by Amie Gibbons
I flinched.
I’d been there.
She drew a deep breath. “The man I want you to find and bring back, he… he raped me,” she said the last part in a near whisper. “He was my friend. One night we were hanging, and…”
She shook her head and bile lurched up my throat.
AB wrapped her arms around herself, shaking almost as badly as Emily.
The story hitting a little too close to home.
Thomas stayed next to Emily, nodding at her to continue.
If he noticed AB’s pain, he didn’t show it.
Or didn’t care.
“I pressed charges,” Emily said. “I wasn’t going to be one of those girls who let a guy get away with that.”
AB flinched so hard I felt it from feet away.
“And I had physical evidence,” Emily continued. “I mean, it was still his word against mine on whether it was consensual, but at least I had the physical evidence. I’m in the forensics master’s program at Florida State, so I knew… I knew to go to the hospital.”
She cleared her throat, and Thomas looked around, asking, “Do you need some water?”
She nodded and he hopped to, grabbing a cup from the table holding the refreshments, and poured her a glass, rushing it back over to us around the sleeping people.
“Thank you,” she said, staring up at him as she accepted the glass, taking a small sip. “Anyway, he was questioned, and the DA decided to move forward and file charges. He was out on bail, and he jumped.”
“Jumped bail,” I said. “Okay, I get tracking down the psychic to find him, I do, but-”
“No,” she cut me off. “I don’t need you to find him. I know where he is. I need you to go get him.”
“Ooooookay?”
She sighed. “He’s part Fae too. A different tribe, but I mean, that old world stuff doesn’t really hold a lot of water if you were born over here. At least, it’s not supposed to.”
She looked down. “He’s one that feeds off sex, and he…” She shook her head. “Anyway, when I say he jumped, I don’t mean he skipped bail, I mean he jumped back into Fairy, through the astral plane.”
She met my eyes. “I need you to go get him and drag him back here.”
My jaw fell open.
“That’s impossible,” Grant said before I could. “No one can cross dimensions physically like that.”
He was lying.
He knew as well as I that it was possible.
But he didn’t want her to know that for some reason.
Pyro had come over from the demon side at some point, which meant he’d traveled through the full length of the astral plane. And we’d seen more than one demon physically manifest here.
They got pulled back at dawn usually, but it was possible.
“No,” Emily said, “they can’t do it easily, but they can do it. How do you think you have part Fae like me and him here?” She nodded up at Thomas. “We’re the products of Fae who moved here, and I don’t mean for a night or just traveled here mentally. My parents are up in North Dakota, and one’s full Fae who got out.”
“He drive your mom crazy?” Thomas asked, voice bitter.
“Huh?” Emily asked. “No, my mom’s the Fae.” She bit her lip, pity for someone else besides herself seeping through the air between them. “Oh my god, your dad was the Fae, and it affected your mom, huh?”
Thomas nodded.
“I’m sorry.” She reached out and he took her hand.
Bonding.
It was a few thin threads, but they were forming.
And suddenly I was glad AB was drunker than a boiled owl.
Because the fuzz in her brain was the only thing insulating her as she watched this.
Even so, she radiated hurt.
I couldn’t blame her.
She’d been comforting him only a few minutes ago, holding him as he cried, and here he was, pouring the attention on another girl just like her.
Right in front of her.
Playing the part of the white knight for the broken little girl.
While AB was broken in the exact same way because of him.
“Don’t seem to have a problem with her being crazy, huh?” AB bit off.
Thomas flinched, turning as he dropped Emily’s hand, eyes burning as he caught AB’s.
She stared back.
“She didn’t do anything fucking crazy,” he snapped. “Unlike some people I know.”
“Oh, you mean like knocking out an entire fucking conference!” AB yelled, gesturing around us. “Trapping us all here? Or did you conveniently forget about that the second the fake blond batted her eyes? My god, Thomas, at least now we know what your problem is. Feeding on pain explains a hell of a lot about you.”
Thomas’s eyes flew wide and he opened his mouth.
“Shut. Up,” Grant said. “Both of you.”
He still had his gun on Emily.
“You,” he said to her.
I focused on him and saw power build around him as he turned his stare up, landing hard eyes on hers.
Making the hairs on my body stand on end.
“Wake these people up,” Grant commanded. “We’re not discussing anything else until you do.”
“I just want you to help me,” she said, turning the chair to stare at me instead of Grant.
She was powerful enough to break away from his stare.
Even I couldn’t do that.
And I’d fought off the stare of the old vampire queen of Nashville when I was still barely learning my powers.
Then again, me not being able to look away from Grant may not have been strictly magic based.
“Agree to help me,” she said, staring me in the eyes.
I stared back, looking into her.
Heart breaking.
Because I understood exactly why she’d done this.
To exert control.
To prove she could.
Because a few months ago, she’d been made helpless.
And she couldn’t take it.
So she did this to force me to do what she wanted.
Because she was about two beats away from breaking like an egg if she didn’t do something.
“Emily,” I said, “I don’t know how to do what you’re asking. Even if Fae can travel through dimensions, I can’t. Even if you’re saying I could, look around. Look what you did. If this guy is more powerful than you, how am I supposed to bring him in?”
She blinked at me.
And finally shook her head.
“You don’t know?” she asked. “You… you’re the psychic that ripped between dimensions. Didn’t open a door. Didn’t do a spell. You just tore. And you didn’t go through the different layers in between them to do it, you did the dimensional equivalent of making a wormhole. I didn’t come to you because you might be able to bring him in. I came to you because you are literally the only person I’ve ever heard of who possibly can.”
We stared at each other.
“Huh?” I finally said.
“You can open a door and walk into Fairy. You are the only person I’ve heard of who can. That’s why I tracked you down.”
“No,” I said, swishing my hands in front of me. “I did that with my spirit in the astral plane, not my body.”
“If you can do it with spirit, you can do it with body,” she said. “It’s probably easier with your body there, because you won’t be expending the extra energy it takes to project into another plane, you’ll just be there.”
I looked over at Grant.
He still hadn’t lowered his gun.
“Sir?” I thought at him.
“She’s damaged, that’s for damn sure,” he said, “but I don’t care how damaged you are, you don’t take four hundred people hostage. I’ll take the gun off her when she takes the spell off them.”
“Oooookay.”
“Emily,” I said out loud, “if others can get in and out, why are you saying I’m the only one who can?”
&nbs
p; “Because you can rip through dimensional walls,” she said, squinting like it was obvious. “They have the doors guarded, but you can make a door wherever you want and just walk in. Go in, find him, knock him out, and rip your way out right there.
“He jumped bail. So soon as you get him back and to the police station, they’ll leave him in jail this time. And he’s not powerful enough to break out if I put spells around it to keep him there once he’s in. Iron bars are good for a lot more than just keeping humans in.”
I nodded. “Okay, but I still don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how I did it last time. I get where you’re coming from, I really do, but-”
“I can walk you through it,” she said. “How to do what you did. How to tap into your powers. I just can’t do it myself, because I don’t have that power. But I swear, I can get you in.”
“And what about out?” Grant asked. “Can you teach her how to get out?”
“The eclipse!” AB suddenly said, voice booming across the room and making at least three of us jump.
Emily nodded. “That’s why I had to find you fast,” she said. “If you get stuck, if it takes you too long to recharge, or anything like that, you can always use the eclipse tomorrow to get out.”
I looked at AB.
“The eclipse is when the walls between the in-between dimensions thin,” AB said. “They have the feel that it should be night, when things can cross easier, but the low energy of day, and that makes them vulnerable. During the full eclipse, who knows what could come through.”
“So we have to worry about Fae breaking out then too!” I said. “Is that a worry?”
Emily nodded. “Eclipses are when most Fae make it out.”
“And here I thought the only thing we had to worry about pouring into Nashville for the eclipse were tourists,” Dan said. “So you were going to mention this when?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t really occur to me. Eclipses happen, Fae get over the borders. That’s just what happens. I was hoping to get him back before he had the chance to tell his tribe about me, but I couldn’t get in on my own. So they might be coming after me soon.”
“Like when they can get through easier?” Kat said. “As in tomorrow?”
Emily nodded.
“And you didn’t think to mention that?” Grant asked.
She curled up tight on herself, holding the jacket close.
“She’s traumatized,” Thomas said. “People don’t think clearly when they’re traumatized.”
AB snorted and looked at me.
I nodded.
Yeah, I got the irony.
“Fantastic,” I said. “Emily, if we get him, that’s still not going to stop them from crossing over tomorrow. They could still come after you. Or just wreak havoc, like Fae do. How do we stop them from coming over?”
“Um, well, I don’t know if you’d be okay with this,” she said, biting her lip and looking up at me with big eyes, “but I was thinking a bomb.”
“Bomb?” Grant and I said as one.
“Yeah?” Her tone made it a question. “Set a bomb in there that’ll go off after you’re out. I mean, if you hate Fae that much, and think you’re at war with them like vampires do, the best way to strike at the enemy is from within, right?”
“We’re not wiping out a bunch of innocent people,” Grant said.
“They’re not innocent,” I said.
Grant kept his eyes on Emily, but I could feel him burning a mental stare right through me.
“They’re not!” I said. “Call me racist, whatever, but every Fae I’ve met or heard of treats humans like animals. We’re nothing more than food or things to be raped to most, pets at best.”
“Not all Fae,” Emily said. “My mom’s not, but that’s also why she fled. And I’m not saying you have to use the bomb. I’m just saying I have one if you want it.”
Her eyes darted between me and Grant.
“You of all people know, you can kill somethings from the outside,” she said. “But it’s a hell of a lot easier to completely destroy something if you go from the inside out. I’m giving you the in.”
“Yeah, got that,” I said. “It’s the gettin’ out so we’re not destroyed with it that I’m worried about.”
“And you didn’t think to mention the bomb earlier, either?” Grant asked.
“I was getting there!” Emily said.
“Alright, y’all,” I said, holding up my hands. “Emily, say you could teach me how to get in, how do I get… the guy out? What’s his name?”
“Shawn,” she said in a near whisper. “Shawn Blankenship. And I can give you the knockout spell I used here for him.”
“And you don’t just want him killed in the blast?” I asked.
Her face twitched. “I… I… I can’t explain it, but I don’t want him dead. The others… they’re nothing to me. They can die, and I don’t care. It’s insane, but I care if he dies. I want him punished, not dead.”
She paused and looked up at me with big eyes. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I want him back alive.”
She looked at me like she was expecting me to answer that craziness for her.
“I get it,” AB said in a hollow voice. “He’s your friend, so you don’t want him hurt, but you want him to know how bad what he did to you is.” She nodded, staring at the floor. “I get it.”
I looked over at Thomas.
He was staring at AB.
Willing her to look at him…
Or daring her.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, squinting at AB to focus on her.
And opened my eyes in the astral plane.
“What the?” AB jerked around in a circle.
We stood in a huge warehouse, her usual mental spot, an ice rink taking up the middle part that used to be bare wood.
“No, Ariana,” she said, not looking at me as ice skates appeared on her feet. “No!”
This was the mental space her therapist took her to when they were working together, and she was getting good at imagining things happening in here.
You didn’t need raw power to make things happen on the astral plane, though it definitely helped.
You just had to believe.
She skated away and I sighed.
I didn’t get the ice skating thing, and the one time I went with her, it freaked me out.
I just kept imagining me falling and some kid running over my fingers on the ice.
But in the astral plane, not really a risk.
I pinched my nose, making skates appear on my feet, and took off after her.
“AB!” I said, skating down the middle of the rink to cut her off.
“How could I be nice to him!” she screamed, so high and loud it made me clamp my hands over my ears as the sound waves reverberated off the walls.
They bounced back, solidifying, turning to poison-dipped shards of daggers raining around us and puncturing the ice.
Standing straight up as spiderwebs of cracks spread from each, moving faster and faster.
“Cats alive, AB!” I said, propping my hands on my hips.
The ice cracked and split under us, and she just kept skating, avoiding the bigger cracks.
Until she couldn’t, and fell right though.
I sighed.
I could’ve told her that was coming.
Her subconscious was almost as literal as she was.
AB came up gasping, and I ditched the ice skates, floating over the ice to her. I grabbed her and pulled her up, changing the rink back into the hardwood floors of the warehouse.
“What is it with you and ice skating?” I asked.
She shrugged. “What’s with you and singing? It’s my hobby. It’s fun.”
I nodded, looking at her.
She stared me down.
“Fine!” she yelled after a moment, tossing her hands up. “I helped him! I was nice to him! I am a fucking moron! How could I have forgotten what he did? How much he’s taken from me? And I went out of my way
to make him feel better? He stared crying and I was right there! Like a moron!”
I didn’t say anything.
Countering someone with logic when they were in an emotional spiral didn’t do anything but amp them up, because they didn’t want to be squelched, they wanted to be heard.
Took me years to learn that about myself.
“Because you should’ve known better,” I said, nodding. “Because he’s taken before, and you keep thinking if you give and give, eventually he’ll appreciate it, and give back.”
She burst into tears, nodding.
I walked forward, wrapping her in a hug.
“I went out of my way,” she cried into my shoulder. “I was there for him. I… it’s like last year all over again. I was there for him, and the second some fake blond shows up, he’s all over her. It was like I…”
“You can say it,” I whispered as she gulped.
“It’s like the second she showed up, I didn’t exist. He was comforting her, giving her his jacket, water, and I just… It’s like I wasn’t even worth noting. I wasn’t even worth him caring that flirting with her in front of me hurts me. It’s like I’m not worth anything.”
And there it was.
The true damage he’d done to her.
“Oh, sweetie,” I said. “Something you have to realize is worth comes from within. You can’t look outside yourself for self-esteem, self-love, or self-respect. That's why there’s self in there. And you can’t give love to others until you have it for yourself.
“And the crappy thing is, nobody can give you that sense of worth, no matter how much they may want to. They can’t love you into being better. You have to do that.
“And the crappier thing is, nobody can give you worth, but all it takes is one person, one person with power over you, to take it away.
“You have to take it back.”
She stared at me with empty eyes. “It’s been almost eight years, and I still haven’t figured out how to do that.” She shook her head. “I can’t handle this, Ari. I can’t.”
I nodded. “I know. Nobody’s asking you to. You shouldn’t have to. He never should have been here in the first place, and that’s on me. I should’ve been on top of the speakers.”
“No,” she said, pulling back. “That’s not your fault. Gavin said he found the guy last minute. Like, this morning. And then had to make sure the guy had a presentation ready. He told me he was surprised the guy was actually here and ready to go. He pulled it together in like four hours.”
