Like she thought I couldn’t possibly deal with anything without her help.
Like she was somehow key to the whole thing.
Never mind the fact that she probably was the key to something important—just the thought of it pissed me off so much that I couldn’t even speak. Instead, I turned to her and snarled, like an animal. She leaned away from me, and Mason caught her shoulder with one hand. With his other hand, he reached around her and touched my shoulder. The image of him acting as a conduit between us flashed through me, and for an instant, I turned my snarl on him.
He responded with that damned white smile of his. “Tone it down, man.” He spoke quietly through gritted teeth. “You look like you’re about to shift into the ether, and that’ll expose us all.”
For some reason, his comment made Laney laugh, though she sounded more hysterical than amused.
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. “Right now, I don’t care.” But I bit down on my powers and held myself in the mortal world.
When he was sure I had a handle on myself, Mason leaned around until he could see Laney’s face. “Can this wait? Maybe until tomorrow, when things aren’t quite so”—he waggled his hand back and forth—“rocky? Give everyone some time to adjust.”
I glanced at Kayla, who was eating potato chips from a bag and watching the whole exchange interestedly. I got the feeling she would have liked it even more if she’d had popcorn.
Laney shrugged. “It can wait.” She stood up, using the motion to lean in close to me and speak, just loudly enough to make sure Mason and I both heard her. “But whatever bug is up your ass, Josh Bevington, you better clear it out. There’s more going on here than just you or me, and we can’t let personal issues get in the way of doing whatever we need to do.”
Then she stomped away, head held high.
Mason’s snickering caught my attention, and I turned my glare on him. “What?” he said, holding his arms up in a shrug. “You know she’s right.”
Kayla’s eyes narrowed. She had been too far away to hear exactly what Laney had said, but I could almost guarantee that she would be trying to weasel a quote out of Mason later.
I picked up my tray of uneaten food and dumped it into the return bin.
I wasn’t hungry, I wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the school day, and now, I was outright dreading tomorrow.
All combined, the mere thought of continuing to attend Fairy High made my shoulder blades ache—right where my wings used to be.
* * *
When I finally staggered into our house on the Hamilton ranch after school ended, only to find that Dad wasn’t home, I realized that I was angry with him, too.
He was supposed to stop Bartlef from gaining so much power in the first place.
Parents are supposed to protect children from corrupt, power-hungry monsters, not engage those children in their plans to overthrow those monsters.
Not sacrifice their own children to the monsters.
I meant to sit down on the couch and open my backpack, to lose myself in my homework, but instead, I discovered that I had crumpled to the floor without even realizing it, and was sobbing into the dark red rug that covered the worn carpet beneath.
With what felt like the last of my energy, I picked myself up and pointed my feet toward my bedroom.
I had told Mason I would meet him after school at football practice, but I didn’t. I couldn’t face the other students any longer, neither the humans nor the fairies, with their stares and whispers.
I could barely face myself.
Sleep seemed like the only possible escape. It sounded dark, and cool, and soothing.
Nothingness.
On my bedside table stood a small, plastic, amber bottle of medication. I had stopped taking it days ago, as soon as the physical pain ended—just as the doctors instructed me. But now I picked it up and shook the pills inside.
I’m not suicidal.
That’s what I told myself, anyway.
But I stared at the bottle for a long time before taking out one—just one—pill, and popping it into my mouth. I lay down on top of my covers and let the tablet dissolve under my tongue, ignoring the acrid taste as I waited for oblivion to take me.
Laney
After school, I waited by Kayla’s locker for her to finish talking to a group of her friends. As long as I didn’t try to interrupt, she would be mostly polite to me while she gave me a ride to Oma Elaine’s from school. As we walked out of the school toward the parking lot across the street, I half-expected my stepsister to ask me about my conversation with Josh at lunch. The fact that she didn’t made me think that Mason had probably already told her at least part of the truth. I would need to touch base with him later to find out what he had said.
My lies were beginning to get complicated. I needed something like a day-planner to write them all down in so I could keep track.
Laney’s Lie-Planner.™
The thought made me giggle, and my laugh made Kayla stare at me suspiciously. “What’s got you in such a good mood all of a sudden?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I started to try to come up with something—another lie for the planner—when I saw something odd in the school parking lot.
I waited until we got closer to nudge Kayla with my elbow. “Hey. You see that?”
She tilted her head. “I do. You have any idea what’s up?”
“Not a clue.” But I definitely wanted to know.
An older man—maybe in his thirties or forties—stood in the parking lot, leaning against Kayla’s car. At first glance, nothing about him stood out, in particular. He wore blue jeans and a plain gray t-shirt. Running shoes. Nothing specifically inappropriate. But he was creepy in an old dude hanging out in the high school parking lot kind of way. And he had no reason, no right, to be sprawling against Kayla’s car.
My stepsister slowed down until she came to a stop about eight feet away from him. I didn’t know if I could help, or if Kayla would even let me if I tried—but I stepped up beside her. Some sort of weird tension hung in the air, floating between them.
Creepy Dude peered into Kayla’s eyes, as if he could learn something useful about her that way. Kayla crossed her arms over her chest, hitched one hip up higher than the other, flared her nostrils, and gave him her best High School Ice Queen stare.
Even Kayla’s best didn’t scare him off. Creepy Dude just leaned in closer, and said, “Laney?”
Oh, no.
Creepy Dude wasn’t after Kayla at all. He was after me.
Kayla raised one eyebrow and turned her head to look at me—but for once, I didn’t feel like the look was designed to make me feel like an idiot. For once, Kayla and I seemed to be of the same opinion: Creepy dude is creepy.
Hooray! Progress!
I opened my hands in a shrug designed to pass the conversational ball back to her. She was better at this kind of thing, and we both knew it.
If it came time to utter terrible spells and arrange for this guy’s gruesome death, then it would definitely be my turn at bat. Until then, it was probably better if Kayla tried to figure out what was going on here.
“Who’s asking?” She flipped her long, blonde hair back over her shoulder in a move that I’m pretty sure must be taught in some “How to Be a High School Bitch Queen” course somewhere.
Either that, or it was genetic.
In any case, I didn’t have it.
Creepy Dude took a half-step forward with one hand out, a pleading expression plastered across his face, as if it had been painted on top of his features. I didn’t believe the look for a minute.
“Don’t you remember me?” He widened his eyes, then blinked them several times as if holding back tears.
I’d seen better acting on the high school stage.
Kayla glanced at me. I sent a tiny shrug her way.
“Not a clue, dude.” Swinging her keyring from one finger and catching it back in her palm, Kayla took one step forward. “But you’re sittin
g against my car, and I would take bets that you don’t have permission to be on campus.”
Creepy Dude straightened so that he wasn’t touching her car any longer, the fake emotion dropping from his face, his voice hardening. “I have every right to be here.”
Kayla took another step forward, matching the hardness in his voice with the ice in hers. “Not next to my car, you don’t.”
They had both all but forgotten me, even though Kayla had also figured out that this man was searching for me, not her.
Her willingness to step in and protect me was more than a little surprising, but I was willing to take it. Whatever this guy wanted, I was absolutely certain that I wasn’t going to like it.
So I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled out my phone, pressed a few numbers, and handed it to Kayla. She glanced down at it, then smiled a long, slow smile and held it up so Creepy Dude could see the screen.
9-1-1.
“Step away from my car,” she said, every bit the teenage prom queen in her certainty. “Or I’ll call the police. I don’t think they would appreciate having to come deal with the sex pervert hanging out at the high school.”
He snarled, but he stepped far enough away for Kayla to get to the driver side door, then continued backing up as I made my way to the passenger side.
Apparently, being labeled a sex offender wasn’t something Creepy Dude wanted to risk.
Interesting.
It made me think maybe he really was a pervert and didn’t want to get caught.
We were in the car and pulling the doors closed when he took a half-step forward again. “Wait,” he said. “Laney—” We both looked at him. “I’m your father.”
Everything slowed down for the length of one long heartbeat as he and Kayla stared at each other. Then, at the same moment, she and I slammed the doors shut. Kayla backed out of her parking spot and sped out of the lot, tires squealing.
Neither of us spoke until we were out on the street.
Blood pounded in my temples as if repeating a phrase over and over.
Creepy Dude is my father. Creepy Dude is my father.
As we turned onto the highway that led home to her father’s ranch, Kayla glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, then went back to watching the road carefully. “So,” she finally said, when I didn’t seem inclined to start a conversation, “was it my imagination, or did that creepy guy just totally Darth Vader you?”
Kayla’s comment made me laugh, but of course she was right—Creepy Dude had completely Vadered me. What did he mean, he was my father?
Mom was out of town still, so I couldn’t very well sit down and have a nice mother-daughter heart-to-heart with her. But that was definitely in the plans. I clearly didn’t know nearly enough about my own family’s connection to Fairy.
I knew that Mom had grown up here, but I had never met her parents. She had never talked about them, except to say that they died when she was young. I don’t know when I had learned that Mom’s early life was an off-limits subject, but apparently I had learned the lesson well. Even when I learned that we were moving back to the tiny Texas town where Mom had grown up, I hadn’t asked any questions.
That was going to change.
Eventually.
In the meantime, I needed to see what I could find out about Creepy Dude. Creepy Dad. Whatever. That meant going to the one person who knew the most about Fairy and its history: Oma Elaine.
I kind of dreaded the conversation, because as a general rule, when I brought up something outside the lesson plan, Oma Elaine pretended I hadn’t spoken.
This time, though, I was determined to get some answers.
Chapter Five
Laney
One of the first things I had noticed about Bartlef when I first met him was his horrific breath. Every word out of his mouth carried a terrible stench. Initially, I had taken it as a sign that he was really and truly evil. In his case, I’d been right.
Then I met Oma Raina and discovered that she had the same Death Breath. I even caught a whiff of it now and then on Oma Elaine’s breath, and she wasn’t evil. At least not entirely. Finally, I decided that maybe all the People of Fairy developed that particular stinky disability as they aged.
When Kayla dropped me off at Oma Elaine’s place that afternoon, I swung open the door to her house, prepared to hang my book bag on the hook just inside the door and launch into my questions about the man claiming to be my father.
Instead, I reeled back outside, gagging and coughing as I was overwhelmed by that same smell, intensified by at least a factor of ten.
Oma Elaine followed me to the door, an evil smile on her face and a teacup in her hand. “Today, you learn to dreamwalk.”
The steam drifting off the liquid in the teacup wafted the horrible smell in my direction, and I gagged again. “What is that?”
“This will enhance your powers.” Oma Elaine held the teacup out toward me with one hand as she propped the screen door open with the other. “Come inside and we will work.”
I took another step backward. “No way. That stuff is foul. Anyway, you’re not even sure I have any powers of my own.”
Besides, I couldn’t think of a faster way to utterly destroy my social life than to give myself Death Breath.
On purpose?
No, thank you.
Oma Elaine moved out onto the steps leading down from her door and lowered herself to them. “It is unpleasant, yes. But it will allow us to better access that magic that is within you—you are holding it deep inside, and cannot reach it. Dreamwalking will help you overcome your fear.”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “Anyway, the only thing I’m afraid of is ending up smelling like that crap.”
Narrowing her eyes, Oma Elaine said, “In this journey, you are merely beginning. One swallow only.”
One swallow? Yeah, right. That was all well and good, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep any of it down.
The old woman’s seamed face crinkled into a smile. “It is less horrible than you might think.”
I stepped closer, trying to peer into the cup without actually getting another whiff of its contents. “What’s in it?”
“It is an herbal tea.” Oma Elaine patted the step next to her, inviting me to join her.
“I’ll stand, thanks.” I didn’t trust her one bit. She liked to play to frail old lady—she even had a cane that she sometimes employed in her act—but she had put me on the ground more than once with nothing more than a flick of her finger. She was more than capable of holding me down and pouring her gag-tastic tea down my throat.
She could give me more information than ‘herbal tea,’ though.
Oh. Wait. Information.
I was supposed to be getting information from her. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Come sit with me, and let us talk, then.” She regarded me through squinted eyes that she liked to pretend were rheumy and half-blind. They weren’t. She saw everything perfectly clearly.
Pointing one finger at her, I shook my head. “You do not fool me.” I looked off, remembering a particularly rough training session. “Not more than once, anyway. I’ll stay here, thanks.”
Oma Elaine cackled and set the Gag-o-Matic Tea down beside her. “Tell me.”
So I did—I told her everything about Creepy Dad Dude showing up at school, mistaking Kayla for me, announcing who he was. Everything.
The more I said, the more serious her expression grew, until she was frowning so deeply that I thought she might be angry with me. My voice trailed off, and Oma Elaine picked up the disgusting tea and sipped at it absently.
I hoped that meant that this new information had changed her plan to force me to try the stuff.
“This man, you say he seemed certain that he was your father?”
“Well, yes—except he thought Kayla was me. But he called her Laney and said he was her father.”
Oma Elaine’s eyes narrowed and one finger tapped against the ri
m of the teacup. “You should go home now.”
I blinked. Wait. Oma Elaine hadn’t given me any information at all. Anyway, Mason was supposed to pick me up, and he wasn’t due for another forty-five minutes. My lessons were always an hour long.
And there was one thing I desperately wanted to know. “Is that man my father, Oma Elaine?”
Her mouth twisted as she held up one hand, palm out, in a dismissive gesture. “This is a question you should ask your mother, I believe.”
I had been afraid she was going to say that.
“Is he important?” I asked.
But Oma Elaine was standing, moving back toward the door. “Go home. Talk to your family. Be prepared to come back tomorrow. Perhaps I will have more answers for you then.”
Sometimes I hated training with the old-lady-fairy version of frickin’ Yoda.
No straight answers ever get I.
Grinning to myself at my internal wit, I drew in a breath and held it long enough to duck inside and grab my book bag off its hook. I could call Mason and wait outside, where I would stand, still wondering what was going on with the Creepy Dude who claimed to be my father.
And hoping that the smell would dissipate from my bag eventually.
* * *
I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I knew I needed to discuss it with the people I trusted before any information got back to the leaders of the People. Not that I didn’t trust Oma Elaine and Mr. Bevington, but Josh’s father always thought of the People first, and Oma Elaine hadn’t been there when I had taken out Bartlef.
And Kayla didn’t remember it.
But I was beginning to think that I could maybe trust my stepsister.
We wouldn’t ever be best friends.
She told me almost the first time I met her that we weren’t destined to be BFFs.
Yet she had stepped in on my behalf at least twice now, even though her mind-wipe had finally taken effect. Mostly.
Mason didn’t want to share his secret identity with her again and risk having anyone else mess with her mind. Initially, that had seemed like a smart move. Now, though, I thought she might need to know.
Flightless (Fairy, Texas Book 2) Page 3
