Duality (The Duality Series Book 1) Read online

  Duality

  The Duality Series | Book One

  Becca Fogg

  Duality

  Book One, The Duality Series

  By Becca Fogg

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Unless you’re Hillary—you know what you did and why you’re in here. Also, why are you reading the copyright page? It’s weird, even for lawyers. Love you, hon.

  Copyright © 2021 by Becca Fogg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected].

  First paperback edition November 2021

  ISBN 9798461714963 (paperback)

  ISBN 9798753308276 (hardcover)

  ASIN B09JFVZNKC (ebook)

  www.beccafogg.com

  Dedication

  for Logan, and for anyone who has been told they can’t

  Track List

  “Fell In Love With A Boy,” Joss Stone

  “Goodbye Earl,” Dixie Chicks

  “Rodeo,” Lil Nas X, Cardi B

  “Sin Wagon,” Dixie Chicks

  “7 Rings,” Ariana Grande

  “Don’t Know Why,” Norah Jones

  “Boss Bitch,” Doja Cat

  “Slow Hands,” Niall Horan

  “Freak,” Doja Cat

  “Ice Cream,” BLACKPINK ft. Selena Gomez

  “Havana,” Camilla Cabello ft. Young Thug

  “Welcome to the Jungle,” Guns N’ Roses

  These songs and more for this book (and the next) are arranged on the Duality playlist on Spotify.

  Book Description

  Jex thought she was an average, post-college girl—until she crippled a drunk and nearly incinerated a gas station. When her elemental powers manifest, she’s torn from her placid life and shoved into the war between good and evil. Forced to rely on new allies, including the sweetheart Captain of the Guard and her alphahole Valen, Jex must come to terms with her newfound ability before her enemies succeed in capturing her.

  I am made of extremes.

  Normalcy was key, before. I’d have a normal life, with a normal job, and a normal white-picket fence. That was before I crippled a drunk and torched a gas station.

  As it turns out, normalcy lives in the average gray, but I do not. Instead, I am made of extremes. Of fire and water. Of light over darkness. Of good over evil. Well, mostly good over evil, apparently.

  Now I have no choice but to embrace the not-normal before my world comes crashing down a second time—to piece myself back together with the family I found when I needed it, with the support of two men dragging me (kicking and screaming) to my full capability.

  But the bad guys are coming, and they’re coming for me. He’s coming for me.

  Ain’t that some shit.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Track List

  Book Description

  Table of Contents

  A Letter From Jex

  Six Months From Now

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Ryan

  Jex

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Eli

  Jex

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Eli

  Jex

  Chapter Eleven

  Ryan

  Chapter Twelve

  Jex

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eli

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jex

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eli

  Jex

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ryan

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jex

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dying to Know What Happens Next?

  Also by Becca

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Eli

  A Letter From Jex

  Six Months From Now

  Hey, so welcome.

  You’re about to embark on a story about how I got to where I am, and it can get rough. I’ve been through a lot—a lot of woo-woo magic (good and bad), a lot of fighting (verbal and physical), and a metric fuckton of turmoil (particularly about my family, and my own issues).

  It could be fun to work through, to get out my aggression in more ways than one, but mostly … not.

  That’s not to say everyone else had it easy, or that I made it easy on them. Rivals don’t become besties overnight. If you had any idea of the gargantuan effort to get my unconventional little circle on the same page. … Well, I suppose you’ll find out if you keep reading.

  Understand that I don’t pull punches or give you the rose-colored version. It’s my story, and I’ll tell it how I want to. If that’s not for you, that’s okay. My friend writing all this down won’t take it personal if you turn back.

  I just hope you’ll have the patience to deal with my fuckups, or at least more patience than I had for myself.

  Or than Eli had. Fucking Eli.

  Anyway, you’ve been warned. Explicit stuff inside, and it only goes downhill from here. I’ll circle back in a couple of weeks to check in on ‘ya.

  TW: this book contains explicit depictions of sex and violence. It includes cheating as a tangential part of the story (not among the main characters). This book is not suitable for all ages and all palates.

  Chapter One

  The creature roared in my ear, the blast razing my sanity like a steamroller. My head lolled at the assault as I tried to regain control of my senses.

  I admit that might be slightly melodramatic.

  “Jex, are you even listening?” Anna scolded through the cell phone.

  Pedestrians, huddled in their coats against the brisk April air, hurried around me as I paced at the street-level entrance to the Arlington T-station. Rush-hour commuters brushed by in the race down the stairs for prime spots on the subway platform. There was no way I could follow them down while trapped by Anna’s rambling.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” I mumbled. Attempting to focus on her tinny voice was harder than doing long division while drunk. It happens a lot when my sister’s involved.

  “So, are you coming?” she asked, irritation plain in her voice. I sighed.

  “Where am I going again?”

  “To my baby shower! I swear you haven’t heard a word I’ve said. This weekend? Mom bought you a plane ticket.”

  Admittedly, I’d rather jump in front of a train if it meant I could escape this call. Knowing Anna, it probably wouldn’t save me, even then.

  Frustration tightened my chest. I’d been struggling to live in Boston—an expensive city where what you get and what you pay for are two vastly different things. I hated when my parents had to chip in for flights but loved living here too much to concede and move home to Orlando.

  “Anna, it’s already Tuesday. You can’t ambush me and expect me to drop everything to come home, and you really shouldn’t have gone to Mom and Dad.”

  My sister had developed the habit of regularly calling me home, often for the most random events. It could be our cousin’s birthday, the Epcot Flower and Ga
rden Expo, or a friend’s graduation. She even flew me home once, on two-days’ notice, only to find out it was a blind date.

  She also routinely “forgets” to tell me until last minute. If Anna could channel her pushiness for Good, every terrorist organization would have surrendered. She already had most of our hometown on her whichever-now MLM mailing list.

  “I’ll have to check my calendar,” I said hesitantly, fidgeting with the phone. My palms started to sweat.

  “Is this about your electrician?”

  “This has nothing to do with the electrician,” I grumbled. “I broke it off with him months ago.”

  “You were having an affair, big sis.”

  “He had the affair. I was having fun,” I huffed.

  Of course, she’d use it to guilt me into submission. Post-college living had been a lot harder than I’d imagined. You spend your entire life in school surrounded by a group of easily accessible peers, then they shove you out into the world and expect you to be fine all on your lonesome.

  We don’t all make good choices when we’re struggling.

  “Don’t give me that, Jessica Eve Kantor. You will be here, in three days, because you are going to the shower of your niece!” Her voice shrilled, the pitch and volume bordering on screeching. It was like nails on a chalkboard, even over a cell phone and fifteen hundred miles away.

  Her point-of-no-return tone meant that nothing I said or did could change this outcome. If I didn’t cave, she’d go nuclear and get Mom to shame me or have Dad scream at me. I didn’t have the energy for all that right now.

  “Fine, but please, please, talk to me before you do anything like this again.”

  Is it still surrendering if you include a command? Is it still a command if you say “please,” twice, with emphasis?

  “Oh, you know you love it. See you Friday night!”

  The line went dead. Shit.

  Anna and I had always been close, and she hadn’t coped well with my failure to remain in her proximity. I’d moved from a tiny town south of Orlando years ago, ostensibly for a job, but really I needed to experience something other than the beach or Disney. Anna knew why, even understood it, but it didn’t stop her from trying to change my mind.

  Slipping the phone into my purse, I headed down the grimy subway stairs. I’d have to remember to screen her calls from now on.

  Pacing on the platform, I combed my fingers through my long curls. How had my baby sister outmaneuvered me so seamlessly? When we were kids, it was so easy to resist her demands. All I had to do was sit on her and she’d yield. Was I losing my touch? Going soft? My verve was one of my best attributes.

  I mentally noted to weave the word “fuck” into more of our conversations, for the intimidation factor and because her reaction was priceless.

  Exhaustion dragged me down as I shuffled inside my “garden-level” apartment in one of the mini-cities that compose the greater Boston area. Having a secluded entrance was a blessing; very few people knew of it, and drunken passersby or street noise rarely woke me up.

  The day had stretched on for an eternity and was only going to be extended by the need to prepare for the trip home. After changing into PJs, I sorted laundry, refilled Georgia’s automated cat food bowl, and dumped ancient food containers into the garbage.

  Living in the city had its pros, but trash collection was not one of them. Garbage bags had to be lugged around the building into a back alley straight out of an old horror film. I regularly waited until I had multiple bags—it was about risk limitation, and maybe a little laziness.

  Cold air slapped my face as I stepped out, carting the stuffed bag with me. I was tempted to leave it by the door a few days, but if I did, it’d sag there until it reeked, leaked, and I tripped over it as I tried to leave. Better to hustle.

  Hurrying past the gate separating the main street and alley, I hoisted the heavy bag into the bin. Light from the streetlamps splintered through the mesh fence and disintegrated as it took the turn, casting a glow barely enough to see with. Not a single breath escaped as I sped back toward my apartment.

  As I turned the corner, a man with a scruffy beard lurched from the shadows and rushed me.

  Soiled clothes stank of urine. His body crowded close behind me, with an arm slung around my shoulder. The asshole’s hands were crusted in dirt, his touch oppressive on my already icy skin. The sharp pinch of a knife threatened to split the skin on my neck as he forced me down the alley.

  “W-what do you w-want?” I stammered. My mind reeled with the possibilities as my throat refused to vocalize more than a whisper. I fought the panic, but tears formed at the corners of my eyes.

  “Just keep walking,” he barked in the gravelly tone of a two-pack-a-day smoker. His breath stank of stale alcohol. The knife-wielding hand moved to brace my shoulder as he shoved me along faster.

  My breathing ratcheted up to hyperventilation, and I forced myself to draw a few deep breaths. What did he want? I had no purse, no wallet. I was wearing pajamas, for fuck’s sake.

  Fear and anger rose as a churning heat in my chest. With every shuffled step, burning waves crested and flooded in more, like a rising tide never truly receding.

  My mind failed to produce a plan. I didn’t know how to fight; I had a hard enough time jockeying for seats on the subway. My thoughts flipped from trying to incapacitate him, to calling for help, to attempting escape, and all competed for control.

  The white-hot rage built and intensified until it grew painful on its own. My head pounded from the roiling anxiety, and the world lost focus.

  We neared the gate when the searing pressure burst.

  It was a moment of pure clarity.

  I could sense each of his movements—feel the hobble of his feet, smell his shallow breaths as he exhaled, felt his fingernails digging into my left shoulder and the blade at my right. Hot blood rushed to the tips of my fingers, to my toes, and my thoughts righted themselves.

  In that moment, the world regained sanity.

  Resolve settled in my gut, a balm comforting and certain.

  Having a plan of action does that, although I had no clue what the fear had decided on. Muscles contracted at the sensation, and I felt myself exhale and shift reflexively.

  My body turned on its own as it grabbed the man’s unarmed hand with a crushing grip. My hand twisted his wrist and heaved with more power than I thought physically possible. Strength surged from the blaze out through my arms. His wrist cracked, and he howled in pain.

  The sudden movement spun him, the knife slicing across my back before flinging away. The weapon took flight and hit the brick wall with a muted clink.

  The drunk whirled ten feet into the alley. I looked to the gate at the street, and knew I should escape. He no longer stood between me and safety.

  Still, something made me stop and eye the attacker with quiet resolve. My body, propelled by that bizarre heat, repositioned itself with my weight balanced perfectly between both feet.

  My limbs coiled as tense aggression emanated from my spine. That scorching heat accelerated, climbing to its apex immediately, waiting for the gasket to blow.

  The rest of the world shifted out of focus—it was just him in my sights, with nothing else to threaten the assessment. A snarl rumbled from deep in my throat.

  My muscles contracted again, and I sprinted toward the now-terrified drunk. His eyes, once cloudy and unfocused, cleared. He staggered, fear reflecting in his pupils so thickly I could almost see it wafting off in wispy waves.

  On the approach, my feet took a few gracefully twined paces, controlling and directing the momentum. They did a quick, two-step turn and threw a sideways foot through his chest that sent him flying into the neighboring building’s facade.

  The offense continued as he bounced off the wall. My fingers seized his shoulder and elbow, my arms pivoting around and over as I knelt. I watched in amazement as his body flew overhead and landed on the brick pavers with a thud that reverberated in the narrow passageway. br />
  Stunned, I realized I’d flipped him four feet in the air without even recognizing my hands had done it.

  He lay on the ground, unmoving. His chest still rose and fell, but he didn’t make a sound.

  My whole body unwound, the fear and anger cascading away like water wrung from my limbs.

  Suddenly, the world seemed very quiet. The burning sensation in my chest withdrew, leaving a cold, dull ache in its place. I remembered to breathe and inhaled.

  I froze in horror at what I’d done—I’d hurt him, another human being. I had never so much as laid a hand on anyone in aggression in my life. I’d taken a self-defense class when I first moved, like any woman living alone in a city should, but had never set out with the intention of seriously harming someone.

  I supposed I still hadn’t. I hadn’t intended my actions, my body just … reacted. It lasted mere seconds. I couldn’t even accurately describe it, but I’d moved so quickly and effortlessly as though I’d performed the motions every day of my life.

  In a panic, I ran into my apartment, slammed the door, and called the police.

  ***

  The paramedics carried the drunk away on a stretcher.

  I watched from my window, curled into a quilt with the door firmly locked.

  My limbs ached, my whole body trembling with a bone-deep chill. The altercation left me shaken—not just from the attack, but also from my inexplicable response. I refused to leave my apartment, even after the police arrived.

  The officers were standard-issue PD—the term stereotype didn’t even do them justice—but I’d still insisted the pair show their badges. I wrote down the numbers and called to confirm they were valid and, even then, only reluctantly let them in.