by AC Washer
“Which I can’t do because it’ll kill you,” I said, throwing my hands up in the air.
I took in a breath. “So. Any brilliant ways out of this mess?”
He sighed. “Just a mediocre one. Let me go.”
I kept looking at him. The wheels in my head must have gotten stuck because I totally wasn’t following.
“As in let me die,” Caleb said.
Click. There they were, working again.
But before I could protest, Caleb rushed on.
“I’m going to die anyway, no matter how this all plays out. You already know that. Just let me die knowing you’re okay—that you have a chance at beating this investiture thing.”
I shook my head. “You’re not going to die. We just have to…think of something else,” I ended lamely.
Caleb gave me a small smile. I clenched my fists, already knowing I wouldn’t like the next words out of his mouth. “This isn’t much of a life. If it helps, it’s not that far of a stretch to think of me as pretty much dead already,” Caleb said, the words sounding more like an apology than an argument.
“But you’re not dead!” I shouted. “And listening to some guy telling you you’re gonna die? Well, screw him. Think of teddy bears or unicorns or…I don’t know, maybe those algorithm things you like so much. But stop thinking about dying.”
“Kella, you can’t win this one.” Caleb raked his fingers through is hair like he wanted to tear it out. “You have to let go of me, and soon. Do the investiture on your terms—at least let one of us have a fighting chance. Kella—” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged him away.
“Hey,” he said, reaching under my chin, gently tugging it up. “Hey.”
I wiped a few tears away. “Even if I knew how, I can’t do what you’re asking me to.”
“But—”
“I hurt you, Caleb,” I said, swiping away even more tears, my nose getting snotty. “I’m a changeling who didn’t even belong in your home, and I got you hurt—almost killed. I can’t do that again.”
“Kella, listen.” Caleb, still holding my chin in his hand, pinned me down with his gaze. “You being in my life was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”
I snorted.
“Seriously. Being raised alone with Dad? You being there gave me a reason to fight. Sure,”—he held up his other hand, stopping me from speaking— “I didn’t fight the same way you did. You’re kind of in-your-face. But you gave me someone to live for. You,” he said, “are my sister and will always be my sister. No fae magic can change that.”
I sniffed, wiped my nose on my sleeve, and lunged forward to hug him.
He patted my head awkwardly.
“But, um…back to what I was saying. About the whole your-magic-keeping-me-alive thing.”
I nodded into his shoulder to show I was listening—even if he was ruining a moment.
“Please, when the time comes, please take it back. He told me how you can do it.”
I jerked my head back. “He told you that? Why are they telling you, the human one, and leaving me, the now non-magicless one—”
“Double negative.”
“Shut up—why am I being kept in the dark? Again?”
“Kella, listen. He said you need it for the investiture. So this is how—”
“No, this doesn’t add up. Why didn’t whoever talked to you talk to me instead? And why you? How could whoever he is even know we could communicate? It doesn’t add up.”
“Your magic is keeping an open connection between the two of us—kind of like you’re the cell tower and I’m getting your signal—and vice versa. He wasn’t sure how often we’d connect, but he hoped we’d reconnect in time for me to tell you about all this because he couldn’t tell you himself.”
I stood up. “Oh he couldn’t, could he? You know what? I’m done with this. Tell her this, don’t tell her that. Push her over here. Now over there. And now some fae’s gone behind my back and told my human brother a bunch of half-truths.”
“I don’t believe they’re half-truths.”
“Of course you don’t. I never do either—until I find out more later. Fae always leave something out so they can manipulate you, jump to your own conclusions, make you do this or that. Well, now they got to you, and why? So you’d think I need to kill you by taking back my magic for the investiture—which, by the way, will go on just fine without me having magic? No. It’s not gonna work.”
“Kella—” The way he said it almost broke my heart—it was like I was breaking his.
“No!” I was so angry I was shaking. Calmer, I said, “No. You were getting better before. If it’s really my magic keeping you alive, then maybe once I’m closer, it’ll work faster. Better.”
“Kella, it doesn’t work like that.”
I shook my head with enough force to make myself dizzy. “It will.”
I jerked my shoulders out of his hands…
… and woke up on my bed, staring at the white ceiling.
I was never going to let him go. He was my Caleb. Mine. And I was his.
I’d been attacked by homicidal classmates, watched Bridgette morph into a calm, detached killer, and finally realized the rebel fae—half of the population here in town—were out to kill me. But what really got my heart beating more erratically than a kid who’d downed forty energy drinks? That my brother wanted me to kill him because some fae convinced him that was what needed to happen.
And no. That was not an option.
But me getting out of here was an option, and one I was going to make happen no matter what. Details were fuzzy right now, but I was going to storm into Caleb’s hospital room and heal him again if it was the last thing I did.
But first, I needed a number.
I got up and headed downstairs, only to be greeted by Maeve.
“Kella, I’m so glad to see you’re up.”
I nodded, sneaking glances at the phone behind her elbow.
“How are you feeling?”
I raised my eyes to hers. “Well, I’m still alive. So far.”
Maeve’s smile chilled me. “Yes, that is the goal now, isn’t it? Bridgette told me you’d fainted shortly after the fight. At least you have good timing. Anytime sooner, and you would have been done for. Which is why we need to get your episodes under control. I’ve taken the liberty of setting up an appointment with a therapist. Your first appointment is tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I spluttered. “I told you, I don’t need a therapist.”
“What you think you need and what you actually need are often two separate things,” Maeve said.
“No, they aren’t. What I need is for people to stop trying to kill me. What I need is for people—excuse me, fae—to be upfront with me. When you told me I needed to go to school to show everyone we were strong, you didn’t mention you were sending me into a classroom full of homicidal students!”
Maeve shrugged. “That information seemed irrelevant. We had fae to protect you.”
“Except they didn’t! Bridgette didn’t show until, like, minute five into them trying to kill me.”
“That was unfortunate, but we do not believe there will be another such attack anytime soon. Rebel sympathizers masquerading as your supporters had managed to stall Bridgette. On the bright side,” Maeve continued, “the fact you survived for several minutes by yourself is to your credit. Word will get around that while you may be weak, you’ve got grit. That will be an asset to the queen.”
“‘To the queen?’ You mean me?”
“Of course, it’s an asset to you as well.”
I shook my head. “Whatever. Look, what I need is to call my caseworker.”
Maeve shook her head. “That’s not going to happen. Even if I allowed you to do so, she wouldn’t believe a single word you say.”
I glared at her. “I’m not stupid enough to tell her about what happened. I need to see my brother, and she promised me I’d be able to in a month. Which, by the way, is prett
y close.”
“Really, Kella, this isn’t the time to—”
I stepped in closer to Maeve, looking up into her ice-blue eyes, ticked. “Let’s make a deal. The only way I go to a therapist without kicking and screaming and you dragging me by the hair the whole way there is if you let me call Deena about my brother. That’s it. I’ll even make the call in front of you and won’t say a word about how elves are trying to kill me. Deal?”
Maeve pursed her lips, considering. “You have a deal.”
My heart slumped back into my chest, making me realize how nervous I’d been that this wouldn’t work.
I grabbed the phone and stood by the counter, waiting.
“Do you swear you will not say a word about what happened in school?”
I rolled my eyes. “I swear I won’t stay anything about a bunch of fae teenagers trying to murder me so I won’t become the next fae queen and then getting saved by my personal elf ninja guard.”
Maeve’s lips quirked into an amused smile as she handed me Deena’s business card. I repeated the numbers in my head before dialing them. I got her answering machine.
“Hey, Deena. It’s me, Kella.” I looked up at Maeve, who was leaning against the kitchen island, arms crossed.
“Just wanted to remind you about that visit to Caleb you promised me. It’s been a month. You can call me at school aga—”
Maeve grabbed the phone out of my hands and hung it up, grabbing Deena’s business card as well.
“What’d you do that for?”
“You need to keep your contact with humans to a minimum. They don’t understand our world, and perpetuating unnecessary contact with them could complicate things.”
I glared at her. “Making plans to see my brother isn’t ‘unnecessary contact.’”
Maeve’s lips thinned. “Regardless, Deena can go through me to make arrangements. After all, I’ll be driving you.”
I shook my head. “Fine.”
“I’ve been keeping some soup warm for when you woke up.” She ladled two scoops into a bowl. “You need to eat. It will help you feel better.”
I sat down at the counter and eyed the vegetable-heavy minestrone, doubtful an excess of green beans would do anything of the sort.
But that didn’t matter, because I was in stage two of something that would.
I slipped out of my bed sometime around midnight, careful to make as little sound as possible as I tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen phone.
Deena had called a few hours after I’d called her, but Maeve had snatched the phone off the hook at the first ring and had organized my trip to see my brother…in three weeks.
I’d either be dead or queen of the fae by then—a crazy queen with a queen-hating rebellion on her hands. Yeah, who knew how long I’d be alive after the investiture. As it was, surviving long enough to become queen was a little up in the air.
But none of that mattered. Not that Maeve screwed me into no visit until after everything went down. Not that my life was on the line—okay, maybe that mattered a little.
What mattered most, though, was Caleb and getting him better.
And so I carefully lifted the phone and dialed my caseworker’s number.
It rang. Three painfully long rings. And then the most angelic frog croak ever answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Deena,” I whisper-shouted.
“Kella? What’s going on? You got an emergency or something? ‘Cause if this ain’t an emergency, I’m hanging up right now.”
“No, it is.” I took a quick breath. I had to be careful with what I said next. “I think things are out to get me.”
“Honey?”
“Yeah, I think they’re trying to, you know…”
“Trying to what? What things? Kella, you’re making no sense.”
“I know I’m not,” I said, my voice shaking a little. “Deena, I can’t stay here.”
“Honey, you okay? What’s going on over there?”
“Deena, I need you to get me out.”
Silence.
“Kella, you need to be straight with me. What’s. Going. On.”
“I’m not safe here.”
“You’re not safe…What’s happened?” Deena’s voice lost all trace of being possessed by a frog.
“I’m in trouble. My meds…I thought they were making me see things, but I stopped taking them and nothing changed,” I said, phrasing it carefully enough not to go against the promise I made to Mickey.
A few muffled swear words made it through the phone.
“What do you mean, seeing things?”
“People here aren’t what they seem. They’re not like humans.”
“Not like humans?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn.”
The few seconds it took Deena to reply seemed to stretch out into eternity.
“I’ll be there in three hours. Give me to your foster mom. I need to talk with her.”
“That’s not a good idea. She doesn’t want me to leave.”
“Well, she don’t get a choice, now does she? Let me talk to her. Everything is going to be okay.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I repeated, fully aware that I sounded paranoid. But that was what I was going for.
Silence stretched between us before a heavy sigh crackled in my ears.
“It’ll be okay, Kella. I’ll be there in three hours. Get your stuff ready.”
I grinned as I hung up the phone.
Once I snuck upstairs, I grabbed my school bag, dumped the books out, and shoved a couple changes of clothes inside.
I grabbed my hairbrush, my toothbrush, and waited by my window, too wired to close my eyes for even a second.
Hours later, I saw the most gorgeous green minivan in existence turn onto the long driveway. I crept down the stairs again, unlocked the door, and jogged out to meet Deena, waving my hands wildly so she wouldn’t run me over.
Deena jerked to a halt and opened the door, but I ran to where she was and shooed her back in. I raced over to the passenger seat right about the time the porch light came on. I yanked open the door, darted inside, and shouted, “Floor it!”
Deena looked over at me like I was possessed. She shook her head. “Mm, mm, mm,” she said. She pulled her keys out of the ignition. I scrambled out of the car and tried to head Deena off, but she waved me away like a wasp.
“I’ve gotta tell Ms. Reid what’s going on, honey. I get that you’re scared, but I promise, I’m gonna take care of you.”
“But—but she’s dangerous,” I blurted.
I knew saying that made me look even crazier, which is what I was going for in the first place. Deena placing me in a residential facility with Caleb staying alive was better than Caleb dying—and of course, there was that 50-50 chance of me dying that was another consideration. And anyway, I’d eventually make it to the hospital. When I did, I’d figure out how to heal him—somehow.
But Deena was an awful getaway driver. I watched with growing horror as Deena rang the doorbell.
Maybe if I’d framed Maeve to seem abusive, Deena’d listen to me now. But no, I had gone for all-out crazy and now she was treating me like I was just that.
Backfired. That was the only way to describe the situation as Maeve opened the door looking one hundred percent pissed.
I tried to slump in the powder blue, gold-studded armchair Maeve had ordered me to sit down in, but it wouldn’t let me. The back was too high and rigid and the seat cushion shoved my weight right back at me, creating the sensation of balancing on an over-inflated ball. Maeve sat across from me, her hands folded tightly in her lap, while Deena sat in the other overstuffed armchair, a pleasant smile pasted on her lips.
“So you see, Ms. Reid, with Kella seeing things, we’ve got to get her evaluated and put on a treatment plan.”
I barely stopped myself from nodding in agreement.
“I…see,” Maeve said. “I would like to assure you, though, that Kella is getting help here.
Kella agreed,” —I did not miss Maeve’s emphasis on “agreed”— “that she would see a therapist—starting tomorrow, in fact.”
Deena’s eyes narrowed. “You knew she was having issues and didn’t inform me?”
“No, nothing like that.” Maeve pursed her lips. “It was for some other issues—minor issues.”
Deena’s brows drew together like two thunderclouds. “What other issues?”
“Merely a bit of…post-traumatic stress, I’m sure. Something we were going to have evaluated due to a couple of episodes.”
“I didn’t read about any episodes. You haven’t filed a single incident report.”
“They’re very recent.”
“That so?” Deena eyed Maeve, suspicion practically oozing out of her.
“Well, Ms. Reid, I appreciate all you’ve done for Kella, but she needs more services that what you can immediately provide.”
This time, I did nod. “And,” I added, “I will be seeing a therapist in whatever place I go to, so there’s that.”
Deena nodded. “And a psychologist.”
“Well,” Maeve said, “it seems I may have underestimated your…fluency…with words.”
I shrugged. Underestimating me was her problem, not mine.
A small smile peeked out before she turned her attention back to Deena.
“I’m afraid Kella needs to stay.”
Deena’s eyes popped wide open. “Excuse me?”
“She already has an appointment with an excellent therapist, and we also have a highly competent psychologist that will more than adequately meet her needs.”
“Ms. Reid,” Deena said, sucking all of the warmth out of her voice, “I’m glad you care about Kella, but her staying or leaving here isn’t your call. It’s mine.”
“Of course,” Maeve replied as she stood up from the sofa. “I intended no offense. I only wish to express my confidence that we have exceptional local resources to help Kella through this. Besides, the foster system is overwhelmed with teens. If we can help her here, why not let us?”
Deena wrinkled her forehead as though she was considering it. My heart hammered in my chest as I stared at her, waiting.