#storyform

She hadn't expected to be sharing the night with anyone, but then, Delaney always had a habit of showing up unannounced.

Not usually with company, though. Company with a magical bent as strong as he looked small. Tamar felt a shudder as this fact dawned on her. This was Magic alright, thick and fast and vivid purple in his eyes -what little she remembered of Schooling told her this was what Danger looked like. You could practically see it pulsing in his veins. There was nothing else it could possibly be. No illness or quirk stripped you bare like that)

"Delaney."

"Yeah, it's raining here you know." Delaney whined like he wasn't standing on her doorstep with an obvious figitive. Like he wasn't dragging her into yet another precarious scheme for goodness only knew what. And maybe she would've turned him away. Maybe. Except there was a glint in his eyes unlike anything she'd seen before - a dim shade of terror when he glanced over his shoulder to check he hadn't been followed and... Well. It was raining.

"Delaney." She said once more, just for emphasis.

"I know. Look, you gon' let us in or what, featherhead?" his hand gripped the shorter boy's shoulder a little too tightly. The boy flinched.

Tamar sighed. “Did you at least lose them?” no need to ask ‘who?’. No way Delaney wasn’t followed with a prize like this on his hands. 

Delaney raised an eyebrow at her. “Do mockingbirds lie? Come on, 'Mar, let us in, will you?”

Tamar eyed him through the fog-rain. He looked like a waif, this child of The Veil. Like someone fed on scraps, not meat. The magic in him had torn the colour from his hair and the flesh from his bones

I stumbled up the last steps, the metallic door in view. This is my second trip up the same three flights in the last 20 minutes. I’m tired, fatigued, sweating, and wheezing. I had to sleep in my car for 30 minutes when I arrived at work, then my foggy headed self managed to pull my body out of the car, grab my laptop for work, and drag it all the way up three flights only to notice my missing badge to let me in the door.

It wasn't the extra walk that bothered me, so much as the fact that I parked in a neighboring companies parking lot due to the jamming of cars in my companies parking lot. There were plenty of opening in their lot, but none that the lowly coders could park in; least of all the most senior software engineer of one of the main products your companies launching this next month. You’d have to have the salary and prestige required to own a Maserati, Porsche, or Ferrari in order to be allowed to park next to them, shaded from the growing warmth of the Phoenix sun.

Managing to key my self in, I head directly for the vending machines. I hadn’t slept well the night before, hence the nap, and coffee was not kick starting my mind sufficiently enough for the work that lay ahead. I needed the soul crushing regret of a 16 oz Red Bull to keep moving; hopefully long enough to make it to lunch and a carb crash. The change in my pocket jingled as I approached the machine, and rattled as I shoved them through the coin slot at a rapid pace.

I jabbed at “E7″.

The can dropped awkwardly down into the trench below. I pushed my arm through the gate, retrieved the can, and opened it in desperation as fast as I could manage.

“Fizzzshhshhhhhh!!!”