Tales from Shady Grove: Stories from the Trailerverse, Volume One

by Kimbra Swain

  He leaned down over me. “And I’m the darkest son of a bitch that you will ever face.”

  “I hear you talking, but I see no action.” Sometimes my tongue got ahead of my brain. In this instance, I wanted to slap myself, but with the numbness in my limbs, I doubted I’d get a good sting.

  “You want action? We shall have some action. In fact, after today, what happens to you will be completely your decision.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, dropping the snark. I feared his answer because I saw the delight in his eyes. Whatever he had in store for me would be the challenge of my life. If I survived it, then I swore that I’d never fear anything ever again.

  “It’s very simple, Levi. You have choices to make, and it’s going to test your love for Gloriana. It’s going to test your love for her child, Winnie. And finally, it’s going to test your love for your friend, Dylan. I want you to suffer, because you love her so. I want to see how much pain you can take on her behalf. I want to see how long it takes you to break. Not break in your emotions, but in your values. I hope to ruin you for her. You see, I have Winnie. I also have Dylan. Now, I have you, and you get to decide which one of you gets to live.”

  “Winnie,” I said immediately.

  “Wow. I haven’t even explained the terms,” Brock laughed. “Hold him.”

  The four guards moved forward, taking my arms and stretching them out to each side. I couldn’t have fought them, but they held me tightly. One stood behind me, holding my head while the other wrapped his arms around my legs in a bear hug.

  “What are the terms?” I asked.

  “You have to kill Dylan Riggs. Then, yourself. No one here will do you any harm, except for this one moment that I will have. In fact, I’m going to see that they warm this cell and you will have proper bedding. Should you change your mind about who lives, then, the rules are the same. You kill Winnie, then yourself. Or perhaps, if you have had enough torture, you can kill them, at which time, you will be free to go,” Brock explained with a wide smile. I wanted to knock the shit out of him. I tried to pull power, but the shackles pressed into my wrists. I cried out in pain.

  “No, no, Little Bard,” the witch scolded. I felt the power being choked off.

  Wart, who stood behind me, tilted my head to face Brockton by wrapping his beefy hand in my hair. It had gotten long in Summer, and I doubted they allowed prisoners a barber in Winter.

  “You will be allowed to have your power back for the festivities,” he said, placing the dagger just above my eyebrow. “This is a shadow athame. It contains the soul of an evil witch. When I cut you with it, her death curse will be laid upon you. You are going to bear it for the rest of your life. You will pass the curse to your firstborn, and to his firstborn, and so on.”

  “Please don’t,” I begged.

  “Like I said, this is the one choice you don’t get to make. By the way, this is going to fucking hurt. I’d peel your face off if I didn’t plan to have so much fun watching you decide who lives or dies.”

  He dug the knife into my skin. I couldn’t hold back the scream as the blade sliced into my forehead. Warm blood ran down the side of my face, getting into my eyes. A blazing heat shot through my frozen body, and I cried out in anguish as it burned into my skin.

  “Shut his mouth,” Brockton growled at the Witch. My voice was cut off, but my mouth still wide open in the silent agony.

  The bastard slowly worked the knife from my forehead, down my cheek to under my chin. My body heaved, trying to suck in enough air, but my lungs filled with the icy cold. The pain rippled through my body from the blade. As it passed my eye, I saw the swirling black smoke leave the edges of the dagger, then get sucked down into the cut on my skin.

  I’d broken my arm once when I was younger. A compound fracture where the bone stuck out of the skin. I remembered that pain. The panic induced by the sight of my own bone took my breath away. This pain put that to shame. I knew that if I survived this, then I could survive anything Brockton threw at me.

  I closed my mouth, shutting off the scream that no longer had sound. I tightened my jaw, staring into his dark eyes. I’d live through this, and I’d get all of us out of here. Grace didn’t play by anyone’s rules, especially Brockton’s. Then neither would I.

  The blood puddled at my feet, dripping profusely from the wound. I had no power to repair it. The witch smirked, releasing my voice. She stepped forward, sticking her finger into the wound above my eyebrow. She traced it to the bottom near my chin. I refused to flinch as she seared the wound closed with an icy magic. Then she licked my blood from her finger.

  “Oh, so sweet,” she said, the turned to leave me with Brockton.

  The guards released me, and I sank to my knees.

  Brockton smiled. “I knew this would be fun. See you soon, Levi Rearden.”

  He spoke to the witch as he left the room. “Thank you, Araxia, for your help.”

  “It was a pleasure, my Lord,” she replied. She hadn’t called him king or majesty, which made me wonder who she really was.

  The door shut with a bang. I curled up on the floor, shaking from the pain. In those weak moments, I built up my defiance. I might not feel Grace, but I knew how to act like her. What would my Fairy Queen do? Fuck them all. That’s what she would do. I’d do it for her. I just needed to rest for a minute and regain my bodily control.

  40

  When I woke up, I smelled urine. I knew I’d kept my faculties intact. My lovely guards must have decided to marinate me while I slept.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, looking around the room.

  To my surprise, a bed had been brought in with a thin mattress. A thick blanket lay folded on top of it. A bucket with a bar of soap sat across the room in the corner where I might get a little privacy. A hook that I hadn’t noticed before held a clean pair of pants, but still no shirt or socks. Finally, to my surprise, a small wooden table held a tray with a cheeseburger and a can of orange soda. I was sure the orange soda was to taunt me.

  I was starving, but I decided to clean myself first. I didn’t even look out of the cell to see if anyone else was near. I peeled off the urine-soaked pants and began to wash my body with the soap, which smelled like sandalwood. The bucket of water was all I had, so I used it sparingly. I even scrubbed my hair, which had grown much faster here that it did in the human realm.

  The pants were a size or two too big, but they were warm inside. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and pulled the pant legs down over my feet. The cheeseburger looked fantastic, and frankly, I didn’t care if it would kill me or not. I took a huge bite and moaned with pleasure. Lifting my head, I stopped chewing when I realized there was someone chained to the floor in the middle of the room.

  I dropped the cheeseburger, tripped over the small table, and scrambled to the cell door.

  “Dylan!” I exclaimed.

  “Must be nice to get burgers. When you finish eating, I’m going to kill you,” he snarled.

  “Grace said you were dead, but Brock said you were here. Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No!” His voice boomed, shaking the stone walls. “You were supposed to be with her. You are supposed to be protecting her. Now she is up there alone and pregnant.”

  “You know she is pregnant?” I asked.

  “Yes, you fool. She is my…” his voice cracked. His body shook, and he fell to his knees. “She is my everything.”

  “We are going to get out of this,” I said.

  “No, you are going to get out of this. I don’t care what you have to do, you live. You promise me.” His voice resumed the low growl.

  “No, Brock has Winnie, too. He said I had to choose one of us to live. I told him about Winnie, but he said that I couldn’t choose yet. Are you alright?”

  “I’m never going to see my child. Do you think I’m alright?”

  I bit my tongue. I didn’t know what else to say to him. His sandy blonde hair was now a muddy brown. Blotches of purple covered his skin. I assumed the
y were bruises. I was just happy that he was alive, and that I wasn’t in this alone. We’d do whatever we had to do to free Winnie.

  “You have a beating coming to you. You broke your word to me. You swore to protect her if something happened to me, and you didn’t.”

  “I saved her from being dragged down here. I had to let her go back alone or they would have taken her, too. The trailer park is at the bottom of the swamp, and we barely made it out alive. She said they took you. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

  “Time doesn’t matter here. It only matters on the other side. How long has she been alone?” He wasn’t asking for an answer. The question had a dreamy, lost quality to it. Then, I wondered how long had she been alone.

  “Grace is strong. You can’t underestimate her. She will fight, because she has your child to protect.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, she’s strong, but she relies on us. We are failing her. I went into a jar for that witch to save Wynonna, but Brockton has her anyway. I failed them both. Crap father I turned out to be. I’ll never be able to look her in the eyes again.”

  “That’s not true. She loves you unconditionally. You guys have been through some shit. Besides, you’ve had that whole marriage dream thing.”

  He huffed. “Yeah, that.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but I let it go. My stomach growled to remind me that I had an unfinished burger somewhere, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Dylan slumping down in the center of the room. The chains stretched from his wrists to two large rings that were bolted to the floor.

  “Why aren’t you healing?” I asked, looking at his wounds.

  “I haven’t bothered,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to die, Levi.”

  He hadn’t been here that long, and they had already broken him. I didn’t know what to say. My heart pounded. If I got out of here, how was I going to tell Grace that Dylan didn’t want to live?

  “You don’t mean that,” I said.

  “Levi, you can use her power, right?” he asked. It was something I didn’t like to talk about, but because we were bonded, I could use Grace’s Queen powers.

  “Yes,” I muttered.

  “Then, when they release you, I want you to snap your fingers and let me go,” he said.

  “Dylan, we have to figure this out. I can’t believe you’ve given up.”

  “You don’t know what they’ve been doing to me.”

  “No, I don’t know,” I said, reaching behind me to retrieve the burger. “I could toss you some of this food.”

  “No, you eat it. Save your strength to save Winnie, and I don’t care what the rules are to Brockton’s game, you have to survive. You have to get back to Grace.”

  I took slow bites of the cheeseburger and studied him as he slumped on the floor. Dylan had always held his head high. He was the most honorable man I’d ever known. Despite a few lies to Grace, I admired him. He was my friend, and the man I wished I could be. In more ways than one. Now, he was broken and beaten, and I couldn’t fathom what they could have done to him to cause this.

  “I am getting all of us out of here,” I said.

  “Damn it, Levi! For once, fucking listen to me. I’m not leaving this place alive.”

  “I’m ashamed of you.” I tried some reverse psychology. Every word hurt as I spoke them. “You are the man I’ve wanted to be. I’ve wanted to have everything you have. Grace, Winnie, a family, a whole town that admires you, but you want to throw all of that away. For what? They bruised you a little bit? I thought you were the Phoenix. The Thunderbird.”

  “Levi, this won’t work.”

  “What won’t work? Telling you what a worthless piece of shit you are? I can’t believe I looked up to you,” I said.

  He laughed. His chuckle rumbled out of his chest and echoed around the room. I was completely confused.

  “You hate me so much you kissed me,” he said, then laughed loudly again.

  A smile teased the edges of my mouth. “You kissed me, but it wasn’t so bad.”

  “Levi, I’m not insane. I know you. I know her. I know I’m done.”

  I slipped back to my new cot and took a seat. I could still see him, but I needed a moment to think. He’d gone from the deepest despair to bringing up the funniest moment of our entire relationship. I had to admit I had mad bard skills, but in the moment of trying to mesmerize a group of witches, I had enthralled Dylan, too. He’d kissed me. Grace wouldn’t let either one of us forget it. But, to me, it was a symbol of what I’d do for him and how important he was to me. Not just because of Grace’s love for him, but because of how he had guided me and allowed my friendship with Grace to grow. I’d seen his jealousy. Hell, I’d punched the crap out of him thinking he’d slept with Stephanie. But he remained steady through it all.

  Which made seeing him like this so much worse. It wasn’t long before I got the full picture of Dylan’s life in Winter.

  41

  After a long sleep that I didn’t intend to take, I awoke to a group of people taunting Dylan.

  “What shall we try today, Phoenix?” one asked.

  “Fire,” one suggested.

  I slowly crawled off my cot and stepped quietly to the fairy iron bars separating me from Dylan. He sat chained to the floor above the marred stag carving. He had more bruises than I’d seen the day before. Then I saw why.

  One of the finely dressed Winter fairies who circled him swung a troll’s club, hitting him in the ribs. Dylan cried out in pain but made his way back up to his knees.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  “Stay out of this,” Dylan warned.

  “No! What are you doing? Who are you!?” I demanded.

  One of the men approached my cell. He wore a long, curved silver blade at his side. His clothes were a rich blue with silver accents. Winter nobility. He was beautiful. His icy blue eyes sparkled, and his fair skin was flawless. He had a black, wavy mop of hair that cascaded down around his neck and shoulders.

  “Well, if it isn’t the bard,” he said with a cold grin.

  “Leave him alone!”

  He pointed out the obvious. “You are in no position to give demands.” He turned to the other men. “Perhaps the bard has gotten it into his head that he’s a king.” He looked back to me. “Just because you love the Queen of Winter, it doesn’t mean that Winter accepts you as our ruler.”

  “I love her, but I’m not with her. She is pregnant with Dylan’s child. I am her servant,” I explained.

  “Shut the fuck up, Levi,” Dylan snarled.

  “Pregnant? Well, isn’t that interesting?”

  Well, shit. They hadn’t known about her condition, and I’d opened my big mouth.

  “It doesn’t matter. She is protected. The whole town of Shady Grove will give their lives for her,” I explained.

  “The whole town of misfits and disgraced. Their power is only as strong as her authority. She has none. She doesn’t accept it. And without her loving Phoenix and devoted Bard, she will break. And finally, we will be done with the banished,” one of the other nobles said. He wore the same finery, but in a light purple color. It was stained with blotches of blood. Dylan’s blood.

  I decided that Dylan was right, and I needed to shut up. Why did he always have to be right?

  “Can you hear me?” his voice echoed in my head. I had no magic to respond, but I locked eyes with him and nodded. “Good. You mean well, and I adore you for it. But this place is not like home. Keep your mouth shut. Do not give them information about Shady Grove or its inhabitants. The less they know, the better. Our job, even now, is to protect her. You have failed in that so far. I expect you to redeem yourself by shutting the fuck up and getting out of here for her. Understood?”

  I nodded again. I wasn’t sure how he was able to speak to me like she had. Perhaps because of that blood bond, he could do it. Either way, I decided to follow his instructions. I kept my mouth shut as the nobles returned
to torturing him. They took turns beating him, burning his skin, cutting gashes into his body. He took it with little protest. He cried out in pain, but never tried to strike back.

  He had access to his magic, but he didn’t use it. As much as it pained my heart, I sat in awe of his ability to not strike back. I knew what he’d done to the Vrykolakas who had taken Grace. He could ruin at least two of these girly fairies before they could stop him. If not more. Instead, he took it.

  I watched silently as they discussed how to kill him this time. This time. As I observed, I began to learn of what torture Dylan had endured. They had experimented on ways to kill him, and despite their best efforts, each time he rose. It had turned from finding a way to kill him to seeing what ways they could make him suffer.

  “I’ve brought something special today,” the one in lavender said. He waved toward the door. Two trolls entered carrying a large caldron. Inside of it, a blue liquid bubbled and hissed. “Behold. Acid from the barren flats of the western regions.”

  The others shrank back from the concoction.

  The man in blue hissed, “Have you lost your mind? That stuff could fry us all.”

  “Yes, it could. But can it fry a phoenix?” he said with a laugh. It echoed around the room, shaking icicles from the ceiling. I’d never heard true evil in a sound. But it’s vibrating pitch rattled my senses. I didn’t have music magic to call to my aid, but the sound still ticked the sensibilities inside of me. I grasped my ears and sank to my knees. I felt my warm blood on my palms and wondered how my blood could be warm. I removed my hands and looked down at the blood that had dripped from my ears.

  I dared to look at Dylan as they used chains to lift him off the ground. The trolls placed the vat of acid below him.

  “No, please don’t do this,” I whimpered.

  “Watch, Bard. It’s fun. He won’t die,” a man in pale green said.

  “I said shut your mouth,” Dylan’s voice rang in my head.

  “No. Fight back. Stop them,” I demanded.

  “If I fight back, they will kill you.”