Love and Other Crisis | Season 1

Episode | 17

Ronin met Kaliope by the car, where she waited for him. Distracted by thoughts of Juniper, she missed his approach, starting when the car alarm chirped.

"Another dizzy spell?"

"You ask like you care." Knowing her boss's ability to read her emotions by the color of her aura, Kaliope guessed he'd brought her along for the trip to test her. She'd play the ignorant fool for now.

Ronin tilted his head, his smile mocking. Kaliope glared at him.

"Why wouldn't I care? If a member of my team's sick, it hampers productivity."

Ronin's words from the night of her accident surfaced.

Your purpose here is to lighten the team's workload, Ms. Barnes, not to compromise the operations and reputation of the team and the company. Act accordingly.

A flush of heat rose in Kaliope's face and neck, and she squared her shoulders. "I can do my job."

"I'll believe it when the doctor gives you the all-clear."

Back at Sage Tower CMT, Kaliope followed Ronin into his office. He'd escorted her to Dr. Joriah and loomed until the doctor performed all his fancy tests. Kaliope spent another thirty minutes in the magic vacuum as Dr. Joriah detected residual magic. After receiving the doctor's report confirming her fitness for work, Ronin stopped scowling at her. Mostly.

He frosted the glass partition of his office for privacy before he spoke. "You seem to believe I'm picking on you, Ms. Barnes."

"Aren't you? You keep surveilling me as if you're waiting for me to fail so you can kick me to the curb."

"You thought it was unfair that I sidelined you at the beginning of this case. That I was making you read some dumb book out of spite, yes?"

Kaliope suppressed an outward reaction to the correctness of his assessment. Ronin smirked.

"Then look at what happened the same day. You almost died. Why? Because you wandered off on your own thinking, you knew better. Here's the truth." Ronin narrowed the distance between them. "I don't trust you not to cause trouble or get yourself killed out of your compulsion to be defiant, Ms. Barnes. Unlike other 9-5 jobs, a disciplinary hearing is the least of your worries when you step out of line at Sage. So yes, Ms. Barnes, I am watching you when I have better things to do with my time, like stopping an entire society from imploding."

Ronin dismissed Kaliope. She exited the office, resisting the urge to slam the door in her wake. Her blood boiled. She wasn't trying to make a statement when she entered Kelmor. It was an honest mistake. First, she was rash, and now a compulsion to be defiant?

She wanted to storm back into Ronin's office and scream at him to fire her and be done with it if he thought she was such a fucking burden.

The nerve of him.

Kaliope gritted her teeth.

"Told you it was a bad idea to let a human join the team." Gale settled in his chair with exaggerated casualness. "Ready to quit yet?"

Gideon chided his friend for his comment.

Kaliope lost it, her anger finding a new target.

"You know what, screw you, you little witch. We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for your people's antiquated worldviews." Juniper wouldn't feel she ruined her family because she fell outside their discriminatory societal expectations. She empathized with the woman—another misfit. Not entirely fitting in anywhere she went.

Gale flew to his feet, hands bunched in fists at his side. The monitors around him went crazy, glyphs and static filling the screens.

"Guys." Gideon positioned himself as their referee. "Stop this."