The back of Aiden’s head was wet and sticky. When he touched it gingerly, his fingers came away smeared with blood.
“The ambulances should be back any minute.” Dylan helped Aiden sit up all the way. “They took the worst injured first.” His expression darkened. “Some people are dead.”
Aiden’s first selfish thought was to be grateful that he and Dylan were alive. He scanned the group again, recognizing several warden trainees. “Nichols?” He couldn’t see the warden.
“They took her with the first group.”
A spike of pain went through Aiden’s head as he turned to Dylan. No, not her.
“She was pretty bad,” Dylan said. “And the guard that was at the desk down there… She didn’t make it.”
Aiden swallowed, panic clawing at his lungs. People were dead and hurt. Morgan was out there with other dark fae and the extremists. They could be anywhere, maybe rampaging through the town. “Oh God. My parents. Tiago.” The look of pure hate on Tiago’s dad’s face haunted him. “We have to warn them.” Aiden shifted to pull out his phone.
“Shit, you’re right. I was so worried about you…” Dylan grabbed his phone too.
Staring at his contacts, Aiden wondered who to call first. There was no reason to think his parents would be a target, except maybe as a way to get at him. Tiago, on the other hand, was definitely a target.
Hands shaking, he hit the Call button. Each ring took an eternity. What if they’d already gotten to Tiago? What if he was dead? Aiden’s breath rasped in his throat, his racing heart making his head pound even worse.
* * *
“No.” Tiago’s legs shook and he sat heavily on the bed.
His parents were in town. They might be coming after him right now. Rosalind had put wards around the house, but would they be enough to keep them out?
Aiden kept talking, and things got even worse. The dark fae Aiden and Dylan were so afraid of was with Tiago’s parents, and he’d brought friends. One dark fae had been able to murder three people and almost killed Aiden and Dylan. A whole group of them? Tiago didn’t want to think about what they’d be able to do, but apparently they could attack the warden prison.
Aiden’s words grew distant as fear coursed through Tiago. But Tiago’s attention snapped back to the conversation at the words “knocked out.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Aiden said.
“Is Dylan?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. But you have to get somewhere safe. Is Rosalind there?”
“She’s downstairs.” His own voice sounded far away. One dark fae hadn’t scared him. He’d been ready to take him on to keep Aiden and his friend’s parents safe. Even this Morgan guy didn’t truly scare him. But the idea of the dark fae teaming up with his parents terrified him.
“Go get her. Ask her if there’s somewhere— What?” The last word was directed at someone else, and there was a brief pause. “Dylan says go to his house. Bryn can protect you.” Dylan’s mom, who was half dragon.
Tiago stood, and as soon as he was on his feet, he was running. “Rosalind!” He hurtled down the stairs.
She was in the living room and looked up at him in surprise as he burst into the room.
“We have to go. My parents are back, and they have dark fae with them. We need to get to Dylan’s house so his mom can protect us.” Could even Bryn keep them safe?
He wished he was the kind of person that would stand and fight. Usually he would, but when it came to his parents, he was a coward. After what Aiden had done to them last time, would they be mad enough to kill Tiago? Or did they still want to drag him off so they could “fix” him?
Rosalind was on the move right away, grabbing a bag and filling it with necessities—her computer, phone, keys, and several things he recognized as spell components. He understood they were important, but every second felt like forever.
“We’ll meet you there,” Tiago told Aiden.
“I’m going to the hospital first.”
Another stab of fear went through him. “Why? Are you okay?” Aiden had said he was fine, but had he lied? Downplayed it?
“Probably a concussion and some bruises. Just getting checked as a precaution.”
“But will you be safe? What if they go after the hospital?” What if that was the plan—to hit major targets? The prison, then the hospital, maybe city hall again. It was Saturday, so no one would be at school at least.
“I-I’m sure they won’t.” Aiden didn’t sound sure.
“I should go there to protect you.” Parents or not, Tiago would find the courage to defend Aiden.
“No! Get to Dylan’s house. I need to know you’re safe.”
“And I need to know you’re safe.” Tiago squeezed the phone and told himself to ease up before he broke it.
“The paramedics are here. I have to go. Please go to Dylan’s house. Please.”
Tiago squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Call me as soon as you can.”
“I will.” Aiden hung up.
Rosalind squeezed his arm. “He’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The hospital is secure—”
“They attacked the prison!” From what Aiden had said, they’d broken into it like it was nothing and freed the prisoners from maximum security.
Her expression hardened, though her eyes were still gentle. “I know you’re worried, but the best thing we can do right now is go to Bryn’s house and figure out what’s going on. We have no idea what the extremists will do next. And if they do attack the hospital, Bryn can be there in minutes.”
Right. Aiden had told Tiago about Bryn rescuing him and Dylan from the corrupt warden. She could turn into a huge dragon and fly over to the hospital. If Dylan was a badass, Bryn was a super badass.
“Okay.” Tiago grabbed his coat and prayed his parents weren’t outside waiting for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Dylan had let the staff check him over when they got to the hospital, but as soon as they declared his injuries were only minor, he went to find Aiden.
The hospital was a rush of activity, nurses and doctors running down the halls, pushing people on gurneys, or escorting the walking wounded to rooms. It took Dylan a while to find a nurse who could direct him toward Aiden’s room.
His friend was reclining in a bed, his head wrapped with gauze.
“Are you okay?” Aiden asked as Dylan walked in.
“Little banged up, nothing serious.” He closed the door to mute the sounds from the hallway. It wasn’t as bad as the attack last year. Dylan kept telling himself that to make himself feel better. “How’s your head?” When Aiden went down under that man, Dylan had feared he was dead.
The bigger guy on top of him might have saved him though. Tiago’s parents had spent a moment looking for Aiden but gave up when they couldn’t find him. Dylan had fought with all he could but had only seemed to annoy Morgan and his pals. If they’d seen Aiden, tried to take him…
God damn it, Dylan hated feeling helpless.
Aiden touched the bandage at his temple. “They gave me some strong painkillers. It doesn’t hurt much anymore.”
Dylan stepped closer. Aiden’s eyes had a glassy look, his pupils a little wide. “Dude, you’re high.”
“A little.” He blinked. “Everything’s kind of fuzzy. Man, I’m so sick of the hospital.”
Dylan snorted. “Tell me about it.” They ended up here way too often.
Aiden shifted carefully. “Do you know… How is everyone else?”
He didn’t want to think about the hallway outside maximum security, the blood and the bodies. Or the main floor of the prison where he’d waited with Aiden in his arms, praying his friend would wake up. “It’s a mess out there.”
“God.” Aiden closed his eyes. “I thought the extremists would attack again, but I never thought…”
“I know.” It was a nightmare. In the back of his mind, Dylan had always worried
that Morgan would return to make good on his promise to kill the wardens, but part of him had started to hope that Morgan had been lying, that all he wanted was to get out. Then that dark fae with strands of white in his hair had attacked Dylan and Aiden, with his creepy parting words of “others will come.”
Others. No kidding.
The doctor wanted to keep Aiden for a few hours for observation, so Dylan took the chair by his bed, and they talked to pass the time. Aiden had told his parents to go to Dylan’s house to keep safe, begging them not to come to the hospital in case it got attacked. They called twice to check in, and Dylan’s parents called him once to make sure he was still okay.
The fear of a widespread attack hung over all of them, but as the minutes slowly dragged on, no news came. Dylan went out to check with the nurses, texted Sakura and Maggie. But no one had heard of another attack.
Someone knocked on the door. Dylan thought it was another nurse coming to check on Aiden, but when the door opened, Mr. Johnson walked in.
“You two okay?”
He looked genuinely worried. He just wants a return on his investment.
“I have a concussion, but they said I should be fine,” Aiden told him.
“What’s going on out there? Are they attacking the town?”
Mr. Johnson rubbed his temple. Most of the time the warden showed little emotion with occasional bursts of cold anger—like when Dylan let Morgan out, or when Mr. Johnson learned about the corrupt wardens. But over the past year, ever since the attack on city hall, Mr. Johnson had shown signs of stress. “There’s no sign of them. Morgan and the prisoners he freed are simply gone. I have as many people as I can spare patrolling the borders looking for them. We’re gathering volunteers to help.”
“They busted them out and then just left?”
“Regrouping to make a bigger attack this time,” Aiden said. He had that scared look that made Dylan want stand in front of him and protect him from the world. Only Dylan had proven himself to be next to useless against a group of dark fae.
Mr. Johnson nodded. “We’re vulnerable, and they know it. It may only be a matter of days, or even hours, before they attack again.”
“We need to go. All of us.” Aiden sat straighter, clutching at the thin white sheet. “Evacuate the town before they come back. Scatter so we’ll be harder to find.”
Dylan wanted to run too. Which was why he clenched his fists and said, “No. We stand and fight.”
“For once I agree with Dylan.” A hint of humor showed on Mr. Johnson’s face. “Here we have strength in numbers—”
“And they know exactly where to find us.”
Mr. Johnson pressed his lips together. “Abandoning Shadow Valley would violate the treaty.”
“But they have to make an exception—”
“They don’t have to do anything.” Cold anger built in Mr. Johnson’s eyes. “We told them we could police ourselves. After the incident last year, we’re already on thin ice. The American government is waiting for a reason to step in and contain us, which is exactly what the extremists want. Open war. Decades of peaceful coexistence thrown away as if they were nothing.” He clenched a fist, and Dylan caught a whiff of old books and candle wax.
Dylan hadn’t really considered that there might be something worse than the wardens. In school they learned about the origins of the treaty, but it was wrapped up in a bunch of feel-good crap. Living in harmony with humans and blah, blah.
The alternative to having wardens wasn’t freedom—it was being hunted by humans like monsters used to be. Like Dylan had been when the corrupt wardens kidnapped him.
Supernatural people would be killed, or maybe locked up in a lab somewhere to be used for experiments. Are those my choices? Controlled by wardens or hunted by humans? Bad or worse?
“Oh my God.” Aiden dropped his head, eyes closing. The sound of his fast, shallow breath filled the room, signaling a panic attack.
Dylan moved closer and rubbed Aiden’s back. He had no idea what he could say. He was afraid too, and he hated it.
“We have to fight them,” Mr. Johnson said. “So I need to gather all the information I can. Tell me exactly what happened, every little detail you can remember.”
* * *
As soon as the car stopped, Aiden jumped out and ran to hug his parents.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Mom said.
Dad squeezed him tighter. “Thank God you’re safe.”
He breathed in their familiar scents, chasing away the antiseptic smell of hospital. Through a combination of magic, medicine, and his own more-than-human healing ability, Aiden’s injuries were almost gone. His headache was down to a dull throb, and his remaining bruises had faded to yellow and green.
Mr. Johnson had driven him and Dylan from the hospital. The ride through town had been intense; Aiden worried they’d be attacked any second. There was still no news of where Morgan and the others had gone.
After a long moment, Aiden pulled away from his parents and turned to Tiago. Relief filled Tiago’s eyes, the same feeling washing over Aiden. He pulled his boyfriend into his arms and held him tight.
“I was so scared.” Tiago’s breath puffed against his neck. “I still am. But at least you’re here.”
Aiden thought of the utter hatred in the eyes of Tiago’s parents, and sick fear clutched at him. Would they come after Tiago? Kidnap him and try to brainwash him… or would they kill him?
I won’t let them. The need to protect Tiago was a fierce fire inside him, driving back his fear.
And Aiden needed to protect Mom and Dad too. Were they targets? Morgan or one of his companions might use them to get to Aiden, but they were definitely at risk for being collateral damage. Everyone in Shadow Valley was.
“Let’s all get inside,” Mr. Johnson said.
Right. They were vulnerable out here.
Once inside the house, everyone went into the sitting room. It was a large room, but it looked smaller with all of them in it. Aiden’s parents sat on one of the couches, and Aiden hesitated a moment before pulling Tiago toward the loveseat. His parents had each other. Tiago needed him now. And to be honest, Aiden needed him too.
Mr. Johnson went over what he knew and summarized what Aiden and Dylan had told him about the breakout. Dylan added a few comments, but Aiden stayed quiet. He didn’t want to relive it again so soon.
“My wards will hold,” Bryn said, utterly confident. “I think everyone should stay here for the day.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Johnson said. “I need to get back to city hall.”
Dylan stood. “I want to help.”
Out of guilt, because he’d set Morgan loose? Or because he didn’t want to sit here and feel helpless?
As scared as he was, Aiden knew he’d stand and fight to protect Tiago and his parents. He wasn’t going to go looking for trouble though.
“What I need from you now is to stay here,” Mr. Johnson said.
“But you need all the help you can get.” With his fists closed and eyes slightly narrowed, Dylan looked angry, but there was fear in his eyes too.
God, the dark fae had gone through the guards and the wards like they were nothing. The wardens were already at less than half strength. How could they stand a chance when Morgan came back for a full assault?
Mr. Johnson opened his mouth, then closed it. “You can help tomorrow. Tonight,” he said, correcting himself with a glance at the gray dawn filtering through the windows. “I suggest you all get some sleep.”
Bryn and Joe made up the guest rooms. Aiden wondered when the last time they’d had guests had been. Dylan had mentioned people coming to his birthday parties when he was little. Had people stayed over back then too?
Aiden washed up in the bathroom, wishing he’d stopped at home for a change of clothes. His coat had been smeared with blood and was probably ruined. His pants were bloody as well, though the spots had dried into stiff patches. Aiden wondered if he’d left blood on the nice leather seats of Mr
. Johnson’s car. Or the couch.
Despite everything going on, part of Aiden wondered when Mr. Johnson was going to say something about him and Tiago. They’d held hands and leaned on each other the whole time the warden had been talking. Even if Mr. Johnson had dismissed their hug, he had to have noticed that.
Bryn and Joe hadn’t said anything either. When is this going to be normal? Aiden definitely wasn’t ashamed of dating Tiago, but he was aware that some people would have a negative reaction to two boys in a romantic relationship. And probably a lot of other people would be surprised. Maggie said there had been out gay people in town before, but it obviously wasn’t common. The school not having a LGBT group before was proof of that.
Every time someone found out about him and Tiago, Aiden braced for something bad to happen. Maybe I should just tell everyone.
Aiden stepped into the guest room. Morning light filled the room from two tall windows on either side of the queen-size bed. The walls were soft peach, the bedspread a few shades lighter. He wished he could fully appreciate how nice it was.
Pulling back the covers, Aiden paused. No way was he getting in there with his bloody pants. Slipping out of his jeans, he folded them and put them next to the nightstand. He set his shoes and socks next to them and climbed into the bed.
The sheets were cool but warmed up quickly. Aiden pulled them up to his chin and stared at the ceiling. The bed was comfortable, and he was so tired, but it was a long time before he started to drift off.
Just as he flitted on the edge of sleep, someone knocked softly on the door. Aiden jolted up, heart racing as the knob turned.
Tiago peeked in. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Aiden let out a breath and sagged against the headboard. “Is something wrong?” he whispered.
Tiago ducked inside, closing the door. “I can’t sleep. Can I sleep with you?”
Spending the morning curled up with Tiago sounded so nice. But… “My parents are right next door.”
Dragonkin Are from Mars, Changelings Are from Venus Page 10
