Chapter 9: Centered Again, the Green Moon Way
The drive from Queens to Newark was a silent, tense blur. Noor navigated with a terrifying efficiency, her eyes fixed on the road, while Fatima sat stiffly in the passenger seat, staring at her phone. She’d texted Youssef three times. Hey. What are you up to? Thinking of surprising you for lunch. Call me.
He’d replied with cheerful emojis and excuses about study groups. Normal. So perfectly normal it made her skin crawl.
Her parents’ house in the leafy suburban neighborhood looked achingly familiar, deceptively peaceful. The scent of her mother’s ful medames and fresh pita bread still warmed the air. Hank met them at the door, his broad frame filling the space. He took one look at Fatima’s face and pulled her into a brief, hard hug.
“He’s upstairs,” Hank murmured into her hair. “Been in his room all morning.”
“Where are my parents?”
“Grocery run. I volunteered to stay. Said I was waiting for you.”
Noor slipped past them into the living room, her posture casual but her eyes scanning everything. “Let me talk to him first. Aunty interest in his studies. You…” She glanced at Fatima’s clenched fists. “You breathe.”
Fatima watched Noor ascend the stairs, each step silent on the plush carpet. The familiar sounds of the house—the grandfather clock in the hall, the hum of the fridge—felt like a taunt. This was her sanctuary, and the enemy had potentially scribbled its sigil on a textbook inside it.
Hank’s hand found the small of her back. “Come on.”
He guided her not to the living room, but down the hall to the small guest bedroom. It was her old room when they visited, a mix of her mother’s décor and their own leftovers: vintage rugs, faded tapestries, a scent of lavender from her tea mingling with the ink of Hank’s half-finished crossword puzzle on the nightstand. The bed was unmade, the sheets still tangled from their sleep two nights ago, before the world had fractured.
He closed the door behind them and turned the lock. The click was definitive.
“You’re vibrating,” he said, his voice low. He didn’t mean magic.
“I have to think. I have to plan,” she said, but the words were brittle, her mind a scattered mess of fear and rage—at Amir, at Bedivere, at the faceless Consortium, at this violation of her family’s peaceful ignorance.
“Later.” He cupped her face, his thumbs rough against her cheekbones. His hands always smelled faintly of motor oil and soap, a scent that was home. “You’re no good to anyone like this. You’re here, but you’re back in that lab. I can see it.”
He kissed her. It wasn’t the gentle, greeting kiss of a fiancé. It was a reclamation. His mouth was demanding, insistent, forcing her present tense awareness to the surface. She made a weak sound of protest against his lips, a muffled, “This is more Jan’s way than…”
“I don’t give a shit whose way it is,” he murmured, biting her lower lip softly before soothing it with his tongue. “It works. Get out of your head and into your body. Now.”
His hands slid under her borrowed sweater, finding the bare skin of her waist. She jolted at the contact, a spark of pure sensation cutting through the static in her brain. Her own hands came up, fisting in the fabric of his t-shirt. She kissed him back, opening her mouth to him, a low groan building in her throat.
He broke the kiss only to pull the sweater over her head. Her bra followed, and then he was pushing her back toward the bed. She let herself fall, the soft quilt accepting her weight. He didn’t rush. He stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes dark as they traveled over her. He undid his jeans, shoving them and his boxers down in one push. His cock was already fully hard, thick and curving slightly upward. The familiar sight of it, of him, sent a fresh, liquid heat pooling between her legs.
But he didn’t climb on top of her. Instead, he knelt on the floor at the edge of the bed, hooked his hands under her knees, and pulled her toward him until her ass was on the mattress edge. He pushed her legs apart, his gaze locked on the wet patch already darkening the front of her leggings.
“Hank…” she breathed.
“Quiet.” The word was soft, but absolute. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her leggings and underwear and peeled them down her thighs, past her knees, dropping them to the floor. The cool air of the room kissed her exposed skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of his breath.
He didn’t tease. He lowered his mouth to her cunt and licked a broad, flat stripe from her entrance to her clit.
“Ah!” Her back arched, her hands flying to his head. Her fingers tangled in his short, brown hair, not to guide, but to anchor herself.
He groaned against her, the vibration making her thighs tremble. He settled in, his tongue finding a ruthless, dedicated rhythm. He licked into her, tasting her, then focused on her clit, circling the swollen nub with pointed precision before sucking it gently between his lips.
“Yallah,” she gasped, her hips lifting off the bed. “Just like that.”
He obeyed, intensifying the suction, his tongue flicking rapidly side-to-side over the sensitive peak. The coiling tension in her gut had nothing to do with magic or fear. It was pure, animal need, a vital pulse he was orchestrating with his mouth. One of his hands came up to cup her breast, thumb rubbing her nipple, while the other slid down, two fingers pressing against her entrance.
He pushed them inside her, deep, curling them upward as he sucked her clit hard.
The combination broke her. She came with a choked, sharp cry, her body seizing, her cunt clenching around his fingers in rapid pulses. He didn’t stop. He kept sucking, kept licking, gentler now, drawing the orgasm out until it became a prolonged, shimmering aftershock that left her whimpering and boneless.
He finally lifted his head, his chin glistening. He climbed onto the bed, over her, his weight settling between her thighs. The blunt, hot head of his cock nudged at her slick opening. She was so sensitive she flinched, but she wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him closer.
“I need you to fuck me,” she whispered, her voice raw. “Hard. I need to feel it.”
He pushed in slowly, an inexorable, filling stretch that made her eyes roll back. He sank to the hilt, his pelvis pressed flush against hers, and paused, letting her adjust, letting her feel the complete, stuffed fullness of him.
Then he moved. He didn’t start fast. His strokes were deep, measured, and punishingly thorough. Each withdrawal was almost complete, each thrust a deliberate, ground-shaking reclaiming of space inside her. The bedframe knocked a soft, steady rhythm against the wall.
“This is what’s real,” he grunted, his face buried in the curve of her neck. “Me. You. This.”
She could only moan in agreement, her nails scoring down his sweat-slick back. Each drive of his hips chased the ghosts from her mind, replacing them with a glorious, demanding physicality. The soreness in her stitched arm, the residual ache from the lab—all of it was subsumed by the profound, fucking reality of his body moving in hers.
She felt another climax building, different from the first, deeper, a crescendo born from this relentless, possessive pounding. “I’m gonna come again,” she warned, her voice fractured.
“Come on my cock,” he growled, his pace gaining a rougher edge. “Soak me. Let me feel it.”
His words tipped her over. She cried out, a guttural, Arabic curse she’d learned from her grandmother tearing from her lips as her vision whited out. Her cunt convulsed around him, a fierce, rhythmic milking that shattered his control. With a ragged shout, he hammered into her one last, final time and held, his body bowing as he emptied himself inside her in hot, pulsing jets.
They collapsed together, a tangled, sweating heap. His weight was a comfort. The smell of their sex filled the familiar room. The frantic, metallic fear that had coiled in her chest was gone, replaced by a heavy, spent calm. Her mind was clear, quiet.
He shifted to the side, pulling her with him, still connected. They lay in silence for long minutes, listening to each other’s breathing even out.
Finally, she spoke. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he mumbled into her hair.
“I’m ready.”
A soft knock came at the door. Noor’s voice, low and controlled, filtered through. “Fatima. We need to talk. Now.”
Fatima extracted herself from Hank’s arms. She moved with a new certainty, finding her clothes, dressing. Hank watched her, pulling the sheet over himself. The calm in her eyes had hardened into something sharp and ready.
She unlocked the door. Noor stood there, her face grave. In her hand, she held Youssef’s macroeconomics textbook. The Delta Kappa Psi sticker with its gear-and-test-tube logo was on the cover.
“He got it at a rush party last week,” Noor said quietly. “He thought it was ‘retro cool.’ He showed me his ‘big brother’ assignment. A senior named Peter. He described him. Tall, blond, pre-med. Political science major. Charming.”
Fatima took the book, her fingers tracing the sticker. “A recruiter.”
“He gave Youssef a ‘project.’ To catalog the ideological leanings of his professors. Particularly those in the history and philosophy departments. A ‘free speech audit.’” Noor’s mouth was a thin line. “Youssef is bright. He’s flattered. He thinks he’s joining a serious intellectual fraternity.”
“They’re using him to identify targets,” Fatima said. The clarity was chilling. “Professors who might teach critical thinking, skepticism, the history of dogma. People the Consortium would want to… discredit. Or worse.”
“We cannot tell him,” Noor said. “Not outright. He will not believe us. He will think we are paranoid, trying to control him. It could push him further toward them.”
From downstairs, the front door opened. The sound of grocery bags rustling, her mother’s cheerful voice calling a greeting.
Fatima looked from the textbook to Noor’s grim face, then back to Hank, who was pulling on his jeans, his expression set. The sanctuary had been breached. The fight wasn’t in a grimy lab or a city dock. It was here, in a sunny suburban house, for the mind of her little brother.
“Then we don’t tell him,” Fatima said, her voice low and steady. “We show him. We make Peter show him exactly what he is.”
A plan, cold and precise, began to form in the clear space Hank’s loving violence had carved for her. She was no longer just a Green Moon initiate cleaning up a magical mess. She was a sister protecting her own. And she would be, as Jan had once cheerfully dubbed her, the deadliest motherfucker from Newark.
The title still prickled, but she let the intent fuel her now—a focused, protective lethality. Downstairs, she kissed her mother’s cheek, inhaled the scent of garlic and cumin, and made pleasant lies taste like truth. “Just a quick errand, Mama. Hank and I have to head out to the city. Auntie Noor is coming with us. Youssef seems great.”
She left the textbook on the coffee table, a silent bomb.
In the rented car, with Hank driving and Noor in the back seat already scrolling through encrypted networks on a tablet, Fatima laid out the skeleton of her plan. “We need to know everything about Peter. Then we make him reveal himself to Youssef. Not through magic. Through his own arrogance.”
“A setting he controls,” Noor mused. “The frat house. A party.”
“Where he feels safe,” Fatima agreed. “Where his guard is down. We provide the pressure. He’ll do the rest.”
Hank’s hands tightened on the wheel. “What’s the pressure?”
Fatima looked out at the blur of suburbs. “Me.”
Back at the safe house, the silence felt different after Eric relayed Fatima’s departure. Jan slumped on the sofa, the beer bottle cool in her hand. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a hollow, shaky feeling behind, as if her nerves had been scraped raw and her spiritual anchors cut loose.
“I feel untethered,” she said to the room, her voice unusually quiet. “That bitch didn’t just take energy. She took the… the glue. I need something to center me. Works best with someone close. A friend.”
She looked at Eric, who was feeding Reggie a piece of jerky from his pocket. “Sorry, Eric. You’re great, but we just met.”
Eric waved a hand. “No offense taken. Reggie and I need to get back to the shelter sooner than later anyway. The dogs don’t feed themselves.”
The bathroom door opened, steam billowing out. Mike and Casey emerged, scrubbed clean and wearing borrowed bathrobes, their hair damp. They were debating subway routes versus taxi fares back to their hotel where Amy and Jason had their baby.
“—because the A train is a nightmare with a stroller, but a cab from here will cost a hundred bucks,” Casey was saying.
“Hey,” Jan said, standing up. “I need something from you two first.”
She didn’t wait. She grabbed the hem of the oversized Ramones t-shirt and pulled it over her head in one swift motion. She stood naked in the middle of the safe house living room, her freckled skin pale under the fluorescent light, her small breasts, the red curls at the junction of her thighs. The Power of Exposure unfolded from her instinctively, a wave of awe-inspiring presence meant to captivate and enthrall.
Eric blinked, his breath catching audibly. He stared, a faint flush creeping up his neck.
Mike and Casey just sighed in unison.
Mike cocked his head, a wry, tired smile on his face. “So, what, Jan? Are we just a piece of meat to you?”
Jan paused, her confident posture faltering for a second. No one had ever spoken to her like that before, even as a joke. The Power of Exposure just… slid off them, as if they were coated in non-stick coating of sheer, married familiarity.
Casey rolled her eyes and untied her robe, letting it drop. “Is this the only way you Green Moon people know how to heal yourselves? Or others? Does it always have to be a gangbang?”
Jan recovered, a genuine laugh bubbling up. “Fatima claims there are meditation techniques. Chants. Ritual baths. They sound way less fun.” She stepped closer, her gaze flicking to Mike, who was shrugging out of his own robe.
His body was familiar to her—the slight softness of a dad who worked from home, the kind eyes in a grinning face. His cock was already half-hard, responding to the simple, naked reality of the women in the room rather than any magic. Casey reached over and gave him a playful tug, her fingers encircling his shaft.
“It’s a good thing you’re our friend, Jan,” Casey said dryly, stroking Mike slowly. “Or else we might think you were taking advantage of us.”
Godfrey, lying on a pile of discarded jackets, let out a loud, protracted yawn and laid his head on his paws.
Eric cleared his throat, turning away. “Reggie and I will, uh, check the perimeter. Give you some time to… heal.”
He hustled the mutt out the front door, leaving the three of them alone.
What followed wasn’t the chaotic, magical revel Jan was known for. It was functional, intimate, and deeply grounding. Casey kissed Jan first, a soft press of lips that tasted of mint toothpaste, while Mike’s hands settled on Jan’s hips from behind. They moved her to the large, worn armchair. Casey lowered herself to her knees, parting Jan’s legs, and put her mouth on her with a confident, thorough dedication that had Jan gasping and arching within seconds.
At the same time, Mike knelt behind the chair, his hands on Jan’s shoulders, his mouth on the sensitive skin of her neck. He reached around, his fingers finding her nipples, pinching and rolling them in time with the rhythm of Casey’s tongue. Jan was engulfed in sensation, a sandwich of pure, physical attention that anchored her fiercely to the present. She came against Casey’s mouth with a sharp cry, her fingers fisted in Casey’s dark, damp hair.
They shifted without words. Jan slid to the floor on the rug. Mike lay back, and Jan straddled him, sinking onto his thick cock with a grateful sigh. The stretch was perfect, filling the hollow feeling inside her with solid, warm reality. She rode him with a steady, rolling rhythm, leaning forward to kiss Casey who knelt beside them, kissing her deeply, tasting herself on Casey’s tongue.
Casey’s hand slid between Jan’s legs, her thumb pressing circles on Jan’s clit as she fucked Mike. The dual stimulation built another climax fast, a tighter, deeper coil. “Yeah, just like that, fuck me,” Jan chanted, bouncing harder, feeling Mike’s hands clamp on her ass, his hips driving up to meet her.
Mike came first with a choked-off grunt, his body seizing beneath her. The feel of him pulsing inside her tipped Jan over the edge a moment later, a second, shuddering orgasm that made her vision spark. She collapsed onto his chest, breathing hard.
They lay in a sweaty, tangled heap on the rug for a few minutes. Then Casey, ever practical, asked, “So are we going to have to fuck all of Yara’s victims to help them heal? Because I love you, Jan, but we have schedules.”
Jan laughed, a real, full-bodied sound that felt good in her raw throat. “Vivian can handle some of that. Dale already… never mind.” She pushed herself up, feeling centered, solid, the unmooring sensation replaced by a clean fatigue.
Mike abruptly sat up. “Okay, we really gotta go.” He and Casey stood, pulling on their clothes from the day before with efficient haste. They debated the merits of a taxi stand versus the nearby subway entrance, their conversation instantly reverting to the mundane logistics of parenthood.
“Whoa, what the fuck is up with the quick exit?” Jan asked, pulling the t-shirt back on.
Casey turned at the door, one eyebrow arched. She spoke slowly, as if to a very small child. “Jan. We have a baby. To take care of.” The emphasis was patient and utterly final.
Jan laughed again as the door shut behind them. The sound echoed in the suddenly quiet safe house. She felt good. Weirdly great, in fact. The healing had worked. She got up, found her phone, and got to work.
She understood Fatima was handling the family crisis in Newark. That was a different kind of war. But the visceral, personal violation of the lab, of Bedivere’s cold curiosity cutting into her and her friends—that was Jan’s to answer. Someone had to find that golden-wand-wielding motherfucker before he decided to carve up other magical batteries. And it sure as shit wasn’t going to be the pacifist animal communicator or the parents of a six-month-old.
She scrolled through her contacts, the screen’s glow lighting her determined face. She needed tracker magic. She needed someone who knew how the Golden Wands hid their trails in plain sight. She needed, she realized with a grim smile, a different kind of professional.
Her finger hovered over a name she hadn’t dialed in months. A broker. A person who knew the value of secrets and the price of betrayal.
She tapped the screen and brought the phone to her ear. It rang twice.
A smooth, neutral voice answered. “Yes?”
“Zippo,” Jan said, her voice all business. “It’s Red Tornado. I need to find a lost wand. And I’m willing to pay whatever it takes to get its location.”