didn't know anything until that day," Andrea said quickly.

  "Yeah, I got that. I meant going forward." He jerked his head back at Will's bedroom, where Maddie and Rachel were still talking. "Your daughter's in there talkin' to a United States Senator; you know that right?"

  They glanced at each other. "Yes," she said reluctantly.

  "Once she does this, there's no goin' back. She'll be a big face. The face of magic, worldwide." Jeremy shrugged. "This is probably gonna go all the way up to presidents and world leaders, you get that?"

  Andrea nodded. "We do."

  "It's crazy," Eric muttered. "All of this is insane."

  "You don't have to stay, Eric," she said. "I'd understand if you want to go home. You don't owe us anything."

  "Andy, she's our daughter." He frowned. "What kind of dad would I be if I let her do this all alone?"

  Well, a pretty typical one. "Look, take it from someone else who got famous by accident from this mess. It sucks, it's annoying as hell, and you'll never really get used to it."

  "When?" asked Andrea simply.

  "When?" Jeremy glanced back at the bedroom. "I dunno. As long as Maddie feels like she needs to get the story straight. Then we gotta figure out how to present it to the world. What media crews to hire, where to broadcast it, who to sell it to. How to handle the legal shit, what parts of the government to deal with. There's a whole fuckin' process. I don't do specifics, I'm just the muscle. Maddie's the brains."

  "...I voted for her," said Eric.

  "Well good for you, you picked a winner." Jeremy frowned. "You really voted, even from up here?"

  "Sure, why not?" He shrugged. "It's anonymous, and I'm a U.S. citizen. I still deserve to have my voice heard, right?"

  Democracy, ain't it a thing. "There's gonna be a lot of lawyers to talk to soon. Start practicin' your signatures and your initials, it's gonna be a pile of paperwork." He shrugged again. "Look on the bright side. You play this right, you could make a lot of money."

  Neither of them looked particularly pleased at the idea. Andrea glanced at the bedroom. "Half of the time, I don't recognize her anymore."

  "So it's not just me?" asked Eric, surprised.

  "No…" She paused. "She hadn't even settled on a major yet. She was thinking education, but didn't think she had it in her to go all the way to a masters… and now she's so far past school. I mean, she's a real leader. But… She's not the Rachel I remember. Everything's so different. We're never getting back to a normal life, are we?"

  Fuck me, I feel bad for them. Memories of other parents, victims of crimes he'd investigated, tumbled through his mind. He dropped his voice a little, and tried to talk more seriously.

  "Look, your daughter's been through a lot of trauma and way more pressure than most people her age are ever supposed to handle. That's always going to change someone. You gotta hold onto those parts of her you still know. She's still in there, but she's someone else now too." He briefly considered whether or not to tell them that his daughter had likely killed someone, but he shook his head. She can tell them that herself someday. Not my place. "You're never gonna get the girl you remember back, but your daughter's not gone. She's gonna need you more than ever now. You two are going to have the hardest job as parents, but you've got this."

  "She doesn't need us," murmured Eric. "She's the one running the show now. She even has her own lawyer. What kind of twenty year old has a personal lawyer?"

  "She does?" He raised an eyebrow. "What firm?"

  "Uhh… Luther-something."

  "Luther, Renalds and Portman," supplied Andrea. "We don't know why though. She wouldn't tell us. Feels like we're just… extras."

  Jeremy shook his head. "Everyone needs parents, some people just don't know who they are." He shrugged. "Sometimes they aren't even related to us, but they're our parents anyway. You guys are lucky enough to already know and care about each other. Hold onto that for me, would ya?"

  Andrea nodded firmly. "Always."

  Eric nodded too. "...You're sticking around, right?" he asked.

  Jeremy looked surprised. "I got places to be. I'm tryin' to find Jackie, remember?"

  He shook his head. "Trust me, we tried. We have a way to contact her, but nothing came back. We tried again while you were talking. Rachel will probably have another way, but I wouldn't get your hopes up." He paused. "We could really use your help. Neither of us really knows what we're doing."

  Jeremy let out a long, deep breath. Why am I not surprised…? Somehow, he'd known he wasn't getting out of this gig. He was going to be Rachel's personal agent for the time being; he already saw the next few weeks, months, even years laid out in front of him. And if he was honest, he didn't mind. For once in his long career in the agency, he felt like he was doing something actually meaningful and important. Where he understood exactly why he was doing it, even if he had no clue what he was going to be doing day-to-day.

  Besides, staying near Rachel is still probably the best shot at finding Jackie, sooner or later. Especially if everything is finally in the open, Jackie's gotta emerge somewhere. Right?

  "...Yeah, I'll be sticking around." They smiled. Jeremy nodded, then dug into his jacket for his phone, only to remember it had been knocked out by Rachel's spell. He glanced up shamefacedly. "Any way I can make a phone call?"

  Andrea reached into one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a cheap burner cell phone. "Untraceable. Supposedly," she said, passing it over.

  Jeremy nodded, then went out into the backyard. He quickly dialed one of the few numbers he'd ever memorized.

  "Hello?"

  He smiled. "Lani, you're not gonna believe the fuckin' day I had."