NOAM
Holloway found Noam within an hour of his return to Carolinia—a message sent to his cell phone not fifteen minutes after Noam got back to the barracks:Come to my office.
And it was there, standing in front of Holloway’s mahogany desk still wearing his tailored civilian clothes from Texas, that Holloway told him the Black Magnolia had Ames.
Noam skipped dinner to take the bus up to Geer Street instead, climbing the steps to Dara’s apartment two at a time and tugging down the wards he’d erected in a single motion. Even so, he made himself pause long enough to knock, weight shifting from foot to foot as he heard steps approaching and Dara opened the door.
“I came as soon as I heard,” Noam said, and he looked past Dara, over his shoulder and into the room—Ames was strapped to a chair near the window. His electromagnetism sensed a small pile of empty syringes in the trash can.
Ames shrugged one shoulder, presumably her best attempt at a wave considering both her arms were restrained. “Hi, Noam.”
Dara stepped aside to let him in, and Noam shut the door, throwing the wards back up in his wake.
“So.”
“So,” Ames said, “as much as I wish this was some kind of kinky thing Dara’s into now, it’s really not. And I’d like not to die strapped to a chair in the shittiest apartment I’ve ever seen.”
“You were able to get Lehrer out of your head, right?” Dara said softly, glancing sidelong at Noam. “Can you do the same thing for her?”
Faraday. It took enough effort to maintain that already—if someone attacked him, and he was supportingtwoshields ...
But then again, the moment he’d implemented the Faraday shield around his mind, all his memories instantaneously came back—all those things Lehrer ordered him to forget. And when Lehrer suppressed him later, the persuasive orders hadn’t automatically reactivated. Having the shield up, even briefly, had been enough to undo Lehrer’s command.
Noam sucked in a shallow breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think so. But I can’t keep it up forever. We ... we’ll just have to hope Lehrer doesn’t get suspicious and put persuasion on her again. As long as he thinks she’s still under his control, she should be safe.”
Ames shifted uncomfortably in her chair, hands gripping the seat. “Is it gonna hurt?”
“What? Oh, no. Don’t worry. It’ll be over in just a sec. You won’t feel a thing.”
She looked dubious, but Noam shut his eyes and concentrated, focusing on the way the geomagnetic field warped around her body, her skull, the same way it shifted to accommodate all physical objects.Focus.He gritted his teeth, and drew on his magic, and pulled a Faraday shield into being around her mind.
It wasn’t—it wasn’tquiteas difficult as he’d expected. Yes, he could feel the strain on his magic like a weight added to the hem of an already heavy coat. But there was no instant exhaustion, no fever rising under his skin.
Even so. He released the shield almost as soon as he’d erected it. When he opened his eyes, Ames was still looking at him like she was waiting for something.
“That’s it,” Noam said.
“Wait, it’s over?”
Noam laughed a little. “Yeah, it’s over. You’re all good.”
“Oh thank god. Dara, release me from my chains.”
Dara moved forward, pulling out a pocketknife to snip the zip ties binding Ames down. She immediately stretched her legs out along the floor and rubbed her wrists, which had gone pinkish over however many hours Dara’d kept her here.
“Shit,” she said. “I really gotta pee. Dara, no offense, but guys’ bathrooms are nasty. Is there—?”
“Turn left out the door, and it’s the last room on the right,” Dara said, collecting the discarded zip ties—like he cared so very much about keeping a tidy floor. Or maybe he wanted an excuse not to look at Noam as Noam tugged down the wards and Ames darted out the apartment door, leaving them alone again.
“So,” Noam said, standing there with his thumbs hooked awkwardly in his belt loops.
Dara tossed the zip ties in the trash and straightened up, finally turning round to meet Noam’s gaze. “So, what?”
Noam had to tell him. He couldn’t just ... he couldn’t hide the fact Lehrer was resistant to the vaccine from the whole of Black Magnolia. But the moment those words came out of his mouth, he knew what Dara would say.
And Noam wasn’t sure he was ready for that particular fight.
He wet his lips and shook his head. “I just. I ... missed you, Dara. That’s all.”
