Chuck’s eyes flew to mine in the mirror.
Sixteen completely embarrassing questions and ten nervous laughs later, we landed at my tiny studio apartment.
“Thanks, Chuck!” I told the driver.
“Do we pay him?” Giant started to rummage around in his pockets.
“I did.” I held up my phone.
He frowned.
“Come on. My neighbor’s a tool. I don’t want him to see you.”
Jacob would ask five hundred questions and probably call the cops like the little narc that he was. At the tender age of thirty he still lived with his mom and played ten hours of video games a day. He asked me out the first day I got here and I politely said no. Ever since then, he’d had it out for me. He threw shade on all my Instagram posts, and I’d like nothing more than to see my new giant dude murderer throw his head into a wall.
Maybe another time.#BucketList
I let us into the apartment, and the second I unlocked the door and spun around, the dude was holding a blue fiery ball of … magic?
I covered my face. “Don’t hurt me!”
“Move,” he commanded.
I leapt to the side and he chucked the blue ball at my front door. It splashed against it and then started to grow outward, crawling across the ceiling and walls.
“What the hell is that?” I asked in a rush.
He frowned. “Wards. To keep the others from finding me. My powers are still dangerously low, but I can handle a few wards.”
“Wards?”Powers?
He growled in frustration, and grasping my head in his hands like it was a golf ball, both meaty hands wrapped around my face, a buzzing feeling vibrated throughout my body.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked, trying to kick him.
“Shhh. Don’t move. I need to extract the knowledge of your time or we won’t be able to communicate properly. Clearly I’ve missed a lot.”
Extract.He said extract. I was going to faint.
A frown pulled at his lips. “Great. You’re drunk. Half of what I get will probably be wrong.”
Oh my God, this wasn’t happening.
“Everything in my head is right. I’m what you might consider a genius of this time.” All lies. I was average. Everywhere except in my bra size. Those annoying bitches were Ds, but that also helped the ‘Gram, so I wouldn’t hate on my girls too much.
By now the blue stuff had crawled across the ceiling and walls, but only halfway before stopping. Dude growled. “This is not right. My powers shouldn’t be this drained.” His eyes landed on mine and he released my head.
“Grab me like that again and I’ll…” I’ve never threatened someone who was bigger and more badass than me, only shrimpy girls in junior high.
“You’ll what, human? Make me pose for your pornography site?”
I gasped. “What?”
He tapped his big head. “I saw everything. You take naked pictures of yourself and put it on … Insta something, in an effort to one day make money.”
My cheeks flamed red. “I do not! I’m notnaked,” I shouted. “I’m modeling fashionable swimwear!”
He shrugged. “Where I come from, there is one word for a woman who does that.”
