Touch (Touched by the Fae Book 3)

by Jessica Lynch

  Of course, that was when I thought I was dealing with the regular staff of Black Pine, not a vindictive doctor who seems to know way more about Faerie than I do.

  The phone was charged. I double-checked before I left the apartment, and I even tested to ensure that it would survive shadow travel. However, as soon as I discover a black screen, I realize that the magic of the salt and iron circle—or maybe the strange closet—must have done something to it.

  It’s dead.

  Worthless.

  Wonderful.

  So my phone is out. Not like it would’ve been much help. I wouldn’t have allowed Callie or Ash to come after me, though at least they would know there’s a reason why I’m not returning just yet.

  I hide it in my hoodie pocket just in case. Then, because there’s nothing else I can do, I sit with my back against the wall and wait.

  His cockiness is deserved. Between the barrier and the super bright lights, I’m not going anywhere. I try to pull some shadows out of thin air because I’d be a moron not to, but it’s useless. All I do is make myself tired and frustrated and neither one of those emotions is going to help me right about now.

  I feel like I should’ve been expecting something like this. The old Riley might have. The Riley who got a little complacent because she’s been holed up with her parents… she forgot what life outside of the apartment was really like. Melisandre is my biggest threat—but she’s not my only one.

  With my phone dead, I don’t have a watch or any way to tell time. It’s a good thing that, despite all my other issues, I’ve never been claustrophobic. If I stretch out, there would be barely enough room for me, that’s how narrow this room is. Six feet maybe? A couple of feet longer the other way, though that side is taken up by the “toilet” and the sink.

  Anxiety prickles against my senses. It’s not the space. I’ve been in worse. It’s the lock. It’s knowing that I all but walked into this mess and that, when I don’t return home tonight, I’m going to put Callie and Ash through hell.

  The minutes drag by. I blow the air out of my mouth, rubbing my forehead with my fingertips. The leather passing over my skin is reassuring. Another deep breath and I shake the growing panic off.

  He won’t leave me in here. I don’t know much, but I’m absolutely sure of that. He was already boasting about how he had me where he wanted me. If Nurse Callahan didn’t come along and interrupt his gloating, I might have a better idea of what he’s after. I hate the idea that it’s me. I’m hoping there’s a misunderstanding but… yeah. I’m not about to hold my breath.

  Damn it.

  I have no idea how long it takes before the knob squeaks, slowly turning.

  There’s nowhere for me to go. I back up anyway, putting as much distance between me and the door as it pulls open.

  Dr. Gillespie is back. He’s still wearing the same outfit as earlier with the added bonus of a sly smile as he meets my wary stare. He’s carrying a plate.

  He walks to the very edge of the circle, careful not to come into contact with the salt and iron mix. After setting it on the floor, he nudges the plate with the tip of his dress shoe so that it’s on my side of the door.

  “For you. Special delivery.”

  “What is it?”

  “I thought it would be nice to treat you. You’re my guest—”

  “Captive,” I mutter.

  “Twelve of one, a dozen of the other,” he says, his grin turning impish. At that moment, I want nothing more than to slap it off his face. “I was sure you’d be tired of hospital food.”

  I look at the plate. It’s fruit. Does he think I’m that much of a damn idiot?

  He doesn’t know about the peach. How could he? Carolina took that secret with her to her grave, and while I still don’t know which one of Melisandre’s guards left it for me to find, the only other person who knows that I almost got tricked into eating food from Faerie is Nine.

  Fool me once, that’s on you. I’m not about to let myself be fooled a second time.

  “Thanks.” My voice is flat. “I’ll eat it later.”

  “You will.”

  He sounds so sure. I don’t like that at all.

  And then he adds, “It doesn’t have to be this way. I tried to show you that I’m here to help you. You didn’t have to run. You’re hiding from the fae. I can help you do that.”

  It’s not like I can pretend that I don’t know what he’s talking about. If my file, my history, and my own confession during session isn’t enough to back him up, there’s the way I’m trapped in the circle.

  “I don’t want your help. Let me out of here. I want to go home.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.”

  “Yes, it is. Listen—”

  “Eat your dinner, Riley.”

  He’s not listening to me. I need to make him listen to me. Sure, I came all the way back here because I have every intention of stealing his Brinkburn crystal if I can, but his halfling trap is a warning that I have to listen to.

  “Dr. Gillespie, please—”

  His face crinkles. Is that another smile? I think so. I think it’s supposed to put me at ease.

  Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

  “I’m not your psychologist anymore,” he says. “It’s alright. You can call me Aidan now.”

  Yeah. That’s not gonna happen.

  Maybe if it was his true name and I could use it to compel him, but I’ve got no doubt in my mind that it isn’t. Why would he give me any power over him? He wouldn’t, and by dictating what I call him, he’s just proving that he’s the one holding all the cards.

  I decide, then and there, that he’ll be Gillespie to me from now until the day I die just because he told me otherwise. ‘Cause he’s right—he’s not my doctor. He’s just some insane man who went to the trouble of trapping me and thinks a plate of fruit is an acceptable peace offering.

  Then again, I’m not about to cut off my nose to spite my face. Just in case he made a huge, honking mistake, I mutter under my breath, “Let me go, Aidan.”

  Like I expected, using that name does jackshit. His bushy, red eyebrows go up. “What was that? You say something, Riley?”

  Gritting my teeth together, I shake my head.

  A flash of disappointment is quickly replaced with steely determination. He starts to back away again, his hand on the edge of the door.

  “In that case, good night. Get some rest. Perhaps you’ll be in a more cooperative mood tomorrow.”

  Good night? So it’s still the same day. That’s good. But Gillespie telling me ‘good night’ and ‘get some rest’? Oh, no. That’s not good.

  I scramble to my feet. I don’t know why, except it bothers me the way that the red-haired creep is staring down his nose at me while I stay frozen on the floor.

  “You can’t leave me in here,” I tell him.

  “Why not? I made sure you have facilities. There’s water in the tap, food waiting for you to eat it. You have everything you need for as long as I need to keep you here.”

  I goggle over at him. “And how long is that?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  Before I can ask, he closes the door in my face.

  I sputter and I stare at the back of the door as, once again, I find myself all alone.

  Knock, knock.

  I didn’t mean to fall asleep. With the bright light, the pristine white wall, and my nerves ratcheted up past eleven, I thought I’d be up all night. Exhaustion and anxiety must have caught up with me sometime early this morning, though, because, at that sudden, sharp knock, I’m jolted out of a dreamless, restless sleep.

  I’m slumped in the corner, my head nestled in my palm, my elbow propped up against my belly. I jerk awake, wincing as the searing light—and the truth of my predicament—hits me.

  The knob turns. The door opens.

  Gillespie stands there, peering at me from behind his glasses.

  He frowns wh
en he sees that the plate is on the other side of the room, still untouched. I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry. Give me another day or so and I might start second-guessing the look of that fruit.

  Not yet.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Like a baby,” I lie.

  His lips quiver, the frown quirking up to a noticeable smirk. “I’m glad.”

  I was lying. He’s not.

  Ugh.

  I’m in way over my head right now. It gets even worse when the doctor disappears from the doorway. I hear a soft grunt, followed by the scraping of something heavy being dragged across the floor. A few seconds later, he reappears, tugging one of his chairs behind him.

  Gillespie moves it so that he’s facing me. He takes a seat, his wide blue eyes narrowed on me as I stay tucked in the corner.

  When he does nothing but watch me closely, my nerves coupled with my frustration get the better of me.

  “What do you want?” I snap.

  Before I passed out, I spent long hours trying to understand why he was doing this since he hasn’t told me yet. To go to the trouble of setting up the trap in the hope he could keep me here, even threatening to harm my old techs… he has a reason. I have no idea what it is, but I decided my best bet was to pretend to be the model prisoner so that he’ll reveal his evil plan to me in time.

  And… then I went ahead and let my frustration and fear get the better of me.

  Whoops.

  Good thing Gillespie doesn’t seem to mind my snappish attitude. In fact, he seems to revel in it.

  At least he answers me, though.

  “What do I want? Honestly? Just to look at you,” he tells me, his voice more nasal than usual.

  Yeah. Because that’s not creepy as hell.

  “Well, don’t. It’s fucking weird.”

  “Sorry. I just… I can’t believe you’re here. Finally. It took me a very, very long time to find you, you know.”

  You, he says. Not someone who has a history of dealing with the fae. Not someone who’s been to Faerie. Not a halfling. You.

  In my recent experience, there’s only one reason why someone is looking for me specifically.

  I’m resigned as I scoff, “Let me guess. Because I’m the Shadow?”

  “Because you’re like me.” Gillespie pushes his glasses up his nose, then says, “The fact that you’re the Shadow is a bonus.”

  “Like you? You mean a whackjob shrink who thinks it’s okay to lock his patients in a closet in his office?”

  “Former patient. As far as the facility is concerned, Riley Thorne is no longer admitted here.”

  That’s one good thing. If I can figure out how to escape, I won’t have to worry about the asylum coming after me again.

  “Besides,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his knees and a pleased grin stretching his lips, “that’s not what I meant when I said that you’re like me.” He tilts his head, showing me his profile. “Notice anything different?”

  I’m looking at his weak chin, the golden rim of his glasses as they curve around his ears—

  His pointed ears.

  Okay. I know damn sure that if his ears had always looked like that, I would’ve noticed before now.

  “What? How?”

  I’m gaping. Can’t help it. And, from the way he preens as he shifts in his seat, he got exactly the reaction out of me that he was after.

  Gillespie lifts his hand, stroking the tip of his ear. “Long hair on men isn’t in fashion like it used to be. I had to learn how to hide them. Took some time, but even a halfling can use glamour.”

  Really?

  I didn’t know that, either.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Can I stop him?

  I shrug.

  “How old do you think I am?”

  Weird question. And, shit, I don’t know.

  “Thirty-five?” I guess.

  “Three hundred and six.”

  My jaw drops.

  He goes on as if he hasn’t just shocked the hell out of me.

  “The fae are immortal. They can die, of course. Anything can die. It takes a lot to kill a creature from Faerie. So long as someone like us crosses the veil into Faerie from time to time, we can live just as long as a full-blooded fae.”

  Add that to something else I didn’t know. Not only the earth-shattering revelation that, as a halfling, I could be immortal like Nine—but that he’s telling me all of this for his own reasons.

  I need to know what they are.

  “Why are you doing this? Why me?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but halflings aren’t really welcomed in Faerie. The fae think of humans as disposable. Pets. Even if fate says something different, most fae would rather take a consort than mate with a human. Even then, they never have children and, if they do, they rarely survive. We’re unique, you and me.”

  “There’s gotta be more halflings floating around.”

  Gillespie shakes his head. “In my three centuries, you’re the fourth one I met. And,” he adds, “the only female.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

  I huddle in the corner, slinking beneath my oversized black hoodie as the man lets his gaze roam openly over me, head to toe. I’ve seen that look before on men even older than Gillespie—well, not really, but they looked older than he appears. This time, it’s so much worse.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for you,” he says again, his nasal voice dropping in pitch. He’s almost gargling on the words. “Make no mistake. You’ll be my bride.”

  I almost throw up in my mouth.

  “I won’t let a human woman dilute my bloodline.” His expression darkens suddenly, turning violent in a heartbeat as he spits out, “No fae female will have someone like me. My only choice is another halfling. It has to be you.”

  No it fucking doesn’t.

  “The fact that you’re the Shadow makes it even better,” he adds, the flash of darkness disappearing as he sits back in his seat, his unblinking blue eyes watching me closely from behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “I’ve heard some of the prophecy tied to your name. You’re supposed to take care of the Fae Queen. When you become my bride and take her throne, I’ll be the new king of Faerie. You will give me a son, start our legacy. The whole realm will have to bow down to me then.”

  Lord help me, my psychologist is insane.

  First off, no way am I killing Melisandre. I told Nine that. Told Rys that. Made sure my mom and dad knew… shit, I even told the queen that herself. And even if, somehow, me being the Shadow leads to her being demoted or something, that doesn’t mean I’m angling to be the new Fae Queen.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  I’m not about to marry Gillespie, either. Kids? Uh-uh. Not even counting the fact that I already have a mate, but this guy?

  Ah, hell no.

  If he notices that I’m shocked—and totally disgusted—into silence, he doesn’t act like it. He keeps on talking, either oblivious or just plain not caring that I’m looking at him like he belongs in one of the asylum’s rooms.

  “The fae watching over you hid you away before I could track you down. You were a child. I bided my time, waiting for you to get older. Once I finally discovered you were here, I had no choice but to get to you any way that I could.” He waves his hand up and down, gesturing to the fancy sweater, the pleated pants, the sensible shoes. “Aidan didn’t have a prayer, but Dr. Gillespie did.”

  Wait a second. Is he saying—

  I finally find my voice. “You came to work here… to get to me?”

  “You were hidden very well,” he says again. “It was my only choice. Once I got my doctorate, they finally let me in. Six years, I waited for my chance. To get to know you. To make you trust me. To show you the truth of what the world can be really like. You weren’t supposed to run away. I ran out of time. And now look at us.”

  Right. I’m locked in his office and he’s telling me tha
t he wants me to marry him and be his broodmare.

  Excuse me while I throw up for real this time.

  I might’ve been an in-patient at the Black Pine facility for a long, long time, but I’m not the crazy one out of the two of us. Even when he was my doctor and I was biding my time before I’d be released, no way would I have ever turned to him for help.

  Of course, then I remember how I basically begged for that med check when I was trying to medicate Nine and Rys away, and… okay. He has a point.

  I’m different now. Changed. I’ve seen too much to go back to pretending the fae aren’t real. They are. And, with Gillespie willing to spill the beans, I decide the only thing I can do is take advantage of that.

  Plus, anything to get the idea of the two of us together out of my head…

  “You’re like me,” I say, working hard not to give away how gross that makes me feel, just admitting that out loud. “You called Amy and Frankie humans. Is everyone else human here, too?”

  Gillespie doesn’t answer me right away. I can see the cogs working behind his eyes as if he’s wondering what I can do with the information. He must figure it’s harmless because, after a few tense moments, he shakes his head.

  “Not everyone. A couple of the nurses, some techs, they’re put here on purpose, straight out of Faerie. When you were younger, it seemed you were better at picking up on them so they were removed if you had a reaction. Once you stopped reacting, some of the fae-touched humans were allowed to become bolder.”

  Hmm. There were a lot of staff changes around the time I came to the asylum. Back then, I didn’t know how Black Pine worked so I figured the turnover was normal. Then the therapy started, the sessions, the meds… and I guess I just didn’t give a shit anymore.

  “What about my doctors? Were they all in on it?”

  “Not the doctors. Remember, Black Pine is a ‘respectable’ facility. There are real patients enrolled in its programs. Every doc that walks into this place is exactly who they say they are. They stay until they figure out something’s not quite right.”

  I get that. If I thought staff turnover was bad, that was nothing compared to my doctors changing every couple of months.