Page 8 of Professor and the Seer
When the fucker would have grabbed the gun tucked in his belt, John whipped up a spell, his hands moving rapidly as he shaped it into body-binding tethers that included a gag. Only once he had them secure did he turn to Frieda. She leaned against the wall as if she’d fall without it.
He grabbed her icy-cold hands. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe now.”
Her gaze met his, the depths of her eyes cloudy.
“Frieda.” He spoke her name softly. “Speak to me. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
The glaze in her eyes receded, and as she noticed him, she murmured, “You shouldn’t be here. To be with me is to ensure your doom.”
“Do you often give ominous pronouncements to people bringing you dinner?”
“What?” She blinked as if finally waking.
“I said I brought you dinner. Are you hungry?”
“I— I—" She tried to glance past him to the thugs. “They—What—”
“Those miscreants aren’t going to be a problem. Come, let’s get you somewhere warm.” Warm being the balcony, where the icy chill permeating the room didn’t follow. She let him lead her outside, her movements jerky with shock. He sat her in a chair before re-entering her room, sidestepping the bound thugs. He hit the hall for her food and closed the door lest anyone come wandering by with awkward questions.
He brought the bag out to her, kneeling as he delved inside and pulled out something wrapped in foil. He placed it in her hands and softly said, “Eat.”
Her gaze focused on him. “I’m not hungry.”
“Dina said you’d say that but that you had to eat anyhow.”
“She also told you to stay and watch,” Frieda predicted with a sigh. She grabbed the burrito and unwrapped it while muttering, “Bloody hell. When she finds out about me being attacked, she’s going to insist we share a room again.”
“You planning to tell her? Because I won’t if you don’t,” he offered.
She glanced at him as she took a bite. “You’d lie?”
“I think of it more as not revealing everything. After all, robberies do happen. The important thing is you’re safe.”
“It wasn’t a robbery,” she murmured after she swallowed.
He glanced at the sliding door through which he could see the trussed thugs. “Kidnapping?” Human trafficking and ransom were problems worldwide these days.
“They were planning to abduct me, but they didn’t know why. Someone paid them.” She kept eating, and he dug in the bag to hand her a soda, the kind in a glass bottle with a pop top. He found himself mesmerized at how her lips wrapped around the lip of it to drink.
“They told you that?”
She shook her head. “I saw it. Saw a few futures where they bagged and took me to some house in the hills.” Her glance went westward as if she could see it.
“And then what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The future involving me is hard to see. In this case, it’s more I saw their possibilities. In all of them, they didn’t know the why, just that they’d get paid once they delivered me.”
“You specifically?”
She nodded.
“How did you trap them?”
“I don’t know.” Her lips trembled. “One second, I was terrified, and the next, I was stuck in a loop of their futures until you arrived.” Meaning her power had acted to protect her.
“Stay out here and finish your dinner. I’ll be back in a moment.” He left her on the balcony and shut the door before he draped a spell that would muffle sound originating in the room. He eyed the two men bound in magic.
He removed the invisible gag on the thug who’d been mouthy before. “Who sent you?”