City In Embers

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “You want to get burned as well?” A deep voice spoke into my ear. “Do it after I get my abilities back.”

  My stomach dropped. I whirled to face the looming figure. The refection of the flames flickered off Ryker’s harsh features. Dread dropped over me. “Get away from me.” I took a step back from the creature, wiping harshly at the dried tears lining my face. “Leave me alone. I don’t have anything of yours.”

  “Whether you want to admit it or not, you know you do. You somehow took them,” he sneered. His heavy boots hit the road as he stepped closer to me. My neck had to tilt my head to look at him. Man, he was big. “Believe me. I would love to leave you alone.” He paused, his face moving closer to mine. “Actually, I would like to kill you... revenge for all the fae you captured and murdered. Or for shooting me earlier.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone.”

  “Stop lying to me. I know damn well what you are and what you do.”

  Air blew out my nose as I forced my head to stay up. Lie? Our organization did not murder fae. We might collect them to test, and some may die in the process, but far fewer than how many humans they killed. I had seen firsthand a fae murder one of us. Not counting Daniel. It was our last group hunt, the fae ripped out a collector’s throat in front of me before going for his partner. They didn’t care for human life; they thought of us as insects. Beneath them.

  “I’ve heard of your group. You are a bunch of sick fucks, but unfortunately I can’t kill you... yet.” His white blue eyes looked me up and down with disgust. “When I get my powers back, human, that will change.”

  I swallowed back the lump of fear clogging my throat. Think this out, Zoey. He thinks you have something of his. You live as long as he believes you have what he wants. “Not a very good incentive. If I give you back this object, I die.”

  His intense eyes wandered over my face. “You have no idea what you are holding, do you?” This realization seemed to surprise him. “You think it’s something you can simply hand over to me?”

  “I don’t care what it is,” I screamed. “And I love how you call me a sick fuck and a killer when you are the ones who slaughter us. You murdered Daniel.”

  “I didn’t touch your boyfriend.”

  “Your kind did.”

  “Oh, I see. We are all alike, huh?”

  “Aren’t we to you?” My voice stabbed into him. He blinked, not responding. Exactly. I had tripped him up in his own game. Any patience I struggled to find was gone. I had enough of this guy. My heart had curled in on itself and was slowly dying, and it felt like he was poking a stick into the dying carcass. “I don’t have this stone or whatever you were talking about, so go away.”

  “You think it’s the stone I’m aft—”

  I cut him off. “Look around. The world has fallen around our ankles.”

  “It’s not my world,” he mumbled, but I ignored him.

  “I just lost my partner, my sister, and the woman who has raised me since I was thirteen.” I shoved at his chest with no result. “Stay away from me.” Before he could grab for me, I swung and tore off at a run.

  There was only one place I could go. Only one place I was safe. The business building we used to enter the DMG was probably gone, but the structure below the earth was built to withstand attacks of all kinds, from humans or from “aliens.”

  Two alternative routes led into the headquarters. The closest one was more than two miles from here and ran alongside the underground sewer system. It was my best chance.

  My feet slapped against the pavement as I sprinted away from the only house I ever considered home. Not because of the bricks and mortar or even Joanna. Lexie had made it a home.

  My home was burning into embers and ash.

  Along with my heart.

  Adrenaline only rallied my system briefly before sorrow took over, almost crippling my muscles. My beautiful, brash-mouthed little sister, whom I adored more than life, was dead. Wasn’t it enough she was born crippled and unloved by her mother, but to die so brutally at the age of twelve?

  Stumbling to a stop, I leaned over, throwing up in the street. Daniel and Lexie were both taken from me in a blink of an eye. All my dreams vanished with them. Bile came up again, emptying my stomach. It was so hard not to curl up in the middle of the road, but the idea of the enormous fae finding me kept me moving.

  People were in the streets, crying and screaming for help. The devastation was so great the fire departments, police, and ambulances couldn’t help with all the damage. From what I had seen, most roads near the center had been destroyed. And even if a fire station or hospital survived, there wasn’t enough electricity to get to all the places needing aid. The strange storm had blown out all power, creating an eerie isolation in the outskirts of town. The closer I got to the city, the more the sky glowed but not with city lights. Fire raged, keeping the downtown area bright.

  I reached the tunnel with no Viking attack and heaved a sigh of relief when I got to the entrance of DMG. Electricity was still working here. The DMG worked off the grid, on its own power supply, and never had to worry about outages affecting them from above. I punched in my code, and the doors slid open, allowing me entrance.

  Visually, every inch of HQ seemed unchanged. But to me nothing was the same. My shoes shuffled down the hallway leading to Dr. Rapava’s office.

  “Zoey!” Kate’s voice came down the hall, her head poking from the conference room. “Oh my god. I am so happy to see you. You look awful. Are you all right?” She didn’t give me a chance to respond. “I’m so glad you are safe. We were worried about you.” Kate gave me a quick hug before shepherding me through the door. “Come, we’re all in here.”

  No, I thought. We’re not all in here.

  I stepped into the conference room filled with collectors and scientists. Every head swung in my direction. Dr. Rapava’s eyes widened as if I were an illusion.

  Bloody, dirty, my hair and clothes singed, cuts and bruises all over—I must have looked a sight.

  “Ms. Daniels, you are alive.” He seemed very surprised I was standing in front of him. “But your monitor...” He stopped, then mumbled to himself.

  Kate put her arm around me. “What he means to say is we were very worried about you. We thought something happened to you. Both you and Daniel...” She glanced behind me, suddenly realizing I was alone. “Where is he?”

  Pain grabbed my lungs and squeezed them with force. Only a cracked gasp made it out. Being alone, I did what I needed to do to get here. Now I was safe. I felt my walls, which had kept me functioning, come down. My body bowed forward, a guttural wheeze broke through.

  “Oh no,” Kate whispered before pulling me back into her arms. My pain went past tears. I grappled for air, and my heart ripped into pieces.

  Not counting an hour ago, the last time I cried in front of people was when I was ten. A girl had punched me to get the bike I was riding. It was a hand-me-down, but it had rainbow tassels hanging off the bars, and it was mine. I loved it. It came from one of the nicer foster mothers. When the older girl took the bike, I cried because I didn’t want to lose the precious item. Then I cried because I was afraid the foster mother would get mad at me for losing it and send me away. My tears turned to anger. I tore after the girl and pushed her off the bike. I punched, kicked, and bit until someone pulled me off. The girl was taken to the emergency room. The ironic thing was the foster mother did get rid of me... because she feared my temper and violent outburst. I had only been with for her a month before being carted off to another house. The very thing I was afraid of happened. I learned people didn’t really want me to be myself, and I learned to adapt and play whatever role I needed to survive. Still, there were times when the violent nature, the dark side of me, would boil to the surface. It was a side I even tried to hide from Daniel.

  Not a tear fell now, but a surging, choking sound heaved deep from my gut and up my throat. I planted my hands on the cool tiles, keeping myself from toppling over. I didn’t remember w
hen I actually collapsed to the floor, but I found myself curled over my knees. Kate sat next to me, her arms wrapped around my shoulder, rocking me. “Shhh...” She stroked my hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  I blinked, soot from the fires outside still blurring my vision. I caught the group staring at me with sadness, shock, and unease. Losing Daniel along with Seattle getting destroyed by some freak storm was a lot for them to absorb.

  “How?” Peter choked out. He had been an old military comrade of Daniel’s. They had been through a lot together. His face showed the agony of another fallen soldier.

  “Fae. A fae named Maxen killed him. A lackey of someone called Garrett.” I was surprised they could hear me. My voice sounded weak and wobbly.

  Dr. Rapava jerked at my declaration. “Garrett?”

  “Yes.” I wiped my face and stood. “Why?” Kate used my arm to pull herself from the floor with a grunt. Her bones cracked as she straightened.

  The doctor looked down, shaking his head. “I have heard the name come up quite a bit when talking to our test subjects. He seems to be a front-runner in the underground fae community.”

  “I’m going to kill him and his whole group.” Rage tore up my esophagus. Daniel would be avenged.

  “Zoey, you need to stay focused.” The doctor took off his glasses and cleaned them on his lab coat before replacing them on his nose. “This has been a very long emotional night for all of us. Unfortunately, things are only going to get worse. This storm was not natural. The fae magic responsible was unfathomable. It almost broke our equipment.”

  I wasn’t crazy. I knew I felt something odd about the storm.

  “It is starting. The fae are declaring war on us. This weather attack was their way of broadcasting how easily they can bring us to our knees,” Boris stated. “If they can do this, who knows what else they can do?”

  “Do what?” A woman’s voice spoke from the far side of the room. I turned to see Sera and Liam coming through the doorway.

  “Good. You two are safe.” Dr. Rapava gave a swift nod to them.

  “We tried to call, but all cell service is down,” Sera replied.

  “What’s going on? This city’s leveled.” Liam strode by me, heading for the oval meeting table.

  Sera followed, but her gaze never left me. Her foot stumbled, and she stopped short. “What the... ?” Her voice tapered off, and her eyes grew wide, zooming all over my face and body.

  “What?” My lids dropped into a defensive glare.

  “How is it possible?” The timbre of her voice went up.

  Kate glanced between the two of us. “What is it, Sera? What’s wrong?”

  Sera looked at her then around the room. “You don’t see it?” All sets of eyes landed on me, then to Sera in confusion.

  “See what, Sera?” Rapava came around the table.

  Sera licked her lips, her attention coming back on me with even more intensity. It was as if she were reassuring herself that what she saw was real. Something in my gut cramped with warning.

  “Her aura.” She pointed around me. “It has magic in it. It’s thick and swirling with colors. She has a fae’s aura.”

  “What?” I froze in place.

  “It’s not strong, but it’s there.” She turned to our fellow seers. “You see it, too, right?”

  Marv and Matt leaned closer, their intense gazes centering on me.

  Matt bolted up first. “Holy shit.”

  Marv squinted harder, then a gasp came from him. His chair slammed back into the wall, toppling. He stumbled away from me and fell over it.

  Spikes of alarm shot up through my veins. Run. Get out, they screamed at me. My legs tensed, taking a step in retreat from Sera and the others. Why did I want to run? There was nothing to be afraid of. Not from them. But my intuition was telling me the opposite.

  “H-how is this possible?” Marv’s panicked voice and fear filling the room only tapped deeper into my reflex to bolt.

  “Everyone calm down,” Dr. Rapava coolly addressed the group, walking to me. “I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it.”

  Neither he nor Kate had the sight, so they had to trust what my fellow seers observed.

  “There is no reasonable explanation for a human to have a fae aura.” Sera’s words were clipped, accusatory. “What did you do?”

  Rapava gave Kate a look, and she immediately took Sera by the shoulders and led her to the table, away from me.

  The doctor loomed over me; his reserved nature suddenly felt threatening. Run! My muscles twitched at the command. He took out his tiny flashlight, shining it into my eyes. “Look up.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Matt mumbled from across the room.

  “How did you miss it?” Sera fired at him.

  “It’s so slight I’m surprised you saw it.”

  “What are you talking about? She is glowing like the Fourth of July.” Sera waved her arms toward me.

  “No, she’s not. I can barely see it,” Matt snapped back. He always hated the fact Sera and I were more powerful seers. “Plus, we just found out Daniel is dead. I wasn’t really looking at her aura.”

  “What?” Sera and Liam said at once.

  “Daniel was killed tonight,” Kate replied somberly.

  “Look down,” Rapava ordered me.

  I was restless. I needed to get out of this windowless room and escape all the stares, brimming fear, and condemnation.

  “What happened tonight, Zoey?” Rapava stepped back, done with his eye exam. There was something in his tone that struck my nerves.

  My heart thumped in my chest. The room was silent, everyone waiting for a word to leave my lips. I tried to go through the events the best I could, but something stopped me from disclosing the truth.

  “Did a fae touch you?” the doctor questioned unemotionally. He was never one for showing feelings, but this voice was different. I had heard the tone when he was talking to the fae. His science experiments. His subjects. “Any body fluids exchanged?”

  My neck snapped up. “What?”

  “Like blood or semen.”

  “Semen?” I screeched. “How would I have fae semen in me?” Silence and stares from everyone in the room caused a light bulb to ping in my head. “You think I’m having sex with a fae?”

  Rapava frowned. “I did not say it was consensual. I actually hope not. But the only explanation I can think of for your emanation is if you were impregnated by a fae.”

  My jaw fell open. Shock silenced me for a moment. It took a while to get over the fact he would prefer I’d been raped in order to comprehend the rest of his sentence. “You think I’m pregnant?”

  What the hell is going on?

  “It would explain your aura.” Rapava appeared to already believe his theory.

  “You are disgusting,” Sera sneered, her expression filled with loathing. “It’s no better than screwing an animal. Worse actually.”

  Flabbergasted, words would not come to my mouth fast enough.

  “Did Daniel know about this?” Peter vaulted from his chair. “How could you do this to him?”

  “What? No... I-I am not pregnant,” I proclaimed. No one seemed to be listening to me. The room was full of people talking and shouting over each other about the new revelation. My head spun. Tonight had been one traumatic event after another, and my nerves bent under the weight.

  “Zoey, I would like you to come with me.” Rapava grabbed my arm.

  His harsh touch stirred more anxiety. Get out! Get out! “Wait! Why? What’s going on?” I tried to tug out of his viselike grip, but the older man was stronger than he looked. Or I was extremely weak after my night.

  “I only want to check you. Make sure everything is all right.” He hauled me toward the door.

  “What? No!” Panic took over. My street-survival instincts kicked in. I jerked and wrenched against his hold. His hand lost its grasp, and I heard him yell to someone. Liam bounded to us, his hands grappling for me.

  “Don�
�t hurt her. If there is a baby, I want to test them both.”

  “There is no baby,” I shouted, but my words were swallowed by the commotion in the room. I elbowed the body behind me, but Liam’s long arms wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. I slammed my head back, cracking into his face. He swore as his grip loosened. I kicked back, pushing him away from me. Free. I ran for the exit, pulling the door open. A small fist came out of nowhere and slammed into my cheek. Fire burned up the side of my face. My body tumbled awkwardly to the floor. It felt like a thousand hands descended at once, holding me down. Liam, Peter, and Hugo surrounded and restrained me.

  Sera stood, shaking out her hand, looking down at me with disgust. “Never thought you were capable of this.”

  “I didn’t,” I tried to say, but stopped when I saw Dr. Rapava squat next to me, a syringe in his hand.

  “I am sorry we have to do this, Zoey, but you should have known the consequences of your actions.” The needle broke through the skin, burrowing deep in my arm. Heat rushed into my vein as he pumped the liquid in my body.

  “But... I... did...” My mouth stumbled over the words I desperately wanted to say. Their faces swam in my vision. “Wrong.”

  No, that’s not what I meant.

  Everything dimmed until unconsciousness lapped over my body, taking me into the depths of sleep.

  SEVEN

  The blurry radiance of light showered down on me like the sun. My lashes flickered a few times, trying to clear my vision. The indistinct luminous blaze collapsed into one single bulb hanging above me. My body stretched lengthwise on a hospital bed, the glint of the metal roller bars drifted through my sight. I twisted my head. The pain in my face and the heaviness under my scalp caused a groan to escape my lips. The room swam in my drug-induced vision, taking its time to sharpen enough for me to make it out. The place wasn’t familiar, but the style was—white walls, linoleum flooring, and no windows. Lots of rooms and labs I’d been in looked similar to this one. I was somewhere in the DMG. I had explored the first level of the bureau thoroughly, and I knew there existed lower levels where Dr. Rapava’s labs were. But I wasn’t allowed to go down there, not having the necessary level of clearance.