by H. D. Gordon
She rolled her eyes as she took in the weeping man under my boot. “Ugh,” she said with a sneer. “I told him you were as yellow as a banana, but did he listen to me? Nope.”
I tensed as she pulled a cellphone out of her pocket. She smirked and snapped a photo of the loser under my boot, replacing the phone in a smooth movement.
“Who are you?” I asked, flipping on the voice modulator Matt had installed in my jacket to disguise my voice.
One of her perfect eyebrows quirked. “You don’t know me,” she said, as if this disappointed her a bit. She tucked some of her shiny black hair behind her ear and tilted her head. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Masked Maiden.”
“Yeah, you and the rest of Grant City,” I replied. “So what?”
I didn’t need aura-reading abilities to know this pissed her off. “Word is you’re leaving town,” she countered.
My hands tightened around my staff, my teeth clenching as well. A chill had run up my spine that had nothing to do with the winter wind. “How do you know that?” I asked.
This made her smirk widen. “You really don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you?”
I tried to hide the fact that I was sweating, that my stomach was doing flips. “I know that if you keep looking at me like that,” I said, “I’m going to slap that smile off your face.”
She laughed as if this was ridiculous, a tinkling sound that grated on my nerves. I felt my anger and anxiety rise.
“My name is Raven,” she said, as if this should mean something. “And your name is Aria Fae, or at least, that’s what you call yourself.”
It felt as though my heart stopped dead in my chest, and I found I could say nothing to this, probably because there was nothing to say. I didn’t know where exactly, but somehow, I had slipped up. I had slipped up big time.
“That’s right,” Raven said. “We know who you are, and we know that you’ve got a train ticket out of town at six forty-five this morning. Two seats, one for you, and one for that hot red-headed partner of yours.” She paused, red lips pursing. “I’m here to make sure you get on that train, fairy. It’s time to tell Grant City goodbye.”
I felt like a whistling kettle, my top about to blow. It shouldn’t have taken me so long to realize it, but Raven was not human—not fully, anyway—and thus, she knew as well as any other supernatural that calling a Fae a fairy was the most personal and vile of insults.
Despite the sweat trickling down the center of my back, my voice came out strong when I spoke. “And what if I don’t?” I said. “What if I don’t leave?”
Raven’s head tilted again in a way that was oddly birdlike. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Halfling,” she said. “Just get on that train.”
Before I could form a response of any kind, Raven slipped into the van and slammed the door shut behind her. The vehicle skirted away, leaving me in a small cloud of exhaust.
I waved my hands in front of my face, trying to clear it, and that’s when I saw the flashes of red and blue lights behind me, and I was locked in place when a commanding voice told me not to move.
CHAPTER 58
“Place your hands on your head and don’t move!” said the officer, the barrel of his gun staring at me along with his wide eyes.
He was young, probably only a handful of years older than me, and I could hear his heartbeat pounding like the hooves of a racehorse in his chest.
I held my hands perfectly still in the air, cursing myself for my insistence on getting involved. Why the heck hadn’t I just finished packing up and left? Now, I was either going to have to take this guy down while managing not to get shot, or go to jail and face the charges of a vigilante.
Neither one of those prospects was particularly enticing.
I shifted just a touch on my feet, and the officer shouted, “I said, don’t move!”
Clearing my throat, I spoke slowly. “Okay. Okay,” I said. “I’m not going to move. Don’t shoot me.”
“You’re under arrest,” he responded. “Drop the weapon!”
I tossed my staff gently to the side.
“Good,” said Officer Cleary (Even with the weak light in the alley, my keen eyesight could read his nametag). “Very slowly, I want you to place your hands on your head and get down on your knees. You understand?”
I nodded my head, feeling like a caricature of some knockoff superhero with my mask still covering my face and my hood concealing my head. Slowly, I placed my hands on my head and took to my knees.
Under normal circumstances—if any of this could actually be called ‘normal’—this would’ve been the point when Sam would use her mad computer skills to keep Officer Cleary from calling in backup. Then my only concern would be escaping him, rather than running from the entire GCPD once he called this in.
His weapon was still aimed level at my head as he reached up to the radio on his shoulder and pushed the button. There was a chirp from the device, and Officer Cleary cleared his throat to call in the backup.
My mouth fell open to say something—anything. If I could just get him to listen to me, I could probably push a little of my will on him, and maybe get him to let me go.
I didn’t get a chance, though, because a shout from the mouth of the alley stopped his words up in his throat.
“What are you doing?” said a female voice, and I turned my head to see the woman who’d almost been kidnapped by the men in the black van. She was limping a little in her heels, and the left side of her face was starting to swell from where she’d been backhanded, but there was a certain fire in her eyes that earned her a token of respect.
“Ma’am,” said Officer Cleary, “I told you to wait by the car.”
The lady’s brown eyes flicked from me—where I was still kneeling with my hands laced behind my head—and back to the young officer. “I’m not waiting by the damn car while you try to arrest the person who saved me and the sickos who tried to kidnap me get away!” she exclaimed. “Why the hell are you pointing that gun at her?”
Cleary’s aura told me that he was getting harried, that this was not a situation he was comfortable in. “Ma’am, please, go back to the car. This is police business. The Masked Maiden is a wanted criminal. Your interference here is obstruction.”
“Obstruction my wrinkled ass!” said the woman, and despite the seriousness of the situation, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Off-handedly, I wished that Sam was actually in my ear tonight, because I felt certain she’d enjoy this lady.
The woman took a step forward, brushing some of her blonde-streaked hair out of her face and raising her chin a fraction. “Officer Cleary,” she said, “you’re obviously a new edition to the police force, so I’ll tell you who I am since you clearly have no idea. I’m district attorney Pamela Waters. I understand that you think taking this Masked Maiden into custody would be a huge victory for you, but I assure you that this would be a mistake.”
She pointed a manicured finger at me, and I continued to hold my tongue, because sometimes I’m not so foolish after all.
“This ‘Masked Maiden’ kept me from being kidnapped,” Waters continued. “She likely saved my life. I won’t stand by and let you arrest her.”
There was a moment of silence, where my fate hung in the balance. Officer Cleary’s thumb was still poised on the radio on his shoulder, and all he had to do was push it and call in backup, and my escape from this disaster would become ten billion times more difficult.
It was as if some cosmic hand had pressed pause on the remote of the universe, because my world stalled as I watched the cop’s aura dance with indecision, as I waited for him to make his move.
With a breath that broke the stillness, Officer Cleary shook his head and dropped his hand, biting his lip and squinting to try and get a better look at me under my hood. At last, he holstered his weapon.
I blinked with surprise for several seconds before I could process what was happening.<
br />
“Go on,” said Cleary. “Get out of here before I come to my senses.”
I climbed warily to my feet, my eyes darting between the GCPD officer and Grant City’s district attorney. “You’re letting me go?” I asked.
Call me stupid, but I just couldn’t believe it. Surely there was some catch.
Pamela Waters took a couple steps forward, her gaze traveling the length of me. Then, she bent over and retrieved my staff from where I had dropped it to the pavement, and held it out to me.
“There are two types of people in Grant City,” she said. “Those who claim to be doing good, and those who actually do good. The true struggle is figuring out who’s doing what, but even with that mask hiding you, most of us know which side you’re fighting for. After tonight, I know I do.” She shuddered as she said this, but recovered quickly. I decided DA Waters was a tough lady.
I took the staff from her and quickly returned it to its travel size, tucking it away in my jacket.
“Thanks,” I said, turning to go. I knew only that I had to get out of here.
“That doesn’t mean we’re not coming after you!” shouted Officer Cleary, as I ran up two cattycornered buildings like an American Ninja Warrior and pulled myself up onto the roof.
In the alley below me, the officer and district attorney stared up at me. I crouched for a moment to catch my breath, staring back at them from the darkness of my hood.
“He’s right,” Waters said. “You’ve made enemies in Grant City, Masked Maiden, and they’re coming for you. If you were smart, you’d leave town.”
My jaw clenched, but I nodded. Then, using my supernatural speed, I melted into the shadows, flying over the rooftops and running on air as I leapt from building to building, wondering at the strange feeling swirling round in my chest.
CHAPTER 59
I turned the envelope over in my hand, debating whether or not I should just tear it up for what felt like the millionth time. What was up with my decision-making skills lately? I couldn’t seem to make up my mind about anything.
It doesn’t matter, I repeated to myself. You might as well give him the letter because it doesn’t matter. You’ll never see him again. You don’t have to concern yourself with the reaction.
Biting my lip almost hard enough to bleed, I squared my shoulders and opened the door of my apartment. Striding across the hall, I stopped before Thomas’s door, leaning in to make sure that he wasn’t home. When my ears determined that he was not, I let out one last breath and stooped, slipping the envelope under the crack of his door and scurrying away like a mouse.
Relief washed over me once I was back behind my own door, but I nearly jumped out of my skin when it opened behind me and sent me stumbling out into the hall, where I fell promptly into the arms of Nick Ramhart.
Nick grinned down at me, brushing some of the hair off my forehead as he cradled me in his grasp. “Miss me?” he asked.
I straightened and adjusted my jacket, giving him a little shove. I was agitated, and chalked it up to the tumultuous state of my life. Glancing around my tiny apartment, I felt a rock settling somewhere in my chest, and it struck me like lightning that I was going to miss this dismal place, that somehow, in the past four months, these four peeling walls had become home.
You’re a Peace Broker, I sternly told myself. You don’t have a home. What you do have is a duty.
Nick had strapped my trunk, which held all my earthly possessions, to a small dolly, and now he tipped it up on two wheels and held open my apartment door. Much to my dismay, the only thing I hadn’t been able to locate was the pink coffee thermos Thomas had given me. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did. I mean, it was only a stupid cup, and I still had the necklace he’d given me, but it would be a lie to say I wasn’t stalling in hopes that it would somehow reappear, even though I’d already searched the tiny place.
“You ready?” Nick asked, cutting off my ponderings.
In answer, I forced my feet to carry me out the door.
***
Twenty minutes later, I sat on a bench at the bus station, my coat wrapped about me snugly and my trunk of belongings resting by my feet.
The station consisted of five ticket booths and tracks on either side. There was a platform with an awning to shield from the less savory elements, but otherwise, it was open to the outside. Before me, the occasional train would whizz by, momentarily cutting off the unique view of the city that this place offered. I’d only seen Grant City from this particular vantage point one time—on the day that I’d arrived. It was early morning, and the sky was just now beginning to lighten, unfolding into a new day.
As I stared at the backdrop of buildings, each with a more profound fondness and familiarity to me than when I’d arrived, I thought about the letter I’d slipped under Thomas’s door, and about the fact that I would no longer be seeing my mysterious neighbor. No more nights counting the hours based on the rumble of his motorcycle as he came and went. No more rooftop talks or gifted cups of coffee.
I looked over at Nick, who sat beside me. His ginger hair hung in waves around his handsome face, his lean body relaxed but perpetually ready. Under his black and gray Broker’s jacket, an array of weapons were surely tucked, and beneath the taut and smooth skin of his chest, beat his heart, a prize I had coveted for as long as I could remember.
Why, then? Why did I feel like crying again all of a sudden? Why did the thought of leaving this forsaken place tear at me so? Every arrow, every sign, was pointing me out of town, from the fact that I’d made too many enemies who now knew my secret, to Caleb Cross himself agreeing that it was probably best if I did leave.
Of course, I knew in my gut that Caleb had said this to me when I’d visited him the previous day because he cared about me and was worried for my safety, as he surely was wise to be, but that didn’t mean I could deny the swirl of disappointment I felt when he didn’t even try to talk me out of leaving. I was going to go, anyway, but it would have been nice if he had tried.
“You hungry?” Nick asked from beside me, jolting me out of my thoughts.
I lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of question is that?”
He chuckled, placed a quick kiss on my forehead, and stood. “Train shouldn’t be here for another fifteen minutes. I’ll walk around and see if I can find a vending machine or something.”
I nodded, appreciating the effort but not as excited about the prospect of edibles as I normally would be. In fact, excited was the exact opposite of what I felt. I watched Nick walk away, trying to lose myself in the usually hypnotic twitch of his butt.
Instead, I found my eyes wandering back to Grant City, as if I secretly expected one of my friends to pop out and beg me not to go, as if Sam or Matt or Caleb would come jogging onto the platform any second now, as if this were some old movie, and I was a silly maiden about to make the worst decision of her life.
This, of course, was ridiculous. No one was coming, and this choice was not the wrong one. It was the only one. Grant City was not safe for me. Grant City wasn’t particularly safe for anyone.
That was the point, wasn’t it? What had started it all; Grant City was always a jungle, and it was the beasts that ran the jungles.
“Excuse me, miss,” said a voice to my right, making me jump slightly. I had been so lost in my mind that I hadn’t even heard anyone approaching.
I turned my head to see one of the older ticket-sellers who’d been behind the ticket booth when I’d arrived. He was gray-haired and blue-eyed, with a small hunch to his back and a face that looked kind.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Is your name Aria?”
My senses went on high alert, my guard jumping up to where it probably should have been in the first place. I glanced all around me, focused on my senses, but determined there was no one else around. My gaze narrowed on the old man, but I remained cool.
“Who’s asking?” I said.
The old man smirked and reached into a paper sack he’d bee
n carrying. I tensed, my hand moving toward my staff, which was tucked into the back of my waistband, my muscles ready to spring should grandpa make a false move.
But when his hand emerged from the sack, I sat staring with my mouth agape at the fact that he was now holding my missing pink thermos.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
Grandpa shrugged. “A man dropped it off real early this morning, asked me if I could give it to you.”
My brow furrowed. “What man? And how’d you know I was me?”
He handed over the cup, giving another shrug. “Just some man,” he said, “with bright hazel eyes, and he said I’d know it was you because you’d be one of the prettiest ladies I ever seen.” His eyes crinkled in the corners and he gave me a mischievous wink. “He was right about that, young lady. You’re pretty as a picture.”
My fingers wrapped around the thermos, my eyes stinging a little, and I thanked the man once I could find my voice. He nodded and walked old-man-slowly away.
As I sat there, the sun lightening the sky before me, my back supported by the chipped wood of the bench, I felt as though I was standing on the edge of something, my feet on either side of a line. If I took a step forward, I would close the door behind my back, and if I took a step back, the one before me would forever close.
I lifted the pink cup, eyeing the mouth hole and thinking it would have been nice if it were filled with coffee. Instead, I spied something white inside, and fumbled off the lid. With fingers that shook just slightly, I removed a piece of paper that had been folded up inside, and opened it up.
Scrawled in neat letters were two words: Don’t go.
What man? I’d asked.
Just some man, grandpa had told me, with bright hazel eyes.
I didn’t even realize that I was crying until a tear struck the piece of paper between my fingers, smearing some of the ink that composed those two words. It was in this position that Nick found me.
***
He paused where he was, bags of chips and Ding-Dongs clutched in his hands. Somehow, without me having to say anything, Nick knew it. He knew upon seeing me what I was going through.
