The Escape by Teyla Branton

agreement, we began eating faster. “Maybe I should call Cort and see if Keene has anything for us,” I said.
    “Good idea.” Mari pushed a full strip of bacon into her mouth. “I’m almost finished.”
    Almost wasn’t fast enough, and before long Oliver sat opposite us, his plate loaded. “Girls, I need your opinions.”
    I groaned internally. When Oliver started asking for our opinion, invariably it would be about women and would gross us out or make us want to kill him. Maybe tomorrow, I’d work out with him. Accidentally slip with the new sai and give him something real to talk about.
    “It’s Chloe.” He stopped talking to shovel in a forkful of eggs, followed by a quarter of a waffle.
    Chloe was the New York Unbounded gifted in dancing. I hadn’t seen her perform, but I hoped I’d have the opportunity. Some people believed dancing was actually a variation of the combat ability, which in turn was a derivative of one main physical ability. A thousand or more years ago before the worst battles began between the Emporium and the Renegades, the artistic abilities had been highly valued.
    I drank my juice and waited until Oliver swallowed.
    “A woman like that,” he mused, “must have a lot of experience. A hundred years of experience. I wonder if she’d give me lessons.”
    Dare I ask? Mari beat me to it. “Dancing lessons?”
    Oliver shook his head. “I mean in the bedroom. All those admirers and her incredible sex appeal. I’m sure she knows things I’ve never dreamed of.” He leered. “And I’m a pretty good dreamer. Maybe I’d even teach her a thing or two.”
    “Ooooh!” Mari jumped up from the table. “Every time I even begin to think that you can’t stoop any lower, you prove me wrong.” She looked at me. “Erin, I’m going to find Cort.”
    Even as she spoke, Cort appeared in the doorway. He wore nothing but black pants, and his bare chest looked more than twice its real size. His brown hair swept back from his face, and he didn’t look nerdy in the least. “Mari, you called?” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m here. Yes, I’ll give you lessons in the bedroom.”
    No real emotion emerged from the apparition, and it acted so unlike Cort that Mari and I both knew it was a fake, despite the heady aroma of expensive cologne that the real Cort did wear, though never so much of it.
    “Or how about this?” Oliver snapped his fingers and a new Cort replaced the old. This time he was fully dressed, slightly hunchbacked, and wore glasses. His shirt was buttoned clear to the top and his dress pants were a little short. It was Cort as he might have been if he were a contemporary mortal.
    “Mari,” said the image, not quite meeting her eyes. “Would you . . . uh, consider going out with me?”
    With a frustrated growl, a flushed Mari ran past the apparition to the door.
    “Come back, come back,” the illusion shouted after her. “Please don’t leave me!”
    I glared at Oliver. “What’s that all about? Are you ever going to grow up?”
    “Why?” He shrugged. “I have enough time, right? Besides, if she’d only admit to herself that she likes him, it wouldn’t bother her.”
    Mari liked Cort? I wasn’t aware of any attraction between them. In the beginning, Jace had tried to flirt with Mari, and she’d rebuffed him. I told him she needed time to mourn her jerk of a husband.
    “Don’t do it again,” I told him.
    “Who’s going to stop me?” He said it casually, not really a challenge. That he should have such a useful and powerful ability made me furious.
    I pushed my thoughts out to him, swiping at his shield, which he’d never completely mastered anyway. I will, I said in his mind. I was tempted to do more, to thrust my hands in the stream of his thoughts to warn him, but I hesitated at touching anything. I didn’t like Oliver, but I didn’t want to damage him permanently.
    Now he was glaring at me, and trying to push me out. I smiled. He couldn’t get rid of me, and