Clare

  “Can I take you somewhere?” Sawyer asked with a serious look.

  It was 8:30pm and Sawyer and I just finished having an intimate dinner in a tiny enclosed area of the restaurant he’d brought me to for our first date since we became an official couple.

  It had been such an awesome date where Sawyer and I had connected so much more now that the incident with Queen had allowed us to share some things from our dark pasts.

  Because we’d had so much fun, I had no qualms about agreeing to extend our date with a pit stop to somewhere else. “Sure.”

  After he’d helped me into the passenger seat and gotten into the driver’s seat, I asked, “Where are we going?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “It’s nowhere exciting. It’s just…somewhere special to me. You can call it the one place I go to whenever I want to feel better. I was going to show it to you later, but I can’t wait anymore. I really want to show it to you now...today. I’m sorry, am I…a little intense? Do you think we’re going too fast?”

  I shook my head because I was actually really pleased that he was taking me to this place that was obviously very important to him. “Not at all. I…I like that you’re willing to share that with me.”

  “Good.” Was his only response, but he had a pleased smile on his face.

  The car fell into a comfortable silence as Sawyer focused on driving while I looked out the window, enjoying the views of parts of Hawkins that I’d never seen since I arrived at Hawkins Town.

  As the car moved toward the outskirts, the tightly packed shops and bustling intersections gradually gave way to wider roads flanked by scattered apartment buildings with weathered facades. Open lots dotted with wild grass and the occasional billboard hinted at the slower, quieter edge of town life.

  Soon we arrived at a smooth and well-maintained parking lot, lined with sleek cars and motorcycles that gleamed under the soft glow of strategically placed, modern light fixtures. The apartment buildings beyond were elegant and contemporary, with large tinted windows, manicured shrubbery lining the pathways, and a quiet air of exclusivity that hinted at the caliber of its residents.

  “We’re going to the rooftop.” Sawyer explained as he opened the door for me.

  “Wow, I didn’t know there was anywhere like this in Hawkins. Is this the tallest building in town?” I exclaimed as I walked beside Sawyer to the first apartment building.

  “Yeah, that’s why it was built close to the outskirts of the town. My dad thought it would ruin the scenic view of the small town vibes of the rest of Hawkins. The buildings beside it contain free apartments for our pack enforcers and other important personnel who don’t have houses in town.”

  “Cool.” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.

  However, by the time we took the elevator to the apartment building’s roof using a key card, the only word that could leave my mouth was, “Wow.”

  The rooftop had a quiet charm. The wooden planks underfoot were smooth and worn, stretching out into an open space framed by a low glass railing. In one corner, a raised planter sat filled with dark soil, empty but full of promise.

  The rooftop was a sanctuary in its simplest form, built not for gatherings but for escape. The reading nook claimed the farthest corner, where a wooden pergola cast shifting patterns of shadow across the built-in bench beneath it. The bench was plain but sturdy, softened only by a weathered cushion, and a small side table held a neatly stacked notebook and pen, waiting for the thoughts that might spill out here.

  At the center of the rooftop, a low firepit sat surrounded by emptiness. No cluster of chairs, just a single chaise lounge angled toward the edge, as if waiting for someone to stretch out and lose themselves in the view.

  The rest of the rooftop remained open, the smooth planks warmed by the sun during the day and cool underfoot at night. It was a space that breathed, offering room to think, to wander, and to sit in silence with the stars.

  “It’s... peaceful,” I said, taking it all in. The empty planter, the bare trellis, and the quiet corner that felt like a little world all its own.

  “That’s what I was going for,” he said, his voice soft behind me. “A place where I could feel like I could just... breathe.”

  I stepped closer to the nook, running my fingers along the edge of the bench. It wasn’t perfect—there were a few scuffs on the wood, the vine hadn’t grown far, and the rug was faded in spots—but somehow, that made it feel more real. More him.

  “You built this, too?” I asked, glancing back at him.

  “Every piece of it,” he said with a nod, his hands in his pockets. “It’s my spot when I want to read, or think, or just get away from everything for a while.”

  It was easy to imagine him sitting there, legs stretched out, a book balanced on his lap, the sky stretching endlessly above him.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, and I meant it.

  “It’s not finished,” he replied, a quiet laugh in his voice. “But I’m getting there.”

  I smiled and stepped closer to the edge, running my fingers over the cool glass railing.

  When Sawyer had talked about his father wanting the tall apartment building to be built away from town, I hadn’t fully understood why until I stood on the rooftop of the tallest building in town with a grand view of the whole town. The view from here was incredible. Below us, the town lights twinkled like scattered fireflies, and above, the sky stretched out forever, stars just beginning to peek through the twilight. It was the kind of view that made you feel both tiny and infinite at the same time.

  The town planner's vision was clear: a perfectly uniform set of buildings at the center of town, each one harmonizing with its neighbors to create a visually stunning tapestry. The buildings were not tall, but their arrangement was like a meticulously crafted quilt, each piece fitting seamlessly into the next.

  From up here, I could see the uniformity and symmetry of the town's layout, the roofs forming neat rows and columns that stretched out like a beautiful, organized pattern. The colors of the buildings complemented each other, creating a soothing palette that was both calming and captivating. It was like looking at a living work of art, where every detail had been carefully considered and expertly executed.

  At night, the view looked even more magical. The addition of lights added a new layer of beauty to the scene. House lights created a warm, inviting glow from within each building, while shop lights illuminated the streets with a lively, welcoming ambiance. Streetlights lined the roads, casting a soft, golden hue that highlighted the uniformity and neatness of the town's design.

  The lights twinkled like stars in a carefully orchestrated constellation, each one contributing to the overall harmony of the scene. The combination of structure and light created a mesmerizing effect, making the town look like a serene, perfectly planned village from a fairy tale. It was a perfect blend of structure and freedom, order and spontaneity, all coming together to create a view that was nothing short of breathtaking.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “You like it too?” Sawyer asked with some pride in his voice, as if my compliments were praises to him.

  “I love it. Whoever did the planning is so awesome.” I said, sharing all my praise straightforwardly.

  He chuckled softly. “Whenever I argue with my dad or my migraines get unbearable, I come up here and just stare out at the town. Sometimes, I move the lounge chair out from under the shade to watch the stars instead. When I was younger, I’d even imagine myself dancing in the stars with my mother—anything to take my mind off the pain.”

  I looked to the side, staring at the nostalgia written all over his face.

  “How long have you had the migraines? Have you tried working with Fae healers?” He had mentioned the migraines flippantly many times before, but during today’s dinner, he shared more details about how he had chronic migraines since he was a child and I couldn’t help being curious about them.

  “It started around the time my mother died and became very serious when I was 12 or so,” He said.

  “Wait, your mother died?” I couldn’t help asking.

  He laughed at my rude question. “Oh, you thought the pack Luna was my mother…She’s just my stepmother. Surprisingly, she’s not even a bad one.”

  “I’m so sorry for…for bringing that up. I didn’t realize...”

  “It’s okay. Most people don’t even remember most of the time any way.” He said.

  “After my mom died, I had a really hard time because I’d been closer to her than I’d ever been closer to my dad. Because their marriage was an arranged marriage, there was really no love between them, so for several years, I could never accept how quickly he moved on from her death. Finding and falling in love with another woman just one and a half years after her death, so I became very rebellious. Eventually, my migraines started to get so bad that my dad just took me to a renown Fae healer in Britain, but the peace from our healing sessions never lasted for longer than a month, sometimes a month and a half. Traveling back and forth made no sense, so I decided to just stay over there and started attending a private boarding school in Britain ran by my mother’s cousin. Unfortunately, three years later, that healer died and every other healer I met all told me that I was in perfect health and couldn’t seem to relieve the migraines, which had somehow become worse.”

  I placed my hand on his hand which was grasping the edge of the protective metal fence surrounding the rooftop and he stared at it for several seconds before continuing, “Since no one seemed to be able to help, I decided to just let go of the idea of getting miraculously healed and learn to deal with the migraines myself. That’s when I came back home to stay until I could go to Camdine Academy. Right now, my dad has fixed his hope on the help of a healer called Aurora Byrnes. She’s the founder of Hope Medical International. I’m on her almost three years long waiting list to get checked by her and hopefully get healed, but truthfully, I have lost hope. The Fae healer that used to help me before he died once told me that my migraines are not caused by problems with my body, but rather spirit or soul problems. He can’t tell what my problems are exactly because his healing magic mostly just gets absorbed by my body and soul to heal what needs to be healed.”

  His words made my hand trembled as I released the back of his hands and lowered my hands to my side, clenching them into fists.

  He sensed the change in my mood immediately. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head, but before I could speak, he held my chin and forced me to meet his gaze. “Don’t tell me nothing. Something I said now made you withdraw into your shell. What was it? Can you tell me? Do you have migraines too?”

  I shook my head again. “No. I-I…When I turned fifteen, I got my instinctual magic and at first, I thought it was an aura-reading type magic but…some things happened recently that made me believe that it may be a spirit-type magic. It…allows me to see people and the world in a different way, like an x-ray but not a physical x-ray. I know it’s hard to believe, but when I flip the switch, I see the world like a negative film strip—everything is reversed, with light appearing dark and colors inverted. It’s like viewing reality through a photographic negative, where shadows glow and bright areas are muted.”

  I looked down at his hands that had covered my hand. “At first, I didn’t know how to flip the switch off or on. My vision would change to that sight and change back by itself, and I was so worried that I was going blind. Since the doctors all said there was absolutely nothing wrong with my eyesight, my stepfather convinced my mother that I was just fooling around to ‘get attention’ and she believed him.”

  I wiped away the tear that fell and sniffed, “Any way, what I’m trying to say is, if your migraine is caused by something not physical, I think I might be able to see what may be wrong. I won’t touch you because this magic…can be dangerous too.”

  I peeked up at him and when I saw that he had an expressionless face, I got a little flustered, “If…you don’t believe me, it’s fine. You can just forget that I said any weird stuff and maybe…”

  “Stop.” He said, cupping my face so that I could meet his eyes that were now darker than I’d ever seen them. “I’m not doubting you. I’m just mad at your stepfather for saying that your cry for help was a desire to get attention. He had no right to. And I can’t believe your mother believed him just like that.”

  I shook my head. “There was a reason my mom believed him, after all. When I was younger, around the time they got married, I went through a phase where I did several things, made several shocking claims to get my mom’s attention because she just…got so lost in him and their world together that she forgot about me. I j-just couldn’t accept it, so I did and said a lot of outrageous things to get her attention.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I did similar things after my mother died. To get my dad’s attention, I hacked into important places, even got in touch with people in the deep web, black hat type people. I came this close to helping the wrong people get into important state-confidential spaces on the web with my instinctual magic. But when my migraines started getting really bad, my dad and stepmother didn’t believe for a second that I was pretending to get his attention even though the doctors could see no signs that I had a headache.”

  “Wait, so your migraines got really bad around the time you started using your instinctual magic more intensely?” I asked.

  “That’s right.” His eyes widened and our gazes locked.

  “How does your instinctual magic work?” I asked.

  “I-I’m not actually sure. I’ve just been always been precocious and very intelligent. I started out having an eidetic memory. Then I discovered that I could learn anything very quickly. Later, when the internet started to become prominent, I would find myself breaking chains of logic of different programming languages on how I used the internet and accessing databases or web spaces that were super secure or encrypted. My dad and I never realized that it was an instinctual magic but my step mom did so I got tested and it was. My dad made me start to wear Kian rings around my neck to null my magic, and while I couldn’t just steal into several well-secured web spaces, I still learned to hack. Now that you…I realize that at the beginning my migraines usually came in hard, days or weeks after intense use, but the thing is I don’t do much of that anymore with my instinctual magic now but I still get very bad migraines.”

  “Mm…so we can rule out instinctual magic use affecting the migraines. Do you mind if I take a look?” I asked.

  He didn’t even hesitate. “Sure, take a look.”

  Other than when I used it on Queen, it’d been a few months since I used my instinctual magic and I hesitated for a second, not sure I wanted to use my magic that I’d recently found out could be very destructive on Sawyer.

  “How about we keep some space between us so I can see it? Maybe three meters?”

  At my words, Sawyer took several steps back before stopping and pointing to the space between us. “Exactly three meters.”

  His words made me smile as I realized that he’d calculated the three meters without a ruler or any kind of tool.

  “Let me know if you feel any pain or you feel uncomfortable. Promise me.” I said.

  “Sure.” He assured me with a smile.

  After getting his assurance, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, feeling around for the switch that opened me up to another world.

  I released a breath when I found it and quickly flipped it before I could hesitate.

  When I opened my eyes, the word was in negative film. At least most of it.

  Sawyer’s head, however, had a different color. A bright gold that seemed to be active, vibrating with energy.

  I’d seen this bright gold on several people, especially my mom and step father. My mom had some in her hands and brain, and my stepfather had a small speck of that same energetic gold in his mind, no bigger than a quail's egg.

  And it was only now that I realized that the energetic gold was probably their instinctual magic. The weird thing was, while my mom had instinctual magic that allowed her to grow just about any herb she wanted, my stepfather had never confessed to having any instinctual magic. But then again, he might have secretly told my mom without telling me.

  I was getting distracted, so I shook my head and focused on Sawyer.

  Unlike the little energetic gold in my mom and stepfather, his covered a large expanse. The entirety of his head seemed to be filled with that energetic gold and when I walked around him so I could see the back of his head, all I saw was gold. The energetic color seemed like a body of water, with waves appearing here and there.

  However, while it covered a large expanse, it seemed similar to every other person’s brain that I’d seen before.

  At least it did. Until I stepped closer to Sawyer.