Endless (Shadowlands 3)

“I was just telling Rory about some of the weirder visitors who’ve come through here,” Joaquin answered quickly, shooting me a go with it look as he set the platter down on the table. Bea darted forward and grabbed a handful of veggies before anyone else could move.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Like those twins from the station? Totally weird.”

Lauren shivered, her hair shimmering in the candlelight. “I know, right? Those two give me the willies. I hope Chief Grantz was able to explain everything.”

“If not, can’t the mayor just wipe their memories?” I asked.

“Wait. The mayor can wipe people’s memories?” Liam said, sitting forward.

“To a degree,” Joaquin answered, sitting down on an empty love seat. “She only does it in extreme situations, when someone’s behavior threatens the peace or our cause.”

There was nowhere else for me to go, aside from the floor, so I sat next to him, leaning into the opposite arm.

“So why doesn’t she just wipe everyone who came in on the ferry today?” Liam asked. “That’s an extreme situation.”

“Because she gets sick if she does it too much,” Bea explained, tugging on one of her errant curls and wrapping it tightly around her finger. “It takes a lot out of her.”

“Really? I never knew that. Like how?” I asked.

“Like if she wiped the whole ferry, she’d probably put herself in a coma,” Fisher said, crunching into a carrot stick. “So you could see how it’s better to try to deal with people in a non-mind-meld way first.”

I blew out a sigh. “Wow. I guess every superpower has its limits.”

We sat in silence for a moment, until Lauren sat forward and grabbed some vegetables. “Remember Andy Warhol?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly. “That guy was nuts.”

“And Babe Ruth?” Joaquin shot back. “He was an animal.”

Liam’s jaw dropped. “You met Babe Ruth?”

“And ushered him,” Joaquin said with a laugh. “But only after he got me good and drunk.”

“What about you?” Joaquin asked, popping a cucumber slice into his mouth. “Who was the weirdest person you ever met?”

I instantly thought of Steven N

ell, but I wasn’t about to go there. “There was a kid at my school who could relate any situation in life back to Star Wars.”

“Seriously?” Fisher asked. “Like how?”

“Like this one time I had a fight with my dad and I was telling a friend about it, and this kid walked up to me and said, ‘At least he didn’t chop your hand off with a light saber,’ then walked away.”

Everyone laughed. “No way,” Lauren said.

“Yep.” I grinned and took another chip. “And then there was this girl who swore she was going to be a supermodel one day, so she walked around school for three years with a stack of books balanced on her head.”

“Was she hot?” Joaquin asked.

“Nope. Not even a little bit,” I replied, cracking up.

Liam’s brows knit. “What kind of crazy-ass school did you go to?”

Everyone laughed. I leaned back in the love seat and just let myself feel the joy of that one brief moment. Inside that cozy apartment with those people, there was nothing wrong in the world. We were just a few friends having fun.

“It feels good to laugh,” I commented.

“Yeah.” Joaquin looked me in the eye. “We should do this more often.”

My skin humming, I held his gaze, refusing to look away. Then Fisher cleared his throat.