Reckless

by Selene Charles

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed, fingers twitching on her lap, she nibbled on the corner of her lip. “Do I really look that different?”

  She knew she did, but she was really hoping they’d tell her it wasn’t all that bad. Not that she’d suddenly sprouted a third eye, a second head, or tentacles out of her stomach, but she was different.

  Her dad glanced off to the right, his jaw clenching.

  Grace, on the other hand, didn’t look so much disturbed as curious. “Ye look so much like him.”

  “Who?” Flint asked, even though she figured her nana probably meant her grandfather.

  “Why didn’t Becca ever tell me about any of this?” Her dad shot to his feet, pacing between the narrow confines of Flint’s bedroom and kitchen. “Why didn’t she prepare me? Prepare us?” He sounded so angry, so disappointed, that it made Flint’s throat feel suddenly tight, like there was a lump in it.

  It terrified Flint that maybe Katy was getting in her dad’s ear and making him hate her, or even worse, that there was no outside influence whatsoever happening and her father was starting to hate her because she was no longer the daughter he’d known all his life.

  Curling the edges of the towel in her hands, she stared at her nails, which’d grown twice as long as they’d been before and were now sharply tipped at the edges, the way talons would be. The dream vision she’d had of herself the other night—it’d come true. She looked like a glowing nightstick with claws, and if there was one word to adequately describe her now, it would be ugly.

  Not only was she a mess thinking about what Cain would say, but added to that was the stress of spirit-walking each and every freaking night—which she’d still not told anyone about—and she wasn’t exactly sure why she was keeping it to herself.

  She was even beginning to doubt her own sanity at this point. Wherever she kept going, whoever she kept seeing, it hadn’t been Abel. She didn’t know who the man was.

  Some days he’d look at her, other days he wouldn’t. She didn’t try to touch the iron bars again. Rubbing her fingers together, she recalled the fiery pain. That couldn’t have been imagined, and yet she couldn’t fathom that any of this was actually real either.

  It wasn’t that, Flint did want to talk to somebody about what was going on, but she didn’t even know where to start, and each day kept getting harder and harder to confront it.

  Grace sighed. “I love my daughter, Frank, but unlike Flint, she feared the world she did not understand. I tried, so many times I tried, to get her to accept herself for who she really was.”

  A heavy knock sounded at her door, and the sharp scent of pine and tingly smell of berserker testosterone had her pulse fluttering like drunken, razor-tipped wings inside her belly.

  Yelping, coming nearly off the bed, she twirled around, yanking up the towel in one smooth move and holding it in front of her, hoping to obscure as much of herself as possible.

  She’d wanted to see Cain, but now that he was here, she didn’t want to see him at all.

  “Flint! Are you there?” he cried, his voice sounding near panicked. “Let me in.”

  He could have just ripped the door off its hinges. She knew that. She also knew he was trying really hard to respect her privacy.

  She swallowed hard.

  Her father shook his head. “That demon shouldn’t be here.” His words didn’t sound so much like those of a concerned father’s but like he was angry. With her. With himself. Maybe even with her mother.

  Her relationship with her dad was deteriorating so fast it was giving Flint whiplash.

  Grace swatted at Frank’s arm with the back of her hand. “Hold on, Cain,” she called out and then hissed low at them both. “The key to surviving this is to make the right friends. Take it from me—I know a thing or two about monsters. You want her live to see her eighteenth birthday, Frank, then you start changing your mind and quick about that boy. And you...” She turned to Flint. “If he really loves you like I think he does, then this shouldn’t matter.”

  “Shouldn’t?” Frank bellowed, getting to his feet as panic besieged him before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pistol.

  Flint gasped. “Holy crap! Daddy!”

  Why in the world did her father own a gun? When had he ever even gotten one? This carnival might be overrun with monsters, but the sight of that weapon made her heart tremble in a way none of them ever had.

  Cain, who’d obviously heard her gasp of surprise, did actually rip one of the hinges off the door as he slammed it open, filling the doorway immediately. His hot, red eyes zeroed in on the pistol.

  “Mr. DeLuca, put that down.” Cain’s voice was smooth, methodical, and calm, so opposite the reaction he should have had as a rager. Slowly he maneuvered his body so that he blocked both her and her grandmother from her dad’s field of vision.

  Frank shook the gun. “You know what’s good for you, then you get out of here now, boy!”

  “Don’t you dare!” Forgetting everything but saving Cain, Flint wiggled out from behind him, ignoring his terse command for her to get back.

  “What are you doing, Daddy?” she whispered.

  His eyes turned toward her, and they were wide and frantic, the whites almost overtaking everything else. “Flint, get out of the way.”

  “Bloody hell, Frank,” Grace muttered from behind Cain’s back. He was still attempting to maneuver himself in front of Flint, but she wouldn’t let him.

  Her father hated him. One wrong move and that gun would go off, and she’d never forgive him or herself. But he wouldn’t shoot her—she had to believe that.

  “I live in a carnival surrounded by monsters straight from the depths of hell. My daughter is dating one. Call this a little insurance.” A laugh that made her skin crawl squeezed out of his throat.

  Daddy had always been the lover-not-a-fighter type. What he was doing now, this wasn’t him. Not at all.

  “Why are you doing this?” A tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye.

  He blinked several times. Even when Mama had died, she’d never seen him like this. And he’d loved her more than anything in the world. Did he really hate her this much? Did being a quarter fae really change how he felt about her?

  It was hard to swallow around her suddenly swollen throat.

  Cain gently nudged Flint to stand to the side of him, angling himself so that if a shot did go off, he’d take the brunt of it. And that’s when she got angry.

  That hot anger that’d flowed through her the other day came back in a dizzying rush, filling her limbs. She curled her hands into tight fists.

  She loved her dad. When he’d gone on his drunken binges, she’d never stopped loving him, and she wouldn’t stop now. But she refused to let him do this to her anymore.

  Frank had the gun aimed square at Cain’s heart, his hand trembling violently. And she was angry. Angry at him for retreating into a shell when Mom had died and making her fend for herself. Angry at him for moving on to Katy as fast as he had. Angry at him for being angry with her because of a product of genetics.

  She felt the pulse of that anger flow like raging waters through her veins, beneath her skin, felt that strange glow begin to emanate like curls of fog from her flesh.

  “You’re right.” She notched her chin. “We do live in a carnival full of devils. Do you honestly think pointing a gun at one of them is a good idea?”

  She held up her hands, taking a step forward. Cain meanwhile was trying to tug her back, hanging on the pocket of her sweatpants, but she shrugged him off. She knew what she was doing.

  Tears swam in her father’s eyes. “Flinty.” His voice broke. “They can’t hurt you. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “They’re not hurting me, Dad. You are. What did Katy do to you?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I just see you and I... I can’t think straight. I can’t, I—”

  “Oh, merciful heavens,” Grace murmured. “I ken what this is. Bloody hell.”

  No one asked Grace
what she meant, because to let themselves be distracted now would be a dumb idea.

  The gun was jostling so violently that it would only take a random twitch of his finger to make it go off. But Flint was unafraid and no longer even angry—all there was inside her now was pity. He was broken. He’d been broken ever since her mom had died. Flint had thought he’d gotten better, but he hadn’t. Not really. He’d only put a Band-Aid on things. And maybe he hated her now, or maybe he was just overwhelmed. Either way, somehow—and without her even knowing it—she’d ripped that Band-Aid off, and he was spiraling again.

  “Flint, move away. Get away from him,” Frank said, and his shoulders took up the shaking with the first of his silent sobbing. He’d failed her when Mom had died. Slipped so deep into his booze that she’d become little more than a footnote in his life.

  Flint knew her father, knew the way his mind worked. He might not know who she was anymore, but somewhere deep down inside he was trying, in the worst possible way, to protect her. Whispering Bluff was supposed to be their reset button. Things had gotten better, had begun to finally get kind of normal again. And now they weren’t, and he’d snapped.

  “Daddy,” she said softly, throat so full of tears it was impossible to get the words out without her voice cracking. “I love you. I always will. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for what you’ve done today. I was there for you during the drinking, there for you when you lost yourself to your misery and forgot all about me, but I’m not okay with this. You hear me? I’m not okay with this.”

  She said it gently, trying to get him to understand that very simple but fundamental truth. He’d screwed up so royally she wasn’t sure things could ever be the same between them again.

  She knew the moment realization hit, because the crazed light in his eyes vanished like the guttering flame of a candle.

  Lowering the weapon, he trembled violently. Immediately Cain reached over, yanking the gun from Frank’s lax grip and releasing the clip before pocketing them.

  High on adrenaline, she didn’t get more than a second to realize the vain hope she’d held on to that the gun hadn’t actually been loaded was a lie. The thing had been had been hot and pointed not only at her but at her grandmother and her boyfriend too.

  “Cain, run and get Katy now,” Grace said. “I’ll stay with the girl. Go now.”

  Flint could sense Cain’s hesitance to leave, but he did as he was told.

  Fighting the powerful urge to slap her dad for being so stupid, she held very still. Then he was grabbing her, yanking her into his arms, crushing her into his chest. And she wanted to scream at him to leave her alone, to let her go, but the words just wouldn’t come.

  All she could do was swallow the hurt. She thought she’d come so far, thought she’d finally learned to live with the loss of her mother, but instead she found all those old demons crawling back to the surface, felt the utter hopelessness of loss all over again. Except this time it was because of her father.

  His fingers dug brutally into her spine, gripping her tight, as though he feared ever letting her go again, and Flint just felt cold. She wanted to hug him back, wanted to tell him she loved him, because she did, she really did, but the hurt was too fresh to just sweep away with a hug.

  A gentle knock was the only warning she got, and then the door was suddenly opened and Katy stepped in.

  “Frank,” Katy said slowly, rubbing her hand down his back. “Let Flint go. Come with me, honey.”

  It took several more cajoling words before her dad released her. When he did, her heart nearly shattered at seeing his eyes and nose swollen, the way the stubble framed his face. For better or worse, he would always be her dad.

  Katy was probably Flint’s least favorite person in this circus right now, and even though the woman was currently scowling angrily at her, she couldn’t help latching onto her wrist and begging, “Please, Katy, don’t let him have anything to dr—”

  Katy wouldn’t look her in the eye as she said, “He’s in safe hands.”

  There was a lump wedged so tight in her throat she almost felt like she couldn’t breathe around it. Wrapping her arms around herself, she watched as Katy led her still-messed-up dad out of her trailer.

  She was still standing there when Cain rushed her.

  He didn’t say any words. He took her into his arms, wrapped her up tight, and hugged her fiercely.

  “Grace, what the eff just happened?” Cain snarled, eyeing her grandmother.

  Blowing out a heavy breath, she whispered, “Remember we talked the other day about the fae having power over weak minds?”

  Flint frowned. She’d not remembered hearing that. “What?”

  Lips thin, Grace said, “I thought it was a skill developed over time. Flint, you’ve come into your true form. The fae are known to heighten the mood of humans. Make whatever they feel ten times more powerful than normal.”

  It was hard to breathe. “He hates me?”

  She dug her nails into Cain’s back, fisting his dark gray shirt between her fingers.

  Shaking her head, Grace glanced back at the door. “Nay, lass. That reeked of desperate fear to me. I think your father is terrified, and frankly, being around you only makes things worse.”

  Silence fell like a weighty hush. After a moment Grace stood. “I need to speak with Adam about this. I’ll be returning to my home tonight. Flint, one way or another we’re going to work this out.”

  When she left, it was like a dam had suddenly broken. Flint sobbed, held on to Cain’s shirt like she never wanted to let him go, and cried from the enormous black ache that she’d tried so hard to ignore since the moment she’d opened her eyes. But it all came out now.

  Her fears.

  The pain of losing Abel.

  The terror of being someone she no longer knew.

  Of realizing that she would never be the same again. That life could never return to what it’d once been.

  “I love you, Flint DeLuca.” His deep bass voice rumbled in her ear. “And nothing’s ever gonna change that.”

  And it was so perfect, so pure, that she could only cry harder because this wasn’t how her life was supposed to turn out.

  This wasn’t how he was supposed to say it. Mom should still be alive. Abel was supposed to be home. Dad was supposed to still love her. Still be there for her. Flint was supposed to be human.

  “Cain,” she keened, the sound spilling up from the darkest depths of her being.

  “I know, princess, I know.” He hugged her tighter, and the pressure of it was almost pain, but she didn’t want to feel alone.

  She didn’t want to be alone anymore.

  And there, in that trailer, Flint cried for all they’d lost, releasing every emotion she’d tried so hard to ignore, to deny. And Cain rocked her, holding her till the bitter end, and she loved him so much more for it.

  ~*~

  Cain

  Only a few hours had passed since the moment Frank had pulled a gun on him. To say that he was in a foul mood was an understatement. But the search for Abel had to continue, and that meant interrogating their captive.

  “Where is he?” Spittle flew from Cain’s lips, landing on the drone’s bloated and cracked face.

  Its eyes were swollen shut now and covered in a bright mottle of purple and yellowing flesh. Its lips were busted open and oozing a thick black fluid. It’d been beaten severely, but the beating hadn’t come from them.

  The creature had smacked its head repeatedly onto the concrete floor, busting the bones of its face to mere shards. Its left eye socket hung a good inch below the right eye.

  They’d been forced to place a collar on the thing just so it wouldn’t kill itself before they could learn what they needed to.

  But it wouldn’t drink and it wouldn’t eat. It was only a matter of time before it died, and any hope of finding his brother or Layla would go right along with it.

  A thick, guttural sound like a laugh mixed with a groan spilled off its tongue
. But it didn’t say a word, just continued to cackle louder and louder.

  Cain blinked his eyes, fighting the rage, the adrenaline and instinct to kill it coursing through his blood. End its miserable, pathetic life.

  “Where?” His voice grew deep as he fisted its chin in his massive hand, fingers digging into the grainy texture of what was once a firm jawbone. “So help me, where, damn you! Where?”

  “Cain,” Eli calmly said.

  The drone spat on him. A thick paste of blood and spit landed on the corner of his lip. Red danced through his eyes. His arms expanded, his neck, his thighs, he was a machine ready for battle.

  A hand landed on his shoulder.

  “Flint.” Eli’s voice was still collected. “She’s your compass, so use her, Cain. Remember who you are. We can’t afford to kill our only lead.”

  Closing his eyes, panting with the exertion it took to control his demon, he thought of her.

  His beautiful compass with her wild hair and strange eyes. She’d changed, but to him she’d only become more beautiful. More exotic. Yes, she was feral-looking in some ways, but that fit him. She fit him. The girl he’d met months ago was so different from who she now was, but deep down, she was still the same. Still his.

  He trembled, remembering her touch. The way she’d hold him. How fearless she was in the face of his beast.

  And her tears. Those precious tears she’d entrusted him with tonight. The awareness of her coursed through his veins, slowing his heart rate and pulse, making it easier to breathe, to think right again. His muscles contracted, shrinking to proper size.

  Trembling, he dropped his hand and took a step back. The drone’s head lolled forward, a trail of spit plopping down to the floor as it continued to wheeze with laughter.

  “I need to find Flint,” Cain murmured. Turning on his heel, he ran for her trailer.

  Spotting Seth a moment later, he slowed down. He’d set Seth to guard her place, mostly to make sure Frank didn’t come back to her. Not tonight. She loved him and he’d figure out some way to respect that, but he’d be damned if he let her dad get near her again so soon after what’d just happened.