by Ashia Monet
Blythe holds her ears, curling herself forward, gritting her teeth to keep back a scream. It is like her brain is glitching—the ringing continues, incessant, never-ending.
Beneath it all lie the faint noises of a familiar melody.
Suddenly, it stops. In the rearview mirror, Rocco has flung the shard back onto the road.
He says something, but Blythe can’t hear it above the sound of her own gasps for breath. “Holy shit,” she whispers. “Holy shit.”
She knows that song. She remembers it. It’s the one that played before she took an unwanted trip up—and almost off—her roof.
And that feeling of something being in her head, controlling her, that’s familiar too. Except, this time, it felt broken. Shattered. Like the pieces lying in the dirt.
Those shards could be the remnants of the magical item used to controlled her.
If Blythe is right, then these bikers aren’t random thugs. They’re very threatening thugs who probably work for the Trident Republic.
Her mind whirls with ideas. Rocco said that the item wouldn’t work if it were missing a piece. Which means…if Blythe can steal even one shard…the Trident Republic won’t be able to control her.
Blythe steels her nerves. “Okay, Blythe,” she whispers to herself. “Time to be brave.”
She rifles through her supplies: food, road flares, clothes…and, underneath the seats, an old box of Fourth of July fireworks.
Bingo.
Armed with a handful of cherry bombs, a lighter, and her burgundy beanie, Blythe slips out of the van.
The bikers are still talking, their voices filling the night, drowning out the sounds of Blythe slipping into the trees. She needs to place the fireworks far from her truck, but close to the bikers.
She walks until their voices are too loud and too close. Off to her right is a log, unassuming and almost hidden in the underbrush. The perfect target.
Blythe gets on her knees, peering into its hollow center. It’s just big enough to fit the fireworks inside.
She lights the cherry bombs and hurries through the trees as they begin to hiss. Sticks and dry grass crunch beneath her feet as the bombs pop and spark.
Rocco’s voice slices through the trees. “What the fuck?”
Blythe checks over her shoulder. Between the darkness and foliage are the bikers’ faces; they stare, quizzically, into the forest.
“Sounds like a bomb or something,” says one.
“Sounds like fireworks,” says Twin.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Rocco snaps.
“You know,” Twin begins. “I feel very unappreciated as a member of this group.”
“God, you are an idiot,” Rocco says. “You gonna sit here and spout more bullshit or are you dumbasses gonna go see what it was?”
Four of them move into the trees, but three linger around Rocco.
“What if it’s that vigilante kid?” a lingerer asks.
“Why would she be here!? She never leaves Philly,” Rocco growls. “Stop stalling and go.”
Blythe ducks behind the closest tree. The rough bark scratches the back of her denim jacket. She wrings the beanie in her fists as the bikers ease into the forest.
One by one, their boots crunch against the underbrush. All except for Rocco.
Blythe curses low. She planned on all of them going into the forest. How is she supposed to distract the leader?
“Holy shit, it’s on fire!” someone shouts.
Oh shit. Blythe hadn’t considered how flammable a dry log would be. Smokey the Bear is probably shaking his head somewhere.
But Rocco sucks his teeth, moving toward the trees. “Put it out, genius!”
There’s only a bit of distance between Rocco’s turned back and the pile of shards. It is, at the most, a few feet. It isn’t much. But it’s as good a shot as Blythe is going to get.
Blythe runs on the tips of her sneakers—her steps land soft and silent. She slips the beanie around her hand. Maybe, if her skin doesn’t touch the shard, she won’t incapacitate herself.
The closer Blythe comes to Rocco, the more she sees of him. He’s taller than she thought—much taller than her—with a black snake tattoo choking around his neck. And, most importantly, he isn’t paying attention to the shards.
They are piled on the ground, gleaming in the dim evening light. They range between large and small, and between thin and wide, all jagged edges and smooth, bronze surfaces.
Blythe can’t be picky. She snatches the one on the top and bolts so fast, her hair whips behind her.
“HEY!” Rocco’s voice hits her back like a knife. Shit.
Her legs pump harder. Back to the truck. She just has to get back to the truck.
Something arcs through the air with a whoosh and then—heat. Burning on her right forearm.
Her jacket is on fire.
Blythe gasps. She slaps the beanie against the flames. Her skin singes beneath the denim.
“Who the fuck are you, you piece of shit?!” Rocco screams. “Twin! Get her!”
But Blythe doesn’t hear movement.
“Why are you still standin’ there?!” Rocco screams.
“You call us the same name,” says one of them. “How are we supposed to know which one you’re talking to?”
“BOTH OF YOU!” Rocco bellows.
The footsteps start just as Blythe reaches the van. But the twins are fast.
Blythe dives into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her. She gasps for breath as she revs the ignition.
The tires spin in place.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she curses. In the rearview mirror, the twins’ forms grow larger as they run closer.
Behind them is Rocco. His gait is a slow, ambling stalk. The sharp white lights of the motorcycles draw hard, sharp shadows along his face. Towering flames pulse from his balled fists, licking up his arms.
If Blythe couldn’t fight a magician who controlled air, one who controls fire will kill her.
Blythe presses the gas pedal to the floor. “Come on!” she screams as the tires wail. “Please! Come on!”
The tires rip free. The van jerks forward with a screech.
Trees blur past as Blythe grips the wheel, her heart in her throat. She’s not in control; the van spins to the right.
She crosses hand over hand, pulling the wheel all the way to the left. The old metal creaks and groans as it rights itself.
The twins grow smaller in the mirror. Behind them, Rocco arcs his arm like he’s throwing a baseball. A fireball shoots over the twins’ heads, pivoting toward the van.
Blythe shrieks, spinning the wheel. The van swerves and the flames explode against the roof. In the backseat, the embers echo down the windows, orange flickers that extinguish into nothing.
The fire hasn’t caught. Probably because the van is metal. And the bikers can’t stop her from driving away. The van is under her control again.
She’s free.
Blythe laughs, shoving a middle finger out of the window. Success has never tasted so good.
Until one of the twins pulls something from his hip and aims it at Blythe. “Oh fuck,” she gasps.
The gun fires with a bang. Blythe braces herself; a tire could go flat, a bullet could shoot through the truck. But nothing happens. He missed.
Three more rounds go off. With every sound, Blythe’s heart skips a beat. But none of them land.
The twins and Rocco shrink into dots in the distance as the other bikers flood back onto the path. At the fork in the road, Blythe banks a hard, quick left.
Blythe’s blood has turned to frost. The bikers don’t follow her, but her unease does.
She constantly checks her rearview mirror, even miles later. Maybe that was a mistake. She shouldn’t have stolen that shard. What if they do follow her? Was this more trouble than it was worth?
Her whole body shakes. She can’t tell if it’s from fear or exhaustion. Probably both. Fully Awake Blythe would’ve never done what she just did.
>
She needs to stop for the night. Her forearm is killing her; she definitely has a burn.
This is only her first day on the road. How is she supposed to get to Nevada like this? She got lucky because those guys were idiots, but what happens when she runs into people who aren’t?
Electric City is the capital of the Trident Republic. There is no telling what the universe has in store for her there.
Blythe tightens her grip on the wheel. She can’t think like that. She can’t view this as impossible. Because if it is impossible, then there is no hope for her family.
The forest spits her out onto a main road. She drives, weary, until she spots a run-down, retro motel sign reading Mercury Motel in old, blocky neon letters.
The van sputters as she pulls into the parking lot and finally, finally, turns the engine off.
*
You can always tell when you’re nearing a magician location from the way the air crackles. Your hair stands on end as you travel through an alleyway, or goosebumps rise on your skin as you past a dark doorway.
The energy, that static, means that magic is near. Stumbling into a magical town in a Common city is just a matter of making the wrong turn down the wrong road, following a path for too long, heading into a shop just as the clock strikes midnight.
There are other cities hiding right on top of the ones Commons have come to know.
That very energy assures Blythe that this motel is run by magicians—or, at the very least, is accepting of them. She’ll be safe here.
Blythe slouches against her seat with a long exhale. Her beanie rests in the passenger seat. Carefully, she peels it open.
This is the first time she can actually inspect the shard. It is curved inward, concave and bronze, with more of a luster than a shine. It’s about the size of a large cell phone, and if it were a piece of jewelry, it would be quite beautiful.
It could be a shard from anywhere. But it’s invaluable, and Blythe would be an idiot to disrespect it. This shard—and all the others like it—could have her screaming, helpless on the ground, anywhere and at any time.
Blythe inspects her boxes of food and decides to empty out the Fruit Rollup box. She buries her beanie at the bottom, stacking the silver containers on top.
There. Foolproof plan.
She switches her burnt denim jacket for her pastel blue bomber, stuffs her wallet in her pocket, and heads inside.
The old white woman behind the desk has a nametag reading “Candice”.
“Ya got ID?” she asks.
And Blythe freezes. This isn’t some swanky, decked-out hotel with diamonds dripping from the ceiling. It smells like mold and cigarettes. Everything is dark. The only other people in the (cramped) lobby are a woman and a teenage girl. This place is supposed to bend the rules.
“…excuse me?” Blythe asks.
“ID,” Candice repeats. “Ya gotta be eighteen to book a room.”
Blythe is silent—the silence of a sixteen-year-old without ID.
The other woman, the one waiting with the teenage girl, glances at Blythe. She seems too polished for a place like this—Middle Eastern and rather young, with dark hair falling across her shoulders in waves. Her eyeliner is perfect but her nail polish is chipped.
The teenage girl is even more high class, eyes glued to her Zadis phone. She’s about Blythe’s height and age, East Asian, and slim with elegant black hair brushed to glossy perfection. Her pastel pink flats match her skirt, and Blythe is sure she saw her white tube top online for three hundred dollars.
Blythe tries not to stare. Now is not the best time to be dazzled by pretty girls.
“You need a room?” asks the older woman. Her voice is a scratchy, nonchalant drawl.
“Yeah,” Blythe answers.
The woman looks her up and down. “You’re Blythe Fulton, aren’t you?” The teenage girl looks up from her phone. Her eyes are a deep brown.
Blythe has never seen these people before. Or at least, she doesn’t think so—she’s lived so many places that faces tend to blur. But with everything that’s happened in the past three days, the answer is probably not that simple.
“How do you know my name?” Blythe asks.
The woman stands up straighter, smirking at the girl. “C’mon,” she goads. “Tell me my luck isn’t amazing. C’mon, do it.”
The girl furrows her brow.
The woman sucks her teeth. “You’re no fun.”
“Hey, excuse me?!” Blythe snaps. “Who are you?”
But the woman doesn’t answer. “We were actually on our way to your house,” she says instead. “What the hell happened to you? You look like hell. Worse than hell, actually. You look like you just mud wrestled Satan.”
Blythe studies the woman for a second time: she doesn’t seem to have any weapons. Her attire reads more “average person” than “threat”—she’s even in six-inch heels. Nothing is adding up, but Blythe isn’t about to act confused.
“Let’s try this again,” Blythe says. “Who are you and how do you know who I am?”
The woman sighs, as if a serious explanation is an inconvenience. “You heard a voice in your head, right?” she asks. “Lost control of your body, took a trip up a roof, whatever? Your parents made a phone call and good ol’ Sessa told them everything would be taken care of?”
Oh.
Shit.
“Well, surprise,” the woman smirks. “My name is Katia Darkholme. I’m a Lead Imperial Advisor for the Sages and I’m getting paid to haul you to Frost Glade.”
Six
At first, Blythe only stares at Katia in shocked silence. She completely forgot about going to Frost Glade. After her family disappeared, the only things that mattered were the things that would bring them back.
To abandon her plan and disappear into Frost Glade would mean abandoning her father, her mother, her sisters. But it’s doubtful that Katia will understand.
“I don’t mess with magician governments,” Blythe says, like that’s an excuse.
Katia snorts. “Like that’s an excuse.”
Well, it was worth a shot.
Blythe keeps talking—maybe eventually she’ll hit a point that actually makes sense. “I’m not going to Frost Glade either. I can take care of myself. Just tell the Sages I don’t need their protection or whatever. I’m good.”
Katia arches an eyebrow. “Took care of yourself pretty well when you almost walked off a roof, didn’t you?”
Blythe swallows down all comments about the bronze shard sitting in her van, about how she’s already ensured that the Trident Republic won’t control her again. Katia doesn’t need to know her business.
“Can I go to the room?” A voice interrupts.
The teenage girl looks up from her Zadis. She’s beautiful without her phone hiding her face: perfect Instagram brows and dewy makeup. Her voice sways with an English accent. “It’s late and I’m exhausted.”
Katia regards her for a moment before she turns to Blythe. “How about we take this somewhere more comfortable?” she suggests. “You can room with us.”
“I don’t know you,” Blythe snaps.
Katia sighs—a sound too light to be real. “Fine,” she relents, but Blythe watches her through narrowed eyes.
Katia’s voice is too calm as she turns to Candice. “Can you set her up with a room? It’s for Black Veins business. I’ll cover it.”
Behind the counter, Candice wrinkles her nose but shuffles around in some drawers and presents Blythe with a key. “Out by tomorrow morning,” she grunts.
“Thanks,” Blythe mutters. She just wants to get to her room and be done with this whole situation.
But Katia’s voice perks up again. “So, if you’re not going with us, where are you taking that God-awful car to?”
Blythe doesn’t have to tell her, but maybe Katia will leave her alone if she does.
“Electric City,” Blythe says. “…And it’s not God awful. It’s moderately awful.”
Katia draws
back a bit. “Electric City’s been desecrated, what are you going there for?”
“To get my family back.”
“The Trident Republic took your family? And told you to go to Electric City to find them?”
“Yes. Wait, well, no—the Trident Republic took them, but I had to figure out the Electric City part myself.”
“How?”
Blythe can’t say she got a good feeling when she heard the TV say it. “It’s the capital of the Trident Republic and they’re the ones who kidnapped them.”
“They’re not…” Katia pinches the bridge of her nose with a sigh, as if Blythe is an idiot and Katia’s not the one who is misunderstanding. “There’s no proof that they’re in Electric City. But they honestly just took your family?”
Well, Blythe was wrong. Explaining herself has obviously been no help at all. “Yeah,” she says, turning for the door. “And thanks for the room, but—”
“Okay wait,” Katia interrupts. “Let’s pretend that you, a teenage girl, manage to make it all the way to Electric City, on your own, without getting robbed, mugged, or worse. This is already a fantastical situation, but let’s keep going.”
Blythe grits her teeth.
“You get there. Every building is falling apart, the streets are filled with debris, and the whole place is a danger zone. Now, let’s pretend you aren’t killed by a falling steel pipe or a sinkhole. You’re probably running out of food and money, and you’re wandering in a foreign city you’ve never even seen before.
“But let’s say, somehow, you find the building with your family inside. That’s great! Except the outside is guarded to the ninth with traps and magic shields. Now let’s pretend that you somehow get past these with the power of determination or whatever the fuck.
“As soon as you reach the front door, a militia sniper has you through the skull. Because the Trident Republic is trying to start a war and they knew someone would come for these people. They just didn’t think that ‘someone’ would be a little girl in a sassy Forever 21 bomber jacket.
“But besides all that,” Katia flashes a bright smile. “Sure. Heading to Electric City? Great plan.”
Blythe glares at the woman as if she could burn the grin off of her face. She has to ball her fists at her sides to keep herself from shaking.