Andi raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I can see it in your face. Your eyes. And your lips are pale and really thin. You wore makeup every other time I saw you. You were put together real well. You used the same lipstick as my buddy Lou. Today, you look tired and sick, and you’re not wearing any makeup.”
Andi frowned. She hadn’t slept at all the night before. Between exhaustion and throwing up for an hour this morning, she hadn’t felt like putting any makeup on.
“You’re sick,” Emmet said, still scratching his arms.
Andi didn’t move.
“Oh my god,” cried Emmet, “are you really sick?”
Andi nodded slowly. “I have cancer.”
“Oh my god. Are you okay?” Andi gave him a look and Emmet said, “Well, I know you’re not okay. But are you okay?”
Andi sighed. “I guess. I’ll get by. For a while, anyway. It’s terminal. Not long to go.”
“Holy shit,” said Emmet.
Andi shrugged. “I haven’t been telling a lot of people, so keep it under your hat.”
“Who would I tell?”
“You never know.” Andi sipped her iced tea. She shuddered and squeezed more lemon into it. She couldn’t do anything to kill the taste of medicine and bile in her mouth.
Emmet stretched and his long sleeves slid up his arm a little. He noticed and quickly put his arms down and pulled his sleeves back down.
Andi decided to be blunt. “You’re killing yourself faster on that shit. You know that?”
“I don’t care,” Emmet said. His voice was hollow and empty.
“None of my business,” Andi said.
“Not really.”
“Does it help you?” Andi asked.
“No.” Emmet continued to pull at the cuffs of his shirt. “Nothing helps. I miss my Donny. I don’t want to die. But I’ve lost everything, every friend I’ve ever had. The drugs are all I have left. I guess they help me not think about it all. It’s the only thing I can do anymore to feel good. Why? You want some?”
“Drugs?” Andi was horrified. “God, no.”
“How long has it been since you felt good?”
“That’s a pretty personal question,” Andi said, guarded.
Emmet shrugged. “I bet it’s been a while. And now you’re sick and you know you’re going to die.” He took a plastic bag of brown powder out of his pocket. “Here. You should try this.”
Andi recoiled. “Absolutely not.”
“Next time you’re all sick and throwing up and you can’t keep your shit together, sniff up some of this through your nose. Then maybe you won’t look down on me so much for being sick.”
“I don’t look down on you,” Andi said. It was a lie.
“You pity me.”
Andi shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Well, don’t. Save your pity for somebody else. I made my choices. Now I’m going to go home and try some more to forget about them.”
Emmet stood up and bumped the table. He knocked his chair over and stumbled to pick it up, then walked down the street toward his apartment. He left the heroin on the table.
Neither Andi nor Emmet noticed the two fairies above who followed Emmet down the sidewalk.
“Fuck,” Andi swore under her breath. I can’t just leave this here! She snatched the bag from the table and looked around, then shoved it in her purse, paid her bill, and got back in her car.
She drove home, continually replaying her conversation with Emmet in her mind. There is no way I am going to start taking drugs, Andi thought.
Flashing lights and a siren behind her snapped her mind back to what she was doing. She took her foot off the accelerator and looked down at the speedometer. The needle dropped past fifty as she slowed down. “Fuck,” she said.
She pulled over and waited for the cop to come. It took several minutes for the policeman to get out of his car and come to her window.
“License and insurance,” the cop said.
She opened her purse to get her license and her insurance card. She saw the baggie of heroin and her heart almost stopped. She closed her purse quickly and handed her ID and insurance to the cop.
“You know why I pulled you over?” he asked.
“Uh, no,” Andi said, trying to remember whether people were supposed to fess up to their violation or play dumb. She decided to play dumb.
“You were speeding, Fifty two in a thirty five.”
“I’m sorry, officer. I didn’t realize how fast I was going.”
“Well, you were going to fifty two. When’s the last time you had a speeding ticket?”
Andi genuinely couldn’t remember. It had been a while. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“All right. Wait here,” the officer said, then walked back to his car.
Andi looked at her watch and sighed in relief that the cop hadn’t seen inside her purse.
Twelve minutes later, the cop returned to Andi’s window. He handed her insurance card and a ticket to her. He explained the court date and the fine, and then said, “Drive safe, now.”
Reflexively, Andi said, “Thank you,” then caught herself and silently added, asshole, and drove home.
-
Herron had reluctantly agreed to wait until after school to look for Pepper’s human. He knew they’d navigate around the city better with humans and the humans could give good advice on the behaviors of other humans, and Gen and Jim wouldn’t be available until after school was over.
Jim suggested that Herron and Ivy stay in Jim’s house all day where nobody would bother them, so they spent the day at Jim’s.
“I’m sorry I upset you yesterday,” Ivy said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine,” Herron said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Instead, they went over the map and Ivy tried to figure out where they’d been, which direction the arrow was pointing, and where things were in this humungous world.
Ivy desperately missed Hope and Herron wasn’t interested in talking, so she tried to keep her mind occupied, thinking about their plan to capture Pepper, wondering if they could do it, how they could bring him back with them and get him somewhere to be dealt with. Ivy also thought about Gen, and how amazing it was to have met her human. They had so much in common and they had a lot of similar experiences. They had the same sense of humor, and Herron was right - they looked almost identical.
Herron had found an Exacto knife in Jim’s room at some point during the day, and practiced using it as a kind of spear or pole-arm.
When Gen and Jim returned from school, Herron reviewed the map with them and they went over the plan. Jim found an old butterfly net in the garage and Gen brought two Mason jars with lids from her house, hoping they could use the jars to trap Pepper after they’d caught him.
Herron brought out his golden arrow. “Show me Pepper’s human,” he commanded it.
Ivy and Herron flew above the sidewalks, following the arrow, and Gen and Jim followed on their bikes. The arrow led them to a sidewalk cafe and pointed to a table. A man and a woman were seated there.
“Jim? Isn’t that the woman who your dad was with?” Gen asked.
“Son of a bitch. It is.”
“Jimmy!”
“What?” he asked.
“Watch your mouth!”
They watched while the man and woman talked for a bit, then the man got up and walked away. The arrow remained fixed on the table.
“It’s her,” Herron said. “Pepper’s human. She’s the one we need to be following.”
The woman put something in her purse, paid her bill, then hurriedly walked to a white convertible. She drove off and Gen and Jim followed on their bikes. They caught up at red lights but once the road opened up, they couldn’t keep up.
“We’ll go ahead!” shouted Herron and flew higher to follow, but Ivy paused. She gave her arrow to Gen.
“Show me Pepper’s human!” She shouted. As soon as the arrow turned toward the car, she flew after Herron.
“Let’s keep going!” Gen said, and she and Jim followed the arrow from the ground while the fairies followed from above.
The fairies landed on a streetlight and watched Andi get pulled over.
“What is going on down there?” Ivy asked.
“I have no idea. He’s in some sort of uniform, though, and she looks unhappy. Maybe she broke the law.”
Ivy watched in fascination at the exchange. The flashing blue and red lights were very jarring to her. The officer handed Andi something, and Andi drove away. The fairies followed her to a complex of large, beige buildings. She parked and went inside.
“This must be where she lives,” Ivy said. “Should we wait for Gen and Jim, or go back for them?”
“Let’s wait and watch,” Herron said.
They flew to Andi’s window and watched her inside her apartment. She stepped out of her shoes, took off her jacket, blouse, and skirt and dropped them right on the floor, walked over the TV and turned it on. She took some pills from a bottle on her table, then dropped onto her sofa. Within a few minutes, she looked ill and rushed into another room. The fairies followed but the window to this room was frosted glass and they couldn’t see in.
Eventually, Gen and Jim caught up. Herron and Ivy flew to meet them.
“This is where she lives?” Gen asked.
“Looks that way,” Herron said.
Jim said to Gen, “You’d better get him soon.”
“I’ll call home and say we’re going to go out or something,” Gen said. “We will actually need to get food, though. Where’s a payphone?” She looked around.
“There’s probably one back at the gas station,” Jim said, pointing in the direction they came from. “It was a few blocks back.”
“Okay, I’ll go call my parents.”
“I’ll go with you!” Ivy said, and she and Gen sped off.
Herron and Jim waited and kept a lookout.
“How are we going to be able to spot a fairy trying to get in here? You guys are pretty small,” Jim said.
“We need to keep a sharp eye. But you’re right. With buildings this big, it’s hard to keep a close enough eye on all of the entrances.” Herron flew down from the windowsill and landed near Jim.
“Ivy told me,” Herron said, “about you and Hope.”
“Hope? You mean Ivy’s girlfriend, Hope?”
“Yeah, that you two are connected.”
“What?” Jim asked.
“Oh,” Herron said. “She didn’t tell you, I guess. Sorry.”
“So Ivy’s girlfriend is my fairy?”
Herron nodded.
“That’s messed up.”
“Why?” Herron asked.
“Ivy and Hope are in love, Gen and I are… you know.”
“I wonder whether it happens more often than we think. There are those times when you just know somebody, you know? You feel like you’ve done something before or like you’ve known someone forever. I wonder if it’s because our counterparts have done it, or known them,” Herron said.
“Well, thanks for telling me,” Jim said.
Herron didn’t answer. They watched the door to the building and the windows to the apartment for a while, silent.
Gen and Ivy returned a while later.
“All set,” Gen said. “I told them we were out and we decided to go to Burger King. And guess what!”
“What?” Jim asked.
Gen took two bags out of her backpack. “I got us Burger King!”
chapter 32
Emmet got back to his apartment. Pepper and Hish ducked through the door above him. Emmet didn’t notice. As soon as he closed the door behind him, Pepper zipped around in front of Emmet’s face.
“You doomed me,” Pepper said.
Emmet’s eyes went wide and he tripped backwards, thudding hard into the door.
“Wha…”
“You’re dying, and your worthless husk is going to cause me to die.”
“You’re — You… What?” Emmet didn’t understand what he was seeing.
Pepper drew a sword and dived at Emmet’s neck. The small blade cut a small but noticeable slash in Emmet’s neck. Pepper had hoped it would be enough to slice open his artery, but it wasn’t. Emmet’s hand flew to his neck, covering the wound. He screamed in pain and fear.
“Fine,” Pepper muttered, sheathing his sword. He flew backwards to distance himself from the human, put his palms together, then fanned his hands apart, palms facing Emmet. A jet of white-hot fire erupted from his palms, striking Emmet in the chest.
Emmet shrieked in pain. His flesh was badly burned and smoke rose from his skin and what remained of his clothes. He fell to his knees and Pepper blasted him again, catching his entire head in the blast.
Emmet tried to cry out but his blackened cheeks kept his jaw from moving. His hair had been mostly burned off. The pain was like nothing he’d ever experienced. His entire world was blinding agony and choking smoke.
A high-pitched beeping sound blasted through the apartment. Pepper ignored it and conjured a third jet of blame and blasted it at Emmet. Emmet fell to his side, writhing and wordlessly crying out in pain. His face was blistered and distorted, black burns woven with skin sloughing from his head. Pepper flew over to Emmet, landed on his jaw, and drew his sword again.
He spotted Emmet’s pulse in his neck, the weakened throbbing was barely visible against the charred skin. He positioned the point of his sword directly above it and plunged it to the hilt into Emmet’s neck.
Emmet’s howling moans lowered into a wet gurgle.
Pepper slid his sword free and stabbed it into Emmet’s neck again and again until the gurgling stopped. Emmet’s seared, blistered eyes stared lifelessly across the room. His rasping gasps for breath had ceased. Pepper looked his hands, then over the rest of his body.
He turned to say to Hish, “I don’t feel any different —” But stopped short when he saw Hish crumpled in a heap on the floor. He flew to his friend’s side and turned him over. He was covered in burns and his eyes, too, were seared white and staring through Pepper. “No,” Pepper said. Hish was dead.
“I don’t understand,” Pepper said. He backed away from Hish’s body, shaking his head. His stomach was clenched and cold with fear. “I killed my human! I killed my human!”
He threw the golden arrow to the floor. “Where is my human?” he screamed.
The arrow pointed away from Emmet, toward the window.
“Show me Hish’s human!” He yelled. The arrow turned to point toward Emmet’s dead body. “No!” Pepper screamed. His hands flared, suddenly covered with fire. He sent another fiery blast at Emmet’s body, then another, and then another, blasting Emmet’s skin away to reveal the blackening bone underneath. He snatched up the arrow, furious.
The shrill beeping continued, and then someone pounded on the door. Pepper picked up Hish’s body and flew out the window just as another human broke through the door. He was carrying a large, red cylinder and looking around the room, confused.
“I ought to kill you, too,” Pepper muttered. He carried Hish to the top of the building and lay him gently on the ground. He kneeled next to Hish and put his head on Hish’s chest. “I’m sorry, my friend. I should have been more careful. Of course they were together. We were together. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Oh, Hish, I’m sorry.”
He stood and looked over the city. “I’ll find you again,” he said to his human, wherever she was. “I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.”
-
Herron gave up telling the others that the purpose of a stakeout was to stake a place out and watch for any changes.
Gen, Jim, and Ivy were quietly talking amongst themselves, eating. Ivy was amazed at the french fries.
“This is amazing!” she said. She ate a lot - roughly half a fry and a small bit of hamburger meat.
Gen finished her Whopper and sat back on the grass. Ivy sat on her shoulder, licking grease and salt from her fingertips.
> All that remained showing of the sun was the top quarter of a humongous red ball and the sky faded from blue to a fiery orange.
“Thanks for letting us help you guys,” Gen said. “It feels good to be doing something important.”
“Of course!” Ivy said. “We love you guys. We need to —”
“Ssh,” Herron shushed. “She’s coming out.”
Andi had changed into sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Once she was outside, she took a deep breath, then had a coughing fit. She doubled over, coughing, covering her mouth with her arm. When the coughing stopped and she straightened, blood was visible on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
She walked to the side of the building. There was a small flower garden and a stone bench. She sat on the bench and watched the sun set. She looked over at where Gen and Jim were sitting and she gave them a small, polite smile. They smiled back.
“I’m going to go talk to her,” Gen said.
“What? Are you crazy?” Jim said.
“It’s not her fault she’s the target of an evil fairy trying to assassinate her. She might be nice!”
“She’s also involved in… I don’t know… something with my father! What if she recognizes you?”
“How would she recognize me?” she asked Jim. “I doubt she would even recognize you.”
Herron said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“We need to know if she’s as wicked as he is,” Ivy said. “Let’s go see.”
Herron remained on the tree branch he’d been watching the door from. Jim stood up, but stayed by the tree.
Ivy flew above Andi as Gen approached her.
“Hi,” Gen said.
“Hi,” Andi replied. Her voice was strained and quiet.
“Mind if I sit?” Gen asked.
Andi shook her head.
“Watching the sunset?” Gen asked.
Andi nodded.
“Sorry, I’ll be quiet and let you watch. It’s beautiful.”
“You realize that when you don’t have many left to see,” Andi said.
Gen looked at her questioningly.
“I’m sick,” Andi said. “I have cancer.”
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