Page 12

Sav

A lthough it was late when I finally made it to the room that was to be my cell, I had slept fitfully. Alice’s malicious glare had bored into my back as I faced the window and tried to think of anything other than the pain in my legs and the fae below who undoubtedly had a worse night than me.

When I woke, blessedly, she was still asleep. I sat up, stretching. My too short skirt was twisted around my waist and I tugged it down, straightening it over my hips. It wouldn’t have been my first choice of outfit had I known where the night would take me.

I inspected the glamour on my ankles for any cracks in the facade.

So far, it was holding. Smooth tanned skin was all anyone would see if they checked my legs.

I stood, and the room spun dangerously. Sinking back onto the mattress, I pressed my palms to my temples, groaning around the pounding of my heartbeat in my head.

Prolonged exposure and Morgan’s summons were beginning to take their toll.

Inhaling deeply, then exhaling, I centered myself and gained inner clarity to separate my mind from the physical pain.

I wasn’t new to pain, even if my enemies had never used iron as a form of torture before.

I dug deep, searching for the magic, hoping any small kernel would respond and help me block it.

Nothing. With the iron wrapped around my legs, what little I could use was completely locked away from me.

Standing again, I wobbled but steadied myself.

Pale blue eyes met mine when I glanced down, and I started. She could have given the fae a run for their money in terms of stealth. Her pupils dilated. That was rage.

Human women never warmed to me. That was a fact I had learned quickly when forced to assimilate, but this was something else. I stretched my lips over pearly white teeth in a dazzling smile. As expected, her cheeks burned crimson.

This felt personal. She saw me as a threat. Good. I was.

She sat up, pulling her covers with her. “You don’t fool me,” she seethed. “I saw the way you pawed at Jack last night. But he’s not interested in you.”

This human was chatty in the morning. I liked her better at night. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She rolled her eyes. “I saw you acting all hurt. Jack can’t stand to see anyone in pain. He’s sensitive that way, but don’t think for one second it means he’s into you.”

Yes, human girl, tell me more. “I just want to go home to my family,” I whimpered, a tear forming along my lashes.

Her grip on her blankets loosened, her brows furrowing. “Watch the videos and Dane will explain everything. Once you understand, you’ll be free.”

“Were you trapped here too?” I asked, concern lacing my words.

“What?” she sputtered. “No. I came here after…” she trailed off.

I waited, widening my eyes. She sucked in a breath.

“It doesn’t matter. I came because something had to be done to…

To those assholes.” Some fae creature had played with this little mousy thing.

It was there in every word she was too embarrassed to say aloud.

Good. “We should go down,” she finished.

The crimson staining Alice’s cheeks burned down her neck and though I’d love to stay to watch her relive her pain-filled memories, I would never escape this place if we didn’t get moving.

Gesturing for her to lead the way, I stepped into the hall and followed her through the same dismal hallway from the night before, reaching an emergency exit around another corner.

We moved down two flights of stairs to the building’s lobby, now lined with rows of cafeteria tables.

It was standing room only in the packed entryway and more people were trickling in by the minute.

They came down stairwells and hallways, piling in until I was crammed against Alice’s shoulder and the air became suffocatingly hot.

The front door, which was what I had truly wanted to see from the inside, was painted over with piles of rebar, cement, and old demo materials wedged against the entry points.

Dane climbed on top of a reception desk and whistled sharply, two fingers at his lips, to draw out a piercing sound. Reluctantly, I followed everyone’s gazes, drawn to that magnetic pull he seemed to have. The room silenced, all eyes on him.

“Welcome Followers.” His voice boomed over the quieting crowd.

“Yesterday.” He paused for effect. “Was the turning point in our war.” Shouts rose in response.

“You.” He spoke over them, and they quieted again.

“You are the heroes of the hour. You showed the monsters we will not stand by any longer. We will not lose our jobs to them.” Bellows of agreement.

“Our husbands.” More yells of agreement. “Our families,” he finished soberly.

A hush fell. “Yesterday we said: No More! And they listened.” This time, the cheers were deafening. He raised a hand. “But the work is not done. Today, they rebuild. Today, they will erect another home for the monsters that have invaded our world. Our city. We cannot stop now. Now we must act.”

He pointed to a person in the crowd. “Ben. Lead a team today to try again to gain access to the Seelie court. Take four of our best. If we know how to get in, we can attack them on their own turf.”

“Shut it down from the inside!” Ben shouted.

“That’s right,” Dane called back.

“Elizabeth—Fifth Ave. Remind the ladies who really prowls the park.”

She grinned.

“William—re-education. Evan—supply run. Let’s move.”

People disbursed heading to their tasks for the day.

Dane climbed down from the desk. “Oliver, Jim, Brian, with me. We have a job to do.”

Finally, I knew the names of the three little pigs. There was power in a name. I would not forget theirs.

William approached me. He was an overly cheerful cultist with a round belly and shining bald spot in the middle of his long, tangled hair. “Hi, I’m Will.”

“I don’t care.”

He was unperturbed by my dismissal. “Dane tells me you fell in with a bad crowd and just need a little history lesson in what fairies are really like.”

I stared at him. Yes William, please educate me on my kind.

“Well, it would be nice if I at least had a name to call you,” he grinned, and his full round cheeks reddened.

I smiled. All teeth.

He stepped back.

Play nice, Sav . My smile softened into something sweeter. “I’m Sally.” These humans would get my real name when they carved it from my bloody tongue.

“Sally.” He swallowed. “Do you want to come with me and the other new recruits?”

“There’s absolutely nothing I’d rather do, Will!”

He didn’t catch my sarcasm.

Will led me and a group of five others to a room on the first-floor with folding chairs and a projector.

I chose a seat at the back, even though there were at least a dozen empty chairs in the room.

The initiates all sat at the front. A few cast glances at my chains.

I rattled them at a lady who looked like she probably had ten cats waiting at home for her.

She clutched her purse tightly and turned to face the front.

I slouched in my chair, swallowing a pained cry at the new spots the iron touched.

Will fumbled around at the front before the light flicked on, projecting a number four onto the screen.

My little show had cost me, but it was worth it.

He passed me, going to the back of the room, and flipped off the lights.

On screen, black and white images of old Shakespearean plays flashed.

“We have always known about them,” a voice spoke.

“Legends embellish their best qualities. They are sexy, smart, powerful…. Dangerous” The screen changed to pictures of fae captured in and around Central Park, then to someone’s shaky camera footage of a kelpie swatting at a child as he leaned over the lake.

A goblin ripping a door off its hinges to enter a retail store.

A harpy grabbing a homeless man’s bucket of money and running down the street.

These were old videos. In keeping with the first laws enacted when we came to Earth, before they started imposing stricter ones. But honestly, what was the problem? The man looked perfectly healthy after the exchange. No harm done.

Then a picture of the Bitter Wraith, beautiful and terrible in white robes, with eyes so black they would suck the souls from any who gazed upon her without permission. The screen changed. It was Brixz, sitting benignly at a desk, reading a newspaper.

Brixz, whom I hadn’t seen in a cage when I was taken below.

Did it mean they’d left him to recover, or that he was dead?

I tasted bile as I thought of the kindest fae I knew laying bloody outside the building he’d been forced to live in for three years.

And these humans dared to use his image to promote their zealous propaganda.

Rage boiled in my gut, making me see red. They were evil, vile beings, and they deserved a slow death.

“As you can see, the legends were wrong,” the voice went on. “These abominations are not gods to be feared or worshiped. They are not even the all-powerful creatures we once believed them to be.” A drawing of a dark being, red eyes glowing, appeared. “We thought they were the stuff of nightmares.”

Then a picture of Morgan, emissary to the autumn court, flashed on screen. Beautiful, ethereal, inhuman.

“But they are not what we thought.” The screen flashed back to Brixz, and I squeezed my fists—nails slicing into my palms—relishing the pain as blood dripped through my fingers.

“They take our jobs.” Then an image of Vogue’s July cover with Uncle Robin, bare chested, ears pointing, in all his glory, staring intently into the camera.

He would have loved knowing even the AFF were watching him on screen.

I would have laughed if I had the stomach for it.

Once, Robin Goodfellow had glamoured himself to look human and become the world’s most famous actor.

He reprised roles in some of the top films of the early two-thousands, aging his glamour appropriately, but when our realms collided, exposing the truth of our kind, he used the worst time in the history of the fae to gain more fame by coming out.

Leave it to Uncle Robin to profit even from our tragedy.

A man sitting close to his girlfriend wrapped his arm protectively around her. I rolled my eyes.

The screen flashed again, and this time, all five recruits gasped. In a cradle, where a rosy-cheeked human baby should be lying, a scaly green creature with glowing eyes stared menacingly back at the camera.

Who made this video? Did they even know what a changeling looked like? If that was a changeling, I was a unicorn. At that moment, my gaze met Will’s. He had been watching me .

I covered my mouth in horror.

“We didn’t ask for these monsters to come to our world; terrorize us, stalk us, steal our children, our husbands, our families…”

This sounded familiar.

“Our government receives favors from the high fairy courts.” The image changed to Morgan sitting at a restaurant with humans in suits.

A few people in the front row whispered.

The screen flashed and this time it was Alder Hawthorn, prince of spring, shaking hands with the President of the United States.

“We cannot wait for our government to act. The time for waiting has passed. We must act now. We must seize our future back.”

The last words were in Dane’s voice.

The video ended, leaving the room in darkness. William fumbled around in the dark and I watched the creatures, blinded by their own weakness, clasping hands tightly, sitting rigidly. It was the first phase of their brainwashing. How easily human minds were muddled.

The lights flickered on, and William coughed.

“I know you’re all here because you want to make a difference.

” His eyes found mine. “Over the next seven days, you will train rigorously in the areas of weapons, fairy weaknesses, and combat. Once you’ve completed this training, you will be tested to prove your capabilities.

Your assignments will be based on your test results.

You may be assigned to tasks here at Basecamp like me, or you may join our field teams. No job is too small.

” His gaze swept over the room. “Questions?”

When no one spoke, William cleared his throat. “Let’s all break for fifteen and meet in room one-twelve on the first floor.”

I slid my chair out, scraping the ground, and a few humans glanced my way. Be on your best behavior, I reminded myself and stood clumsily, smiling at the group. I shuffled out behind the rest of the new recruits, turning left in the opposite direction of the main lobby.

“Sally,” William called behind me. I kept walking, moving as quickly as I could with the iron chains shortening my step significantly. “Sally,” he called more loudly, and I heard him picking up his pace.

Gritting my teeth, I slowed, turning and pasting a look of confusion on my face. “Did you call me?”

William caught up to me, leaning to catch his breath. “Hey! Yes. Sorry. You can’t go that way. You’ll have to stay with the group, I’m afraid. Dane’s orders.” He straightened, inhaling deeply. “Just until you’ve proven you can be trusted without the um…” he glanced down at my ankles.

I dropped my gaze, following his line of sight. “Yeah, I’ll have to sit out during training today, I guess,” I muttered, sounding put out.

“That’s okay.” William smiled. “I heard you handled your own out there against some of our guys. You’re probably well ahead of the rest of this group in the hand-to-hand combat department.

” He gave me a pat on the shoulder, and it took a monumental effort not to snap at his fingers in response to the unwelcome touch.

Something in my eyes must’ve slipped, because he yanked his hand back like he’d been burned. “You can be our scorekeeper.”