Page 30 of The Second Sight (Wanderlust Emporium Presents, Season One)

Chapter

Twenty-One

KASI

The food smelled like heaven in Brooklyn’s car. Fried catfish, short ribs, collard greens, mac and cheese, peach cobbler, and cornbread, the aromas mingled together in the cramped space, making my stomach growl.

My appetite was fighting a losing battle against the weight of what I’d just revealed to my best friend.

Vampires. Fairies. My mother’s secret heritage.

My own hidden abilities. Brooklyn’s eyes kept darting from the road to me and back again, like she was afraid I might sprout wings or fangs any second.

“So let me get this straight,” Brooklyn said, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “Your mama was some kind of African fairy—”

“Yumboe,” I corrected. “They’re called yumboe. From Senegal.”

“Right. And these yumboe fairies can see the future, which explains why you’ve been having those dreams since we were kids.” She took the turn onto Maple Street. “And vampire man Seven thinks you have special powers because you’re half-fairy?”

I shifted the warm takeout bags from my lap. I twisted my body around to place them behind me on the floor of the backseat. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“I know how it sounds,” I said, staring out at the empty streets. We were only a few blocks from home. The suburban neighborhood was quiet and still. Most houses were dark, just a few porch lights glowed in the distance.

“It sounds like something out of the movies.”

“But there’s something between us. Something real.”

“Yeah girl, your blood,” Brooklyn muttered. “Like human men want pussy. If I remember every vampire movie and tv show correctly, vampire men want your blood. What about these hunters you mentioned? The ones looking for your mama?”

“The Bambara Brotherhood. Seven says they’ve been hunting fae blood for centuries. They hate us for some reason. I think that’s why my mother left us. She was probably running from them.”

“Shit, Kasi, this is a lot.” Brooklyn shook her head. “I believe you, but damn, it’s a lot.”

“I was about to respond when headlights flared in my side mirror, growing rapidly brighter. A vehicle was approaching fast from behind. I could see it in the passenger side rearview mirror.

“Some asshole is riding your ass,” I said, twisting to look out the back window.

“Like go the fuck around.” Brooklyn grunted.

The vehicle sped up to our side. The windows were too dark for us to look inside. It was a black SUV, and I couldn’t make out the make and model in the darkness.

“I’m going to sow down and let them have it.” Brooklyn said. “Cause—”

She wasn’t able to finish her sentence because they swerved suddenly. Cutting diagonally in front of us, the truck blocked our path. Brooklyn cursed, “Fuck!” slamming on the brakes.

“What the fuck?” I shouted, with my hands on the dashboard.

The SUV’s high beams blinded us, flooding the car with white light. I raised my hand to shield my eyes, squinting through my fingers. Dark silhouettes quickly moved in front of the glare as two figures approached Brooklyn’s Honda.

“Lock the doors,” I yelled, in a panic.

“It’s locked.” She yelled back putting the car in park.

Brooklyn hand stayed rested in the gearshift. She went to put the car in reverse, but before she could something heavy smashed against her driver’s side window. The glass spiderwebbed, then shattered in a spray of crystalline fragments that rained across Brooklyn’s lap and the center console.

A hand thrust through the broken window, unlocking the door from the inside.

Brooklyn screamed as a man in all black yanked the door open and seized her arm, dragging her from the driver’s seat.

Another figure appeared at my door, breaking glass into my hair and lap as I quickly turned away.

This man reached in and unlocked my door wrenching it open.

Cold hands grabbed my shoulders, pulling me roughly from the car. My back hit the side of the Honda as the man spun me around, his grip bruising my upper arms.

“I think it’s this one,” he hissed, his face inches from mine.

I stared at him, trying to ingrain his face in my memory for later use. Black man, dark skin, a few shades lighter than me, tall, short dreadlocks, beard, pierced nose.

“Let me go!” I kicked out. My foot connected with his shin. He barely flinched. I tried to claw at his eyes, but my hands were too short to connect with his face.

Across the hood of the car, Brooklyn was fighting too. While I was struggling, I caught a glimpse of her nails raking down the face of the burly man who held her. He backhanded her with a casual brutality. Her head snapped to the side from the impact. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

“Brooklyn!” I screamed, renewing my struggle against the man’s grip that held me.

“Get them both in the car,” commanded a third man from behind the wheel of the SUV. “Desmond wants the half-breed. We can traffic the other one.”

I recognized his voice. I twisted my body just enough to see his face. This was the man from my vision. Not the scarred one, but the other. Gideon. The light-skinned man who’d been hunting my mother. He was here, in the flesh.

These men were Bambara hunters. My captor began dragging me toward the SUV, his strength seemed inhuman. My feet scrambled for placement on the pavement, but it was like fighting against a robot. My mind raced with everything Seven had told me about the hunters. It wasn’t much.

“Gideon!” I screamed desperately, looking for a way out of this “Desmond will kill you if something happens to us!”

Gideon laughed, the sound like stones grinding together.

“So, you know my name. I know yours too, Kasi. You’re Theia’s daughter.

I one that got away. I can’t kill you, but I can do all kinds of nasty things to you Black American girls.

Your own country doesn’t even look for you when you go missing. ”

His taunt about missing Black girls and women was true.

But he knew my name The realization sent fresh terror coursing through me.

These weren’t random attackers. They had specifically come for me, but I knew that already.

The SUV’s back door stood open. I would die before I entered that truck. I couldn’t go out like that.

“Please,” I begged. “Don’t do this.”

“Shut up.” My captors hand clamped over my mouth and his fingers dug into my cheeks.

“Tarus,” Gideon called out. “Enough, toss the colored one in.

Brooklyn was still fighting with the one he called Tarus.

Her movements were growing weaker as exhaustion and fear took their toll on her.

Blood from her split lip dripped onto her T-shirt.

Tarus was touching her in her private places.

He had one hand in between her legs and the other cupping her breast. He was ignoring Gideon and molesting her right out her on this deserted public road.

The man holding me lifted my body off the ground. He carried me toward the SUV despite my kicks and struggles.

“Help!” I screamed out into the wind.

He covered my mouth with his thick fingers. I bit down hard on my captor’s hand, tasting his blood as my teeth broke skin. He cursed, pulling his hand away, and I screamed into the night, praying someone would hear.

“Help! Somebody help us!”

His fist connected with my stomach, driving the air from my lungs. I doubled over, gasping for air. He used my momentary weakness to drag me the remaining distance around Brooklyn’s car and to the SUV.

“Get the fairy bitch in the car,” the Gideon snapped. “We’ve been out here too long.”

As the brute shoved me toward the open door, I caught sight of my reflection in the SUV’s tinted window. My eyes grew wide with terror. Behind my reflection, deeper in the glass, I thought I saw movement above in the night sky. A trick of the light, maybe. Or perhaps something more.

In that moment, staring at my own terrified face, I realized I might never see my father again.

The peach cobbler he’d requested seat in the backseat of Brooklyn’s car.

My dad would wait for us, growing more worried with each passing minute, perhaps eventually calling my phone only to hear it ringing in the abandoned car.

“Brooklyn,” I called out. “Fight them!” But my voice was lost in the chaotic night.

A rush of wind above my head made me look up. Three dark shapes cut through the night sky, moving too fast to be birds, too large to be anything natural.

The trio swooped down from above. The moonlight shined on something that looked impossibly like wings, actual wings, not lemon pepper or buffalo wings.

But bird wings extending from their backs.

My breath caught in my throat as my mind struggled to process what my eyes were seeing.

These weren’t people in Halloween costumes.

These weren’t hallucinations. These were fae. Maybe even, yumboe, my mother’s people.

My captors grip on my arm loosened as he followed my gaze upward. A flash of uncertainty crossed his face, quickly replaced by alarm.

“Yumboe!” he shouted to his companions, reaching inside his jacket. “Yumboe!”

One of the winged figures, a woman with smooth dark skin and hair braided in cornrows dove directly toward us, her wings creating a soft whistling sound as she sliced through the air.

The moonlight caught the golden bands circling her upper arms and the flash of something sharp in her hand.

Her eyes were like mine but more yellow in color.

“Bambara dogs,” she snarled, her voice musical despite the venom in her words. “Release my kin!”

Kin. She meant me.