“Not at all.”
"No? You sure about that? Because you sure have been eyeing three in particular, including the one you did fuck."
“You can try to hurt me with your words, but I don’t—”
"You don't care what I have to say, huh? Then we aren't really friends, are we?" She hums.
“We’re friends,” I tell her. “If you want us to be.”
“I don’t want us to be,” she says firmly, a strange glint in her eyes. “I want to set you on fire and then heal you and then burn you again. It’s terrible, smelling your own burning flesh, but eventually, you get used to the smell. You get used to the pain. You become numb. It’s… It’s terrifying, but it’s also wonderful.”
“Go ahead. Set me on fire. Stay here for the rest of your life. I don’t care.”
“Maybe I will!” Spring’s smile is slow to form, but it has something in it that makes my heart skip a beat.
Spring, my friend, is completely dead and gone. I don’t know if this place has changed her or if she’s just given over to the darkness, but now, the Spring before me very well could be my future murderer.
24
“Get ready, Bay,” she says.
She’s stalking toward me in this way too small cell. I’m not even sure when she stood up, and I hate myself for it, but I’m backing away from her until I collide with the door to the cell.
“Get ready to die!”
“Spring! That’s enough!”
“Cosmo,” I murmur, his name coming out like a breath or a prayer on my lips. I shift to the side so I can see him and Spring.
“What the fuck you doing here, Cosmo?” Spring snaps.
“I overheard some of what you two were talking about,” he says, “and you—”
"You couldn't get enough of Bay, could you? No. What does she have, a magical pussy or something? You fucked it a few times, and now you want more? Seriously, why else are you here? You don't want to be a guard. You're nothing more than a fucking groupie—"
“Spring, Bay, come with me.”
I inhale through my nose and nod. “Whatever you want.”
Spring sneers. “Is that how it is in the bedroom? You’re a submissive? I never would’ve expected that.”
I don’t bother to rise to her bait.
“Or do you just want to pretend that your Rosemary?” Spring continues. “I mean, didn’t your twin fuck up a relationship with a guy because she was emulating you? How fucked up is that? Not very light of her, is it?”
Cosmo bangs on the cell, and it opens. To my surprise, he clamps cuffs on me and then Spring.
“With me,” he says gruffly, and he yanks our chains to force us to keep a swift pace behind him.
A few of the other inmates call out. One girl I don't know tells him to just clip our wings already, and I wince. So much anger and hatred here. It's a powder keg, and someday, it's going to boil over and explode.
Probably before I get a chance to get the hell out of here.
If I ever get out of here.
Cosmo brings us to a room that has a small table and two chairs. He directs me to sit at one end and Spring the other. He stands between us, his hands on the table.
I go to shift my chair forward more, but I can’t. It’s bolted to the floor. I bet the table is too. Probably because someone used them in a fight once, I bet.
"You two need to even things out," he snaps, "or else the warden is going to want to see you both, and I don't think either of you wants that."
“You going to threaten to give us the root?” Spring asks.
“No, but I will administer it if I have to.”
“Ouch. Guess he doesn’t love you after all,” Spring informs me.
I want to ask what the root does, but I still don’t think I want to know, and I definitely don’t want to find out firsthand. If I ask, Spring will just make me feel ignorant, and I’m tired of having her dictate my emotions.
“You two were friends,” Cosmo says.
“You know our history?” Spring mocks. She claps her hands. “How about you tell us something we don’t know?”
"If you two don't work things out, you will have to be clipped."
That shuts her right up.
“Seriously?” I ask. “They can’t do that.”
“They can.”
“Sure.” I can’t help scoffing. “Every single fairy I’ve seen here has their wings. You can’t tell me—”
“Bay,” Spring says, her tone real and earnest for the first time in years. “They have. They don’t keep those fairies in the same area as us. They have to eat in their cells. A lot of them… It’s said that a lot of them starve to death, that they can’t handle it. It’s not enough for them to take our magic away, that we can’t even fly. No, they’ll take our wings too. What’s a fairy without her wings? Not a fairy anymore.”
“You can’t be upset with me for enforcing the rules when it’s you who is forcing my hands,” Cosmo says. “It’s simple. You two are staying here until you can convince me that you’ve worked this out.”
“Because words are going to be enough.” I roll my eyes. “I’ve tried talking to her.”
“Spring, you hate Bay because she supplied you with fairy dust,” Cosmo says.
“Yes, the fairy dust she asked for,” I cut in.
“You asked for it?” Cosmo questions. “I know you did after the first batch.
“Yes, I mentioned it to Bay, gave her the idea,” Spring admits.
“Why did you want it? Did you have it before Light Fae Academy?” he asks.
“Once.” Spring bites her lower lip and then sighs. “My mom had a bag of it at the treehouse. I found it, spilled some. I was three. My mom found me.”
“Is that the first time she burned you?” I ask quietly.
Spring nods, her gaze firmly fixed on the center of the table. “She hurt me so badly, and I screamed. I screamed so loud, but no one heard. No one came. No one saved me. When I screamed, she burned me longer, and I learned to stop.”
“Stop screaming?” I ask.
“Stop breathing. I would hold my breath. I passed out a few times, but that was better than the pain.”
This admission and when she talked about screaming… Spring's voice, it's changed. It's different. Somehow, her voice sounds younger. It's almost as if she's reliving her past memories, as if she's reverting back to that girl.
My heart aches for her. I want to reach out and hug her, but I don’t dare.
“I was ten when I next found her stash. By then, I felt like I was going insane. The voices in my head… I couldn’t get them out. I could hear everything, every thought. It was to the point that I couldn’t even think. So I found the fairy dust, and I did a line. And bliss. I could hear myself again. I can be just me! But after that one hit, my mom moved the stash, and I never had it again.” Spring glances at me and then stares back at the table. “Not until Bay got it for me.”
“Why do you think you can hear voices so much?” I ask.
"I don't know. Even fairies who block their thoughts, I can still hear. It's not something I want."
"It's just how your magic manifests," Cosmo says. He runs a hand through his glittery silver hair. "Holy fuck, Spring. I had no idea you dealt with all of this."
“Yeah, well, Cosmo Blackbird, it’s not something I announce to just everyone,” Spring says. She sounds more like her sarcastic self now, and she gives him a smirk.
“I can understand that, but, Spring, you can’t blame Bay for what you did while you were high. You stole to get more of the fairy dust, and then you set fires.”
"Because my mom was released from this hell hole!" Spring snaps. "Why was she released? I finally had the nerve to tell someone about her. She got sent away, and I thought I could be free, that everything would be perfect. I went to Light Fae Academy thinking that my life could finally turn around, and then what happened? The voices in my head. So many voices. All the time. I mean, do you really think I want to know
all of the guys who wanted to fuck Bay? All of the girls who wanted to be her? All of the girls who wanted to fuck you, Cosmo? So many thoughts, and hardly any of them were light. I mean… I just…" Spring bites her lower lip.
“You were desperate,” I murmur. “You felt trapped because of your mind, and you wanted an out.”
“That still doesn’t excuse what you did,” Cosmo says. “It’s just fair to blame Bay.”
“Why don’t we dissect Bay now?” Spring snaps. “Why are you all focused on me so much?”
“Maybe because we’re supposed to be settling things between us,” I say lightly. “You have a beef with me.”
“And you don’t have a beef with me? I’ve heard about why you’re here. Seems to me that drug dealing is what set you on the path to ruin. You hooked up with that demon, and he brought you down to a darkness that I can’t even contemplate. You brought yourself here. How do you like it among the masses? You’ve always thought yourself better than everyone, didn’t you, Bay?”
“Not true, Spring. I’m no better than anyone. I just did what I wanted to, and yes, I did do things that I shouldn’t have, things that I regret. Bottom line, I have to figure out who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life because I don’t want to spend the rest of my years rotting away in here.”
Spring just shakes her head and barks a sarcastic laugh. “You’re as naïve as your twin, you know that?”
“I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life rotting away in here either, Spring. It’s not too late for us. It’s not too late for you.”
She stares at me for a long moment, her face unreadable. Then, the corner of her lips curls upward. “You so sure about that?”
“Yes,” I say simply.
After a moment, she nods. “All right. Fine. We can have a truce. I just… I don’t want you all, for everyone, to act like Bay’s on some kind of pedestal.”
“I’m not on one.”
“You are,” she insists.
“Then you can kick it out from under me,” I tell her.
She smiles wide then. "All right. I will. I just don't want anyone to think I'm weak."
“No one does,” I assure her.
“Or that I’m crazy.”
I can’t respond to that.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she mumbles.
“Spring, we can work to change their minds,” I assure her.
“See?” Cosmo beams. “I knew this would work. You two are my friends. Maybe I shouldn’t be assigned to you, given our history, but better me than some of the others who do want to administer that root more freely.”
Spring shudders. “Thanks, Cosmo. I’m sorry I was such a bitch earlier.”
“I understand, but, ah, let’s try not to be so bitchy next time, all right?”
“You do tend to be a bitch yourself at times,” I tease him.
“Nope. That’s not me. I’m pure alpha.” He meets my gaze, and my heart skips a beat. He’s hot. Why did I bother to find Zoth when I had this hunk of a fairy?
Maybe I had been scared. Cosmo was so much like me that I didn’t think he could be in a serious relationship.
And maybe I didn’t know if I could handle a serious relationship.
So what did I do? I turned around and had a serious relationship with a demon of all beings. Because demons are known for being trustworthy and loyal and fidelity and all that.
“We’ve all made mistakes,” I murmur, “but we can push them to the past and move forward.”
“I like the sound of that,” Spring says.
25
I’m feeling so much better about everything as Cosmo removes our cuffs and then guides us back to our cells. Spring seems genuine, and we can move forward, just like I said.
And it seems that way. It really does. Spring and I talk, and I tell her about Zoth. All of it. I don’t tell her about my incident with the human and his blood.
Spring, for her part, doesn’t judge me, but she does ask a few personal questions.
“Did you ever grab his horns when you were riding him?” Spring asks.
I laugh. “I wanted to, but I never dared.”
“Bay was scared?”
“Yes, actually.” My smile dies. “I should’ve realized that meant that I wasn’t in a good relationship.”
“You want to master Illumination now to spite him, don’t you?”
“Yes and no. I don’t know. I haven’t really been able to get a grasp on it before, so what makes me think I can now?”
“You could try talking to Violet about it.”
“Violet hates me now.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I can be kind of petty,” Spring admits.
“You have trust issues because of your mom. I get it.”
“No more excuses. We’re not supposed to talk about the past anymore, remember?”
“Sorry. No more Zoth talk.” I hesitate. “What do you want to talk about?”
Spring laughs. “I know it’s the past, but we can talk about the time Trevan and I…”
“Ah, yeah, no. No thanks.”
She laughs some more, and I do too. This is… nice. It is. Maybe my time here won’t be so bad.
Sleep comes to me easily that night, but then, I can’t breathe. I’m jolted awake by hands on my throat. Spring? It has to be.
My eyes open as I grab her hands. It's dark, completely dark, so I hadn't been asleep for long. I can't see more than a shadow of the form looming over me, and her grip is so fierce. I heard rumors about the strength Spring had when she was on fairy dust, but that's impossible. She can't have access to any now, but her hands on my throat… I can feel it. The pressure is so much that she's going to twist and break my neck.
I roll over, forcing her to the ground, twisting my back so that my back is to her, and then I roll more to slam her against the ground. There’s a sickening thud, and I grab one of her fingers, just one, and yank it back, bending it far more than the joint should allow. There’s a popping sound, and I peel that one hand away from my throat.
She still has the other one on good and tight, and I try to grab one of those fingers, but she’s wizened up. I have to keep an arm up to block the other hand from reattaching on my throat, and I grab her hair and yank as hard as I can. A typical girl fight move, but it’s a classic for a reason.
She doesn’t hiss or cry out, but she does release my throat, and I move up from lying on the ground to a crouched position, staying low, wanting to make myself as small of a target as possible.
Her foot comes at me. I can barely see it, and I throw myself backward to dodge it. I narrowly avoid bashing my head against the wall. Man, this isn’t just a fight. This is an all-out brawl, and she’s coming for blood.
“Spring—”
Her hand slaps across my mouth. Clearly, she doesn't want me to talk. She doesn't want anyone else to wake up, to be alerted to our fight. Spring can't risk the guards finding out because they'll stop this.
A part of me wants to alert them, to end this, but another part of me wants to just duke it out, to fight, to finish this the way it’s looking like it’ll have to be finished. She played Cosmo, and she played me. She’s not crazy. No, Spring is wickedly smart, and she’s ruthless and cunning.
I underestimated her for the last time.
Although I want to yell, I don't, but I do stomp my feet as hard as I can on the stone floor before I lunge, tackling her. I mount her, my knees up high jammed up against her armpits as I sit on her chest. She flails her arms, trying to fight me, to hit me, slap or punch me, I'm not sure, but I manage to grab one wrist and then the other. I pin them above her head, and I do my best to hold them there in place with one hand. With the other, I grab her nose and yank her face up before slamming it against the stone floor. I manage to get in two good slams before she bucks her hips and kicks up her legs to throw me up over her.
I make a point of banging into my bed, and I slap my palms against the frame and then dash over to t
he bars.
Spring yanks on my hair, and I latch onto the bars. “Spring’s trying to kill me!” I shriek.
She slams me so hard against the bars that I see stars. I’m dazed, and I can’t think.
Spring yanks on my hair to force me back. I grab the bars and try to stop her, to prevent my head from rushing forward. I open my mouth to cry out again, but there’s so much blood in my mouth that I gag instead.
My head connects with the bars again.
She winds up for a third blow. It might well be the finishing one, but the bars aren’t there.
A guard I’ve never seen before is there.
The fight’s over.
I lost, and I have a feeling that if I lose again, I’ll be the one to end up dead.
26
The guard ties the knot so hard that I can already feel my skin rub raw. He's an ass of a guard, ugly too, and I don't like him one bit.
“You two were warned,” he says gleefully, “and I’m the lucky one to administer it to you.”
“Not the…” Spring trails off.
“Oh, yes,” he says, still gleeful. “Depressed Falicious Root. You’ve had it before, haven’t you, Spring? I’m surprised the threat of it alone wasn’t enough to get you to stop and behave like a good little fairy.”
She spits in his face, but he just laughs and laughs.
Once we’re both bound nice and tight, propped up on our beds, he turns to me and then back to Spring. “You first. Open up.”
She doesn’t open her mouth, and he punches her hard in the stomach. Her mouth still doesn’t open, so he grabs her jaw and squeezes, giving her no choice. He shoves something into her mouth and then covers her nose and mouth, forcing her to keep her mouth shut. She struggles against him, but then she has no choice but to swallow.
Before I can see her react to the stuff, he’s already turning to me. “You going to behave?”
I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to be manhandled, so I obediently open my mouth. He places the Depressed Falicious Root into my mouth.
Dark Fae Penitentiary: First Transgression Page 12
