Suddenly the song ends. The lights go out. The crowd becomes a sea of lit-up cell phones and…
A flash of blue lightning strikes across a face, right in front of me.
I reach for the dagger hidden under my shirt while I back up, pushing against the crowd as hard as I can, but the crowd pushes back. I can’t get the dagger free. The remnant doesn’t have the same problem. When the lights flash back on, they glint off the short steel blade in his hand. He stabs toward my stomach, but at that exact moment, the crowd reacts, surging around us and making the fae miss.
Miss me. Not the girl who’s tripped into the space I just occupied. Her scream is lost under the fierce, pounding notes of the next song. She collapses to her knees. Instinctively, I reach out to help her, but everyone is still moving, shoving back at people who shoved them.
I manage to grab the girl’s elbow. I’m pulling her up and looking for the remnant at the same time. Someone shoved him. Unintentionally, I think, since it’s obvious no one else can see him. He shoves back, then his eyes lock on me once again.
I need to run—the fae won’t miss me a second time—but if I can somehow get the girl to Aren, he can save her.
“Come on!” I have to yell at the girl so that she can hear me over the music.
She takes one step, then her knees buckle. I strain to keep her on her feet, but her arm slips from my grasp. No one else helps her. They don’t notice the blood soaking her clothes.
The remnant is only a pace away. That’s when the anger takes over. Anger at the unfairness of the girl’s impending death and the brutal torture of the Sighted humans in the building next door. With a scream that nobody hears under the roaring music, I attack the remnant.
It’s clear he doesn’t expect it. There’s a moment of shock in his expression as I ram into him, my fingers reaching for his silver eyes. My nails scrape down the side of his face instead.
I scramble for the hand that was holding his dagger a moment before, but can’t find the weapon. I look at the cement floor to see if he dropped it, but he grabs a fistful of my hair. He jerks my head down, brings his knee up.
Tiny glints of silver dance through the air. Stars, I think, as he slams his knee into my face again.
When my vision clears, I’m on my hands and knees, still alive somehow. Breathing makes my face hurt, but I draw in the hot, smoke-tainted air and look up. Aren is here. He’s wrestling with the fae. Neither of them has his weapon in hand; they’re trying to kill each other with their fists.
Aren dives for the remnant’s knees, gets underneath him, then lifts. I think he intends to body slam the other man, but the fae gets his arm around Aren’s neck, throwing him off-balance. They fall recklessly into the crowd, taking two guys down with them. The humans can’t see what happened; they have no idea what’s going on, but they make assumptions. The first guy throws a fist at the second. Someone jumps in to help, and all of a sudden, the whole place becomes one giant mosh pit.
When someone steps on my shoulder, I realize I’m going to be crushed if I don’t get back to my feet. I stagger forward, half crawling, half standing until I trip over the girl the remnant stabbed. She’s still breathing. Still crying.
Grabbing her arm, I heave up. I have her halfway to her feet when an elbow to the ribs sends a sharp pain down my side. I’m shoved back to the ground. I make an effort to get up again, but people are stepping on the edge of my open coat, pinning me down. The crowd presses in, and the gap I once occupied disappears.
I can’t breathe. Someone steps on me, then someone else. I’m lying on top of the girl, almost cheek to cheek with her. Her eyes are open, glassy. A reckless foot kicks her head. She doesn’t blink or cry out.
The screams from the crowd are actual screams now. I manage to slip out of my coat, then try to get off the ground yet again, but there are too many people around me, on top of me. I’m going to be trampled to death.
Then I’m wrenched back to my feet. I look over my shoulder, expecting to see Aren. It’s not him. It’s a human. Someone I don’t know and who doesn’t know me. Just a random stranger saving my life. I want to thank him, to make sure he gets out of this okay, but I lose sight of him when the crowd surges again. We’re all converging on the exit, an exit that’s far too small to accommodate this many people. Everyone’s screaming and yelling and shoving and pushing. No one will make it out that way.
I shove backward and sideways at the same time, manage to slip through the thinnest gap in the crowd. Adrenaline and a desperate urge to survive are fueling me now. Everyone’s trying to escape the club, so the farther I get into it, the less resistance I meet.
To my left, a trio of girls have broken a window. They’re climbing out of it. I start to head that way when something on the stage catches my eye.
Paige.
A fae has a sword in one hand, my friend in the other. He wrestles her behind the thick, black stage curtain.
“Paige!” I scream, even though I know she can’t hear me. I don’t see any other fae in the club. They could easily have fissured out, so I run, jumping on the stage and sprinting for the split in the curtain where I saw them disappear.
There’s an exit back here. I run through it, scan up and down the street. I don’t see Paige or the remnant, just humans, some who were obviously in the club and others who are watching the rest of us spill out the exits. Some of the women are sobbing. The men look disoriented, too, and the sound of sirens grows louder as the authorities respond to the scene.
Then I hear something else, something I’ve heard far too much lately: the sound of fae fighting.
It’s coming from a side road to my left. I run that way, stop at the corner of the building to peek around its edge. Trev brought back help. He and Aren and at least ten other rebels are fighting an equal number of remnants.
“McKenzie!”
I turn to see Paige sprinting toward me. Before she reaches me, fissures open up all around us.
“Paige!” I scream when a remnant appears out of a slash of light right next to her. She doesn’t blink or swerve away from the fae. Normal humans can’t see the battle taking place in the middle of a London street; she has no idea how close her enemy is.
Fortunately, the remnant doesn’t pursue her. He intercepts a rebel’s attack, swinging, then fissuring and swinging again.
She reaches me. I take hold of her arms as she takes hold of mine. She has a scrape across her left cheek, but otherwise, she looks okay.
“This way,” I say, pulling her to the right at the same time that she pulls me left, and says, “Over here.”
“No, Paige—”
“Come on!” she yells. “We have a plan.”
“A plan? Who’s we?” I demand, but she’s still pulling me down the street. “Paige, what are you doing?”
She turns back to me.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she says. “I’m saving your ass.”
SIXTEEN
SHE’S SAVING ME?
My gut tells me I know what that means, but I don’t have time to ask what the remnants have told her. A police officer or cop or whatever it is they call the authorities here approaches us.
“I need to see your identifications,” he says in his lilting British accent. Lights from the city’s emergency vehicles make his neon vest bright. They also disorient me. I tense with every flash in my peripheral vision, but I don’t see Aren or Shane or any of the remnants. Where the hell did they go?
“Now,” the officer demands, taking a step forward and resting his right hand on the baton at his hip.
Paige and I take a step back.
“I left my ID in my other jeans.” Totally true, but the cop either doesn’t believe me or he doesn’t care. He slips his baton an inch out of its holder. I don’t know what his deal is. Hundreds of people were in that club. He should be asking if we’re okay. He shouldn’t be treating us as if we’re…
Criminals. As if we’re armed.
I am armed, and
if the bodies in the building next door have been discovered, the cops are probably searching for the killers.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” the officer says.
Paige suddenly loops her arm around my waist, throwing her weight against me with enough force to make me stagger.
“Call an ambulance!” she says, her bright blue eyes going wide. “Can’t you see she’s bleeding?”
Bleeding? I look down, see that my shirt and jeans are covered in blood. I’m not hurt, though. Not badly, at least. This is all from the girl in the club.
The dead girl in the club.
“You have to help us,” Paige says, forcing me to move toward the officer. “Please.”
Paige is a great actress, but the cop isn’t buying it. His baton slides all the way out of its holder, and he shouts a name, calling for backup, I presume.
I look toward the right, where the rest of the cops are congregated, helping the injured or setting up barricades to keep out traffic and the decent-sized crowd that’s developed.
Speaking of that crowd, it surges toward the sidewalk, making room for a black sedan to pass. The car hits the opposite curb, nearly clips the post holding up one side of the canopy in front of the theater’s entrance before returning fully to the street. Completely ignoring the barricade the police are moving into place, it heads straight for us.
It has to be Shane. Thank God he made it out of the club okay.
I grab Paige’s arm, removing it from around my waist and using it to pull her toward the approaching vehicle. Then I remember the last time Shane came to my rescue. He plowed into me. I don’t want a repeat experience, so I backpedal toward the sidewalk.
“Hey!” the officer in front of us shouts, moving forward. He notices the car a second later. I tense, hoping Shane doesn’t intend to run him down—hitting a remnant is so much different than hitting a human who’s only doing his job—but the officer staggers backward, out of the way.
The car screeches to a stop between us. I grab the handle of the back door, jerk it open, and am halfway inside before I realize the driver isn’t Shane.
He is human, though.
His dark brown eyes meet mine. “You have two seconds to make a decision.”
He shifts into first gear. Paige shoves me from behind. I’m not in the mood to see the inside of a British jail, so I scurry across the seat. Paige barely has time to fall into the car beside me before the driver takes off.
Or rather, he sort of takes off. I’m thrown back, then forward and back again as the transmission protests. This is a standard. Whoever this guy is obviously doesn’t have much experience with them.
“Let me drive,” Paige says, putting her hands on the shoulders of the front seats to crawl over the center console.
“No,” the driver answers. After another rough stop and start, he gets moving. For about ten seconds. The car coughs and dies.
“You’re going to strip the gears!” she says, grabbing the hand he has on the stick shift.
There’s a muffled yell outside the car. I turn in time to see the officer slam his baton into the driver’s window. The safety glass fractures but stays in one piece.
The cop raises his baton again just as the car roars back to life. We lurch forward. I turn around, looking out the back window to see the officer running after us with the baton raised again. He swings. This time, he misses.
But we are so not out of danger yet. A car parked beside the crowd of onlookers starts moving, heading toward us with its lights flashing.
I face forward again, see that the street is clear ahead, but I’ve seen enough police chases on TV to know that this won’t end well. We might be in the UK, but I’m sure they have helicopters and cameras the same as we do in the U.S. The only way we might—might—get away with this is with fae help. We need to get to the gate.
The guy driving brakes as he makes a sharp left. The turn goes well, but as soon as he tries accelerating again, the car sputters. Paige sprawls over the console and has to brace a hand against the front dash. I grip the back of the driver’s seat and hold on.
“You’re going to get us killed,” Paige says. “Move.”
“You’re sitting on the gearshift.” He leans his shoulder into her, trying to push her out of the way. Ahead, a patrol car sits at an intersection. It starts to pull out, blocking our street.
Paige grabs the wheel, spinning it. I’m thrown against the door, and I swear we nearly flip as we make a wild left turn.
“Jesus Christ, Paige!” The driver rights the steering wheel, but once again, the car lurches.
“This isn’t working.” I grab the door handle. “We’re going to have to run.”
“Not if this asshole cooperates,” Paige says. She gets her legs underneath her, then somehow maneuvers her way into the guy’s lap. She’s petite enough that she’s actually able to fit under the wheel. From the backseat, I can’t see what exactly happens next, but there’s a grunt of pain from the driver, the gears grind one last time, then tires squeal as we take off.
Sirens blare beside us. I curse when I see the patrol car speeding toward my window. Curse again when Paige yanks the wheel, sending me across the backseat. I’m awkwardly wedged onto the floorboard when I’m flung in the other direction.
Adrenaline surges through me—I’m pretty sure we’re going to crash any second—but when I manage to crawl back into my seat, I see that Paige totally has this.
She’s shifting gears like a pro, dodging pedestrians and random medians in the road. She hasn’t shaken the cops pursuing us, though. At least three vehicles are on our tail.
“You’re on the wrong side of the road,” the guy formerly driving the car says. He’s maneuvered himself into the passenger seat. The tendons in his throat are tight, and he’s holding on to the door and center console as if they’re his only lifelines.
“Seat belt,” I say calmly, yanking on the strap over his shoulder. I still tense with every close call and last-minute turn the car makes, but I keep my breaths steady and force myself to trust Paige’s driving. She’s doing better than I could, which is ironic because I know she doesn’t have a license, and I’m fairly certain she’s never even owned a car.
I grab my own seat belt and buckle in. “We’re not going to be able to lose the cops. We need—”
“We’ll go back to where we fissured in at,” Paige interrupts. “Someone will find us there.”
The someone she’s talking about has to be a remnant. “Paige. We need to talk. What did they tell you? Do you know who they are?”
Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you mean what they are? They’re fae. And I’m totally pissed you never told me about them.”
Obviously, they told her about them. I’m grateful for that, though, and if they’ve convinced her that they’re the good guys in the war, then they must not have hurt or threatened her. After seeing what they did to the Sighted humans, I’m grateful for that.
The former driver looks over his shoulder at me. “You know where a gate is?”
“North side of the river near the docks,” I say. Then I add, “Who are you?”
I’m extremely curious. He and Paige obviously know each other. They must have both been with the remnants. They kidnapped Paige because of her connection to me, but I’ve never met this guy. I don’t think he was one of Atroth’s humans.
Atroth’s murdered humans.
“My name’s Lee,” he says.
“He’s the jerk who’s using me to find you,” Paige adds. Then she slams on the brake and spins the wheel.
I brace against the front seat again.
There’s a squeal of tires behind us, then a crash as we lose a patrol car.
Paige sideswipes one of the city’s signature red phone booths and keeps driving.
“Using you to find me?” I ask, a death grip on the back of the driver’s seat.
“I’m just looking for my brother,” Lee says.
“Who you need M
cKenzie to find.” She makes a relatively controlled turn to the right. “Hey, I found the river.”
“We need to go south,” I say, taking a closer look at Lee. He’s facing forward again. The light from the radio highlights his profile. His eyes are dark, and his black, spiky hair is meticulously styled.
“You’re looking for Naito,” I say, certain I see a few faint Caucasian features in his otherwise angular Asian face.
“You do know him,” he says, peering back at me.
“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t elaborate. I had no clue Naito had a brother. He never mentioned one, but then, he never mentioned his father very much either. Understandably, since Nakano is the person who killed Kelia. Nakano leads the group of Sighted humans who attacked the rebels back when they held me captive in Germany. They loathe the fae and are determined to kill them whenever and wherever they can. We call them vigilantes, and they’re a perfect example of why the fae hide themselves from human society.
“You have the Sight?” I ask. The Sight is supposedly hereditary, but it’s extremely rare for two immediate family members to possess it. For all three to have it, that’s truly remarkable.
We cross to the other side of a bridge before Lee answers, “Yeah. I have the Sight.”
That tells me nothing about his allegiance.
“Have you been with the rem…with the fae for long?” I ask.
“We met them a week ago,” Paige says, swerving onto the road running parallel to the river.
“I can answer for myself,” Lee says.
“Oh, really?” Her blond bangs fall into her face when she swings her gaze to him. “You don’t need to consult—”
“I can answer for myself,” he says again. This time, it sounds like he’s gritting his teeth.
“What do you want with your brother?” I ask. If he’s a vigilante, maybe I should find a way to ditch him.
“I haven’t seen him in three years,” Lee answers. “I want to talk to him.”
“He hasn’t mentioned you.”
“We didn’t part on good terms,” he says, then he uses a button on the center console to move the mirror on his door. To focus on the patrol cars pursuing us, I assume. Five are behind us. One pulls parallel whenever he has the chance, but so far, they aren’t being aggressive about forcing us to stop. Back in the U.S., some cities have a policy to just follow suspects. If we’re lucky, they have the same policy here.
The Shattered Dark Page 17
