by H. D. Gordon
That makes two of us, I thought, but of course, did not say this.
What I said was, “I’m not going to let him hurt anyone else.”
Sam only blinked up at me, her blue eyes wide and glistening as they held mine. A small smile touched her lips, but there was only sadness in it. “You don’t get it,” Sam said. “That’s exactly why I’m afraid.”
I tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and offered a smile of my own, doing all I could to exhibit a strength I didn’t feel.
“No more running, Sam,” I said.
She stood from her chair, nearly tipping it over, and for a second, I tensed for the tirade I was sure would come. I didn’t need to read her aura to tell that Sam was legitimately terrified for me, more so than she’d ever been. She wanted very much to tie me to a chair and force me to stay where she could see me, where she knew I was safe.
But Samantha Shy was no fool. She knew as well as I did that no one in Grant City was safe as long as the Scarecrow was calling the shots. She, too, knew that the time for running and waiting had ended.
So instead of putting up another fight, Sam just fell into me, her thin arms wrapping about me and hugging me tight. “Go stop this son of a bitch,” she whispered, and I told her that I would.
After this, I returned to my apartment, insisting on being alone, though I was sure Nick had followed me, and was likely watching from not too far. It didn’t matter, though. I knew how to find the Scarecrow, and that was to let him find me.
As I pulled down my fold-up bed and laid back on it, I knew he would come for me in the night, just like he had last time. All I had to do was let him.
Removing the magic medallion from around my neck, I opened the small dresser beside my bed and tucked the necklace inside. My fingers wrapped around the remaining necklace, the one Thomas Reid had given me, and though I knew the piece held no magical properties, I felt a tiny bit better with it in my grasp.
It was in this manner that sleep found me… along with the insane Warlock they called the Scarecrow.
CHAPTER 40
My eyelids felt heavy, much harder to peel open than normal. I tried to lift my hands to rub them, but found that I could not move my wrists. My eyes shot open, my fuzzy mind snapping to attention like a soldier during inspection.
The smell came next, registering in my brain with a physical reaction in my body, making my stomach flip over and plummet. The urge to gag came over me, but I clenched my jaw and breathed through my teeth as the room swam into focus.
It was less of a room and more of a tunnel, the ceiling curved and composed of leaky bricks, the scent of mold and sewage on top of that of formaldehyde, making for a noxious mixture.
The darkness made it difficult to make out everything, the only light coming from a dim orange bulb sticking out of the wall to my east. I pulled against my restraints, finding that I was strapped to some type of gurney by my ankles and wrists as well as my thighs and waist.
Panic bubbled up in me, my mind involuntarily flashing back to the last time I’d been in a similar situation, my psyche slamming me back to when I was eight years old.
“You’re awake,” said a small voice to my right, and it took way more effort than it should have to turn my head to the side.
When I saw who it was, the full gravity of the situation coming over me, I almost wished I hadn’t.
Beside me, secured to a metal gurney identical to mine, was Maleia Jackson. Her body was tiny atop the long table, the smooth chocolate skin of her cheeks streaked with the tracks of tears. She was still wearing her nightclothes—fuzzy pants with pandas on them and a matching nightshirt. Her black, curly hair was secured in two puffs at the sides of her head, just as it had been the night of the fire in her apartment building. And just as she had been then, her aura was bright with terrible terror.
“I’m gonna get you out of here,” I said, once again testing the strength of my restraints.
“Don’t lie to the child, precious,” came a voice from the dark end of the tunnel. The familiar sound of it made goosebumps break out over my arms.
Maleia’s aura wasn’t the only one filled with fear as the Scarecrow stepped into view. The tatters of his prison clothes hung beneath the brown trench coat draped atop his bony shoulders. His brown teeth jeered out at me, his scraggly hair hanging over his balding head.
The smell of him followed this, filling my nose and threatening to make me gag once again. His scent was precisely as I recalled—body odor, grease, and formaldehyde.
His terrible features came into awful focus as he approached the gurney on which I was strapped, his dirty hair brushing my cheek as he leaned down over me. He brought his hand up, his filthy nails long and jagged, and stroked three fingers over my lips.
“It’s so good to see you again, Aria,” said the Scarecrow. His black eyes glistened with excitement as his foul breath carried his words. “The one that got away…”
I struggled with a renewed sense of urgency, yanking so hard against my restraints that the straps dug into my skin. My back bucked off the table a few inches as he lowered his face over mine and planted the worst kiss in the history of kisses dead on my lips.
I spat, struggled, and cursed as the Warlock laughed and licked his lips. Even after he finally pulled away, I could still taste the garbage that was his mouth.
“Don’t… touch… me,” I gritted out, pulling so hard at my restraints that it hurt.
This made a grin split his face, and he went over to Maleia, who instantly broke into tears at his approach. “Don’t worry, precious,” the Scarecrow said. “It’s not your turn yet. I’m going to fix the child first, and then I’ll do you.” His dark eyes left Maleia and settled back on me. “I’m gonna make you watch, as recompense for all the time I spent in that hole you sent me to.”
If I’d thought I was as afraid as I could be before, I’d been wrong. Now, I was sure I was more terrified than I’d ever been. Futilely, I kept pulling at the restraints. “You’re going back to that hole,” I said, but even I could hear the doubt in my words.
Maleia must’ve heard it, too, because her crying only increased.
The Scarecrow laughed. “Quit pulling at the straps, precious,” he warned. “You’ll bruise up your pretty skin. They’re lined with iron. You can’t break them. Now… let’s get started, shall we?”
The sting of tears was trying to burn my eyes, but I blinked them back. There had to be a way to win this. There just had to be a way.
“If you touch her,” I said. “I’ll kill you myself.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” He wandered over to where a metal cart was waiting, all manner of tool and makeup arranged atop the shiny surface of it, and dragged it over toward Maleia, the wheels squeaking as they moved over the floor. “I’m doing you a favor. I’m going to make you both beautiful, for all of eternity. I’m going to turn you into art. Don’t you understand the gift that is? You’ll be as perfect as porcelain dolls. Forever.”
“It’s me you want,” I said, hearing the begging tone of my voice but unable to help it. “Just let her go and do what you want with me. I’m the one who got away, right? Why wait? Just let the girl go and finish what you started.”
The Warlock laughed as if this were a hilarious suggestion. He laughed so hard that he threw himself into coughing fits. When he finally sobered, he asked, “Come now, precious. Where’s the fun in that?”
“Get away from her!” I screamed, the sound ripping up my throat from somewhere deep in my chest. I pulled and yanked and wrenched back and forth, but it was no use. The iron in the straps holding me down was as immoveable as a mountain.
As a Warlock, the Scarecrow’s ears were nearly as sensitive as my own, and after a few moments of me shouting my throat raw, he stood from the metal stool he’d been perching on before Maleia and snatched an injection needle off the bottom of the metal cart.
“Just let her go and keep me,” I begged, traitorous tears filling my eyes and burning
hot paths down my cheeks. “Just let her go, you crazy son of a bitch.”
“That is quite enough out of you, precious,” the Scarecrow crooned.
There was a small pinch in my arm, a rush of something cool, and then I was plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER 41
“I don’t want to go back. Why can’t I stay here with you?”
My mother smiled and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, which was rounded like a human’s, rather than pointed like hers. It was a smile of hers I knew well, the one that masked the sadness.
“You know you can’t stay, my love,” she said. “You know you have to go back.”
The sting of tears burned my eyes, and I tried to swallow past them. It was always worse, always harder, if I allowed myself to cry. I could do nothing against the words that came, though, or the acidic way they were spoken. I was hurting. I was scared.
“I hate it there,” I said. “I hate everything about the human world and the Peace Brokers. It’s not fair. I want to stay in the Fae Forest. I want to stay here. With you.”
My mother had to swallow twice before she could speak, her familiar aura filling with a familiar ache. “You’re a Halfling, my love,” she whispered, words that she’d said to me many times before, and never stopped hurting to hear or speak. “Halflings can’t stay in the Fae Forest. Halflings have a duty, a very special, very important duty. You know that.”
“To keep the peace among the races,” I mumbled, a mantra I’d been forced to repeat for as long as I could remember. “To keep the secret of supernaturals from the humans, to protect both the supernaturals and the humans, to serve with honor. To follow orders. To complete my directives.”
My mother said nothing to this. She closed her eyes, which were the same vibrant green as my own, and leaned forward to kiss me. The floral scent of her surrounded me, making my throat tight with sadness, and I watched with forced detachment as her feathered wings twitched on her back. Her wings always twitched when she was really upset. I didn’t want to upset her, but I was only a child. I couldn’t help it.
“I feel like I should have a choice,” I said. “It’s not fair.”
“Oh, dearest,” my mother said, placing a hand on my cheek, her touch as soft as rose petals. “Life is never fair, not for full Fae, or Halflings, or humans. We all must sacrifice to survive.”
I could not stop the tears from coming. They poured over my eyes and stole down my cheeks. I sniffed and my small voice broke on my words. “Please, mommy,” I said. “Please, don’t make me go back.”
She pulled me to her, her pillow-soft wings wrapping about me along with her strong arms. Her skin shimmered, whereas mine was dull like a human’s. Her ears were pointed, her eyes were slanted, and her wings could lift her up into the air and carry her across the skies. I had none of these things. I would never have any of these things. I cried as she held me. I loved her so much, and at the same time, I hated her for having created me.
Right on schedule, the pink fog that floated along the floor of the Fae Forest swirled and parted as a portal opened up between the trees. The animals and full Fae children who called the Forest home scurried away from the magic portal, the soft sounds of the place sucking into that hole that would take me back, that would take me away.
“You better go, Arianna,” my mother said, standing and swiping the tears from her face.
I clutched at her hands, her fingers long and graceful, her aura full Fae. “I can’t. I can’t go back. Please.”
My mother offered one final, sad smile, and pulled her hands from mine. Before I could reclaim a hold on her, she bent her knees and shot up into the air, her enormous wings lifting her from the earth and carrying her beyond the canopy above, until she was out of sight.
My hair blew back off my shoulders with the force of her exit, and the fluffy, pastel-colored leaves of the Faevian Pines floated down in her wake. I stood there for a moment, my head tilted back and my eyes searching for her return, though I knew it would not come.
At last, with all the reluctance in the world, I swiped the tears from my own face and squared my shoulders. Then, I stepped into the portal that would return me, swallowed up by both the magic and my own despair.
***
The strike landed dead center on my chest, the force of it knocking the wind out of me and sending me flying back onto my butt. I rubbed at the place where his boot had made contact, knowing it would feel worse in the morning.
“You’re not focusing,” Nick snapped. His ginger hair stood out on his head, his still-developing muscles soaked with a sheen of sweat. Even when he was kicking my butt, he still managed to be handsome.
“Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be here,” I retorted, climbing to my feet and wiping a bit of blood from my lip.
This made Nick bark a humorless laugh. “Oh, you don’t want to be here, greenie?” he mocked. “Welcome to the damn club. You are here, so you might as well accept it.” He swung around, nearly knocking me in the head with his fist, but I ducked out of the way just in time. “And focus before you lose a tooth.”
I parried and struck back, almost fast enough to catch him, but not quite. “Stop calling me that,” I gritted out. “It’s racist.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “We call all the new Halfling recruits ‘greenies’, not just the Fae Halflings, and besides, I’m the same thing you are. How could I be ‘racist’ if we’re the same race?”
“How can all that red be coming out of your head without catching you on fire?” I replied. “One of life’s mysteries, I guess.”
My feet were swept out from under me and I hit the mat hard. Once again, the air left me in a whoosh. I tried to flip up onto my feet, but then Nick’s weight was on top of me, his forearm pressed firmly against my throat. I shoved at him, but was unable to move.
“You’re a real buttwipe,” I said, between clenched teeth.
From over me, Nick smiled, and it occurred to me for the first time that I liked it when he smiled. My stomach felt a little funny when that smile was directed at me.
“And you have a lot to learn… greenie,” Nick said. “Ready to say uncle?”
With a huff, I nodded, and Nick released his hold, standing over me triumphantly and holding a hand out to help me up.
Rather than take it, I laced my fingers behind my head and grinned up at him. “It’s really impressive,” I said.
His red head tilted as he looked down at me. “What is?”
“That you can beat up a girl who’s half your age and size.” I held up both of my thumbs. “Like, seriously, seriously impressive.”
Nick sighed and shoved some of his hair out of his face. I took the opportunity to flip over and sweep his legs out from under him. It worked like a charm, and he let out a curse as his feet left the mat and he ended up on his back right beside me.
“You’re not focusing,” I chastised, putting some bass and a slight Scottish accent into my voice in an attempt to mimic him.
“Hilarious,” Nick mumbled. “I would get paired with the class clown.”
I looked over at him with raised brows. “Says the guy with Ronald McDonald hair.”
Nick’s face grew serious, and his brown eyes met mine and held. He looked older than his seventeen years, wiser somehow.
“I know you don’t want to be here, Aria” he said, his tone more solemn than I was used to. It was the very first time he’d called me by my actual name. “The truth is, none of us really want to be here, but every bit of our training is important. Like, life and death important. You’re going to be put in situations, terrible, terrifying situations, and you never know which knowledge or skill set you’ll need to call on to survive. You’re a soldier now, and someday you’ll be a Peace Broker. People’s lives will be in your hands, both supernatural and human. Your mind needs to be even stronger than your body… Do you understand?”
He sounded like my mother. I didn’t trust my voice to answer, so I swallowed and nodded.
Nick was silent a moment. Then, he said, “Good. Then, don’t be afraid of what happens next, okay? I have faith in you, Aria Fae.”
My heart kicked up in pace, my instincts setting off alarms. “Wait, what’s going to happen next?” I asked.
Then, there was a sharp pain in my neck, and the world crashed into darkness.
***
I tried to sit up, and found that I couldn’t move. Panic shot through my veins, and my eyes shot open, the world swimming slowly back to focus. Where was Nick? Where was I? What the hell was happening?
A light popped on somewhere in the corner of the room, and a Peace Broker superior—recognizable from the gray suit they always wore—stepped into view.
“Relax, Arianna,” said the Broker. “This is a controlled test.”
I lifted my head a few inches and saw that I was tied to some kind of metal chair, the restraints keeping me in place tight enough to restrict circulation. “What is this?” I asked, my voice groggy. I was too young at the time, but later Nick would inform me that I had been drugged. “Where am I?”
“This is a controlled test,” repeated the Broker. “That’s all you need to know.”
I tugged again at my bindings, trying to slow the rapid pace of my heart, as they’d been teaching me to do. It didn’t seem to be working very well. There was a bad, bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. My strength was ineffectual. I couldn’t move an inch.
“Iron,” I said as the realization came to me. “You’ve tied me up with iron.”
The Broker gave a nod, some satisfaction flashing through his aura. “Very good, Aria,” he said. “Yes, you are being held in place with iron, the one substance that is a natural weakness to Faevian kind.”
I continued to shift and struggle, but every move I made seemed to only be draining my strength. “It’s too tight,” I said. “It’s cutting off my circulation.”
