by Elle Casey
The criticism in his voice was impossible to miss. “What did I do?” I snorted. “How about I tell you what she did.”
Spike’s response was the worst of all of them. “Jayne?” His brow went up and he just stood there, expecting me to bow my head and apologize or something insane like that. Something cracked in my chest; I was pretty sure it was my heart.
Becky walked over and stood next to me, putting her hand in mine. “Don’t worry, Jayne. We understand.”
I shook her off. “You understand what? That I’m a friggin idiot fae? Short bus rider?”
She looked up at me confused. “What? No, I didn’t say that.”
I glared at my friends and the guy who was supposed to love me no matter what, suddenly seeing them through different eyes. Had they always looked at me and seen a big idiot standing in front of them? Had I fooled myself into thinking they actually respected me and appreciated my efforts at trying to do the right thing? Had I always loved Spike more than he loved me back? It was heartbreaking to think I’d been wrong about all of that. I wanted to cry, but I was too pissed to let them see that.
“You know what? Screw you guys.” I stormed off, moving through the bushes and trees as fast as my feet would take me. I had no idea where I was going, just that I wanted it to be as far away from them as I could get.
Chapter Thirty
I’D BEEN CRASHING THROUGH THE landscape for a good half hour or so when I heard his voice. “Hey! Wait up, roomie! Where’re you going?”
I stopped immediately, trying to stand perfectly still, hoping he’d fly by and miss me entirely. But he wasn’t that easy to get rid of; he kept coming, his voice moving closer and closer. “You’re getting really far from the camp. You sure you want to do that?”
I gave up on being incognito and continued on my way, the moon and stars lighting up a nice path in front of me. “Go away, Tim. I want to be alone.”
“Phooey on that. Who wants to be alone after hanging out with a succubus? No one I know. You need to reconnect, preferably not with someone who wants to suck the life out of you.” He finally caught up and buzzed along beside me, ignoring my cold shoulder and occasional swat in his direction.
I’d thought walking briskly off in the opposite direction of my friends would make me feel better, but the farther I got, the more determined I was to escape. I didn’t want them to come after me and find me, to tell me they were sorry and didn’t mean those horrible looks they were giving me when they thought I’d hurt Felicia. She asked for it. She did it to herself. I did nothing but protect myself.
“That was awesome, by the way,” Tim said. “The way you shocked the bejeesus out of that cube-eye.”
“I didn’t shock her. She shocked herself.”
“Well, obviously.” He snorted. “She should have kept her greedy little hands in Tony’s pants instead of trying to get into yours.”
I stopped walking, wondering if he was just messing with me. “Exactly.”
Tim was hovering in the air, hands on hips. “I mean, who is she kidding, right?” He snorted. “Oh, let me show you to the bathroom, Jayne. I’ll watch your back. As if.”
I felt a little guilty at that point. “She didn’t offer to come. I asked her to come, and she actually kind of warned me.” I squirmed, not comfortable with the fact that I was at the point of accepting some of the blame for what happened. Why did everything always have to be my fault? For once, I wanted it to be someone else’s. That made me angry at her all over again. Stupid succubus. I should have stabbed her with my sword.
“So? Does that make it okay, then? She warned you she might come after you and you told her you trusted her not to and then she just does it anyway? Not cool, Jayne. Not cool. She owes you a big, fat apology.”
I trudged on, not nearly as fast as I had been, though. “You think so?”
“Of course. She was in the wrong. The Green put her in her place. But that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be sorry. She crossed the line and she knows it.”
“How do you know she knows it? Did she say that?”
“Uh, no. She’s unconscious. But when she wakes up, she’ll know it.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“She will. She’s just knocked out. Stupid cube-eye. Those fae are trouble, I’m tellin’ ya. We should have left her behind.”
“What about Spike? Should we have left him behind too?”
“Maybe. But then you probably would have gotten all goobery, crying about missing your boyfriend, so, yeah. He kind of has to come, but at the same time, it would have been better if he hadn’t.”
I pictured Spike and Felicia running through the forest together, sucking each other’s energy or having energy sucking parties with co-victims or whatever it was they did out there, and it made me sick with jealousy. Absolutely, positively sick. I wanted to kill them both just thinking about it. Kill and maim. With pain.
Spittle flew out of my mouth as I relived our conversation. “She said a cube-eye couldn’t live off just the energy of one fae for the rest of their lives.” I was dropping into fully depressed and enraged mode at a rapid pace. Had Felicia said these things to educate me about her or about Spike? Was she trying to tell me something she thought I should hear? Maybe Spike cheated on me, and this was her way of letting me know gently.
“She’s probably right,” Tim said. “She would know.”
I stopped suddenly and faced him. “So what the hell does that mean for me and Spike?” I couldn’t keep the tears out of my voice since they were now flowing freely down my face.
“Hey, hey, what’s with the waterworks?” He flew to my face and tried to brush a tear away, but it almost took him down. Giving up, he patted my nose instead. “Easy there. You know your eyes get all puffy when you cry. If you want to keep your man, you should probably avoid that look.”
“Tim!” I swatted him away. “That’s not helping!”
“I’m kidding, kidding … lighten up. You look fine with puffy eyes. Now, the dripping nose, not so much, but…”
I didn’t stick around to hear any more. I left him there elaborating about how ugly I get when I leak body fluids. It was the perfect ending to a perfect night, or would have been if he’d stayed back there where he belonged in my rearview mirror. But of course he didn’t. He was back to pestering me in less than a minute.
“So where are we going?” he asked.
“I’m going up. You’re going away.”
“Up? Up where?”
I pointed, only realizing as I answered where I was headed. “Up to the dragon’s lair.”
“Ohhhh, so we’re on a suicide mission. Gotcha. Maybe I should hang back here and watch your six.”
“Yeah, you do that. Watch my six.” I wished I had some gas for that six, but of course my intestines weren’t cooperating. Why should they? Nothing else in my life was.
A few minutes later, I could feel the buzz of his wings near my head again. “My six is behind me. Way behind me, Tim.”
“Yeah, but I decided I don’t like watching your six. Too risky. I’d prefer to watch your twelve.”
“There’s a mean dragon in my twelve,” I said, going breathless with the climb. The path was much steeper than I’d imagined it would be. I had to grab tree limbs and exposed roots to keep going up. Luckily, there was still a vague type of path leading the way.
“I’m faster than any old lizard, don’t you worry about me. If I were you, I’d be more worried about myself. What’s your plan, Stan? You just going to walk up to that lair and introduce yourself?”
“I’ve already introduced myself. I’m going to go up there to ask that lizard where the entrance to the Underworld is.”
“Then what?”
I indulged in a little fantasy at that point. “Then I’m going to jump on his back and tell him to take me there, pronto. I’m outta this place tonight.”
“Ohhh, okay. So you’re just going to leave all your friends behind in this no man’s land, is that it?”
“No. Yes. Maybe.” I was totally confused at that point. My lack of sleep and the aching wound on my arm were not helping the situation one bit, either.
“Harsh. What did Felicia say to you back there that made you so sad?”
“Nothing.” I couldn’t even remember what she said. Did it matter? I knew what they thought about me.
“Did she say anything?” he asked experimentally.
“Of course she said something.”
“Then what was it?”
“None of your damn business, is what it was.”
“You can’t remember, can you?”
I stopped suddenly enough that he banged into me. I didn’t bother holding out my hand to catch him. Instead, I watched him fall into the dirt. A second or two later, he stood up and brushed himself off. It was so tempting to step on him, but I didn’t. I kept seeing images of Abby and Willy crying over it.
He brushed his arms and legs off, sighing. “Yep. Just as I suspected.”
I walked off, not interested in hearing his bullshit.
He was back in my face in no time, of course. “Elemental, listen up. You’re infected.”
“Go away.”
“No, listen. I’m not going away. You have to hear this.”
I waved my arm out, trying to make contact and send him to the moon. “I don’t have to listen to anything you’re saying.”
“Yes, you do. Roommates’ code. You have to listen to everything I say at all times.” He zoomed in from out of nowhere and went for my eye, poking me right in the middle of it.
I grabbed my face, the stinging under my lid unbelievably painful. “Ow, goddammit, Tim! What the hell!”
“Sorry, but it had to be done!”
I pulled my dagger out of its sheath and started waving it around blindly. “Come over here so I can stab you!” I seriously meant it too; I was ready to kill him.
“Ho boy, no thank you on that! I’ll skip the stabbing and go right for the making up part. The part where you thank me for saving your life and all your friends’ lives too.”
“Shut up!” I screamed, desperately wanting him to stop talking for some reason. Tim was always annoying, but this was outer limits. I felt like if I heard another word, I was going to explode.
“You’re infected, Jayne! The demon sword has infected you! You shouldn’t have cut yourself!”
I screamed with rage, slicing and dicing for all I was worth. I could only see out of one eye, but it was enough to catch glimpses of my roommate flying around me. Just a little closer…
“You’re going to force me to do something I don’t want to do!” he yelled, sounding like a stern father.
“I doubt it!” I screamed, trying to open my eye. Tears were streaming down my face, the sad ones mixing in with the painful eye-poke ones.
“You know I mean you no harm, so that bug zapper better not zap me!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just kept swinging the sword around, hoping it would keep him away from my other eye. He was getting kicked out of my room as soon as we got back to the fae compound. Him and his whole stupid pixie family.
My arm got tired really quickly. All of a sudden the demon sword was so heavy, I couldn’t lift it anymore. It fell to the ground, taking my arm with it. I was standing in a clearing with cut branches and sliced up leaves littering the ground around me, and the prettiest sparkles were raining down on me. It was like the sky had fallen and the tiny pricks of starlight were right there above my head. I looked up, expecting to see a sky full of snowflakes, since everyone knows stars don’t fall from the sky. Instead, I saw a spinning, twitching pixie lit up like he was covered in Christmas lights.
“What are you doing, Tim?” I was too exhausted to be mad anymore. All I wanted to do was rest.
“I’m dusting your ass. You needed to calm down. That demon venom was starting to take over.”
I smiled vaguely. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Okay.” I looked ahead of me on the path. I needed to get up there. I couldn’t remember why, just that I knew I needed to go.
“Where are you going?” he asked. His voice was really high. He reminded me of an old lady when he talked like that.
“I’m going up there.”
“To see the dragon? Still? My dust should have cured you of that.”
I giggled. “I’ll see you later, Tim. Have a nice day!” My energy came back full force and I started skipping when I realized it could get me to my goal a lot faster. This was fun! Way funner than resting! I practiced singing that song about walking on sunshine, because that’s what it felt like I was doing and because the sound of my voice ringing out into the trees was magical. The air was filled with color and a cool breeze, someone was calling me from high up on that mountain, and I had boundless amounts of energy to get me up there.
“I’m coming!” I sang, laughing as I skipped to my lou my darling…
Chapter Thirty-One
IT SEEMED LIKE HOURS AND hours later that I reached the big, black entrance of the cave I’d been staring at during my climb. It yawned ahead of me, just three more steps up from where I was. The voices that had been following behind me all night shouted louder and louder, but I ignored them. They wanted to stop me, and that was a bad idea. Stopping was bad. Going and going and going was good. I threw out a couple hip shakes just for good measure. “I got the moves like Jagger, I got the … I got the … moves like Jagerrrr.”
My bandaged arm brushed against my side, making me wince, stopping my awesome moves immediately. Pain was not on the program for tonight, only fun. I looked down at the limb that was hurting me, burning from the inside, and noticed the whole side of the wrappings were black. I paused in my climb to remove the rest of the bandages, throwing them on the ground behind me.
“There. Let that thing breathe,” I said, looking at the gaping wound in my skin. It glistened weirdly in the starlight, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. I had to get to the cave. Someone was inside there who I needed to talk to right away.
I tripped over a big rock and when down, but then rolled over the last few yards of my trek into the entrance of the cave, because I can do that shit; I can stop, drop, and roll, baby, when my feet decide they don’t want to work anymore. I came to a stop in a groove of the flat surface. Giggling, I lay on my back for a little while, staring up at the night sky. Most of it was blocked out by the roof of the shelter, though, so it was kind of boring. A weird smell like boiled eggs wafted over me. It made me smile and then yell, “Egg salad sandwich, anyone?!” My voice echoed around and then back to me. “Egg salad sandwich anyone?!!!” I shouted even louder. It sounded like a tiny me responded from far away. “Egg salad sandwich anyone?”
I couldn’t stop laughing. It took me forever to get on my feet because of it. It became easier, though, when I heard those voices behind me again — the ones trying to stop me from having all the fun. The fun police. They’re coming! I ran. I picked the darkest tunnel branching off from the entrance and ran there. I ran and ran and ran.
“Hello! Hello! Hello!” I yelled as I went, my original calls getting tangled in the echoed ones coming back at me. “Hello! Hello! Hello!” I had to stop every once in a while and hold onto the wall while I tried to breathe and laugh at the same time. “Egg salad! Egg salad! Egg salad, this way!” I loved that one. The echoes made me feel like someone was calling me to dinner, and I was damn hungry. My mouth tasted like weeds for some reason.
I took turns and rounded the corners that had the strongest smells of eggs to them. I didn’t know why, exactly, it just seemed like a good idea to find the source of the picnic. I was going to have an egg salad sandwich very, very soon. I was convinced of that.
Finally, a greenish glow appeared down near the end of a very long and wide tunnel. I tried to run to it, but I kept tripping over things. Once I fell and landed right next to a skull of some kind of beast. It looked like a large cow. I pushed it with my finger to turn it around so I could
stare into its eye sockets. “Mooooooooo.” It didn’t moo back, so I got up and kept going.
“I’m almost there…,” I said, gasping for air. “I’m almost there…” I held onto the wall just where it curved, hoping I’d have enough oxygen to get to the picnic. “Egg salad, here I come.” I tripped over more stupid cow bones as I went around the corner and ended up on my knees in the entrance of a very large chamber.
“Oooooh,” I said, my voice dropping down to very hushed tones. I couldn’t help it. Something in that room was stealing my breath from me. It wasn’t eggs, though. It was something yellow. And green. And red. And purple. And … and…
A deep and rumbly voice came from somewhere and then a sound of chinking … coins slipping around on top of each other? Chains? I couldn’t be sure. “You have come.”
I brushed my ratty hair off my face and licked my very dry lips, trying to pull myself together enough to have this conversation. “Yep. I’m here. Where’s the egg salad?”
“You speak of Biad.”
I frowned. “Actually, no, I speak of egg salad.” Obviously this guy had a hearing problem, so I slowed down and enunciated better. “Egggggg. Saaalaaaad.”
“You smell of pixie.”
Wow. That was embarrassing. It was like I’d walked into a church and farted the way he said it. “Sorry about that. Pixie got me back there. I tried to cut him up, but he was too fast for me.”
I heard more rumbling, more metal things clinking together, and then a movement caught my eye. On the far end of the humongous chamber was a lizard. Cool. A lizard. A big one. He was moving toward me. As he got closer, he became even bigger, to the point that he was impossibly large when he was looming over me. I had to strain my neck to get my head to go back far enough to see all of him.
“You are one big daddy lizard, you know that? We have lots of lizards in Florida, but not this big.”
