Shadow (Touched by the Fae Book 2)

by Jessica Lynch

  Carolina frowns. “What’s wrong?”

  What’s wrong? Did she really just ask me that?

  “You know all about the fae.” It’s not a question. Not this time. Why would it be? She’s made her knowledge of Fae totally clear.

  Even so, she nods.

  Am I in bizarro world or something? Sorry. I thought I was in Acorn Falls—but this can’t be happening.

  “You know about the fae and you knew I was one of them? You were watching me? And you never said shit to me about any of this before?”

  Did I raise my voice? Probably. My hands clench into fists at my side. Carolina’s gaze darts toward them and she throws her own hands up in a placating gesture as she backs up.

  “I… I might have guessed. The ears were a surprise because I wasn’t… I didn’t know for sure. That’s okay. I’m just glad to see you again. Now that I know I’m right, it’s even more important that I talk to you. Is there anywhere you’d like to go so that we can sit down and, um, maybe chat?”

  “Are you serious?”

  She takes a deep breath, then nods again. I’m visibly scaring her—and, considering my history, that’s not a surprise—though she’s just as noticeably standing her ground.

  “You have no idea how serious I am,” she tells me. “I’ve been looking for you for ages. I… I almost can’t believe you’re here. This is perfect.”

  “For you maybe. To me? This is fucking nuts.”

  “Riley, no—”

  She doesn’t get it. Right now, I’m not too sure I really am grasping what the hell’s going on, but we’re definitely not on the same page.

  Let me fix that.

  “Look, if I believe what you’re saying, that means that, all this time, you were right down the hall. Someone who could assure me that I wasn’t as crazy as they all thought I was. Someone who knew that the fae and Faerie actually exist. But you didn’t. I never knew. I don’t get it. In community group, when we had to talk about why we were there—”

  “I couldn’t tell anyone why I was committed,” Carolina cut in. “They never would have let me out again if they knew the truth. Besides, except for you, I knew they wouldn’t believe me.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I tried.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I did,” she insists.

  I huff. Before I try to fight back, I think about what she’s saying. I haven’t known Carolina all that long, and I did my best to ignore her like I did everyone else at the asylum, but she’s kind of got a point. I remember the little things. The glances in the meds line, the tentative smiles. That time during group when she chose art therapy over music therapy because I did. The biscuit she offered me at dinner.

  The note scrawled on the greasy napkin underneath it.

  Okay. Fair enough. Maybe she actually did.

  “You left me that note,” I admit.

  “The day you disappeared from Black Pine. I remember.”

  “You wanted me to come see you.”

  Carolina nods eagerly. A strand of long, dark hair falls into her face. She tucks it absently behind her—not even a little bit pointed—ear.

  “You wanted me to come visit you. To talk to you then, too.”

  “I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. You needed to know. Something happened the night they sedated you. Two techs were gone by the next morning. I don’t know what happened to the woman, but I saw them escort the big, bald tech out past the window in my room. I’ve seen that look in his eyes before. He was touched.”

  “Touched?”

  “Touched by the fae. Just like you are.”

  I don’t want to believe that she’s right. She is, though. Deep down, I know it. Duncan was acting so weird that night, and I sensed something wasn’t right about Diana the first time she tried to touch my hand. The way her eyes flashed gold right before I flipped out and the nursing staff had to sedate me… all I could think about was the fae.

  I finally left the sewer because I made a decision to put the fae behind me. Carolina’s appearance in Acorn Falls was a surprise, the reveal that my ears have changed one hell of a shock. I don’t want to think I have anything to do with the fae. I definitely can’t handle being told that, all along, I’ve been right—it was everyone else around me who let me think that I was broken.

  I’m out. I’m never going back. And, you know what?

  I’m done.

  She can tell that I’ve been touched. Did I need the reminder that I gave part of me to Nine only to have him throw it back in my face? Sure, he offered me his name instead, but that touch made me believe I wanted something he couldn’t give me.

  Nine is gone. Rys can’t find me.

  I’m tired. I’m hungry. And, for the first time in a while, I’m wishing this is all just some horrible hallucination.

  Yeah.

  I’m done.

  Without another word, I turn away from Carolina. Barely ten minutes ago, I was standing in front of the back door of the Wilkes House, trying to find the balls to go inside. I couldn’t. The deja vu was too damn strong.

  Now? Now I don’t have any other choice.

  At least I know the door’s not locked.

  I don’t head straight to the back. Just in case, I’ve got to cover my ass. With the way my luck’s been going lately, somebody will see the for sale sign out front and decide that they want to take a peek inside. Even if it’s just for the night, I’m not taking any chances.

  The metal pole holding up this side of the wide sign is cool to the touch. I can feel the chill through my thin gloves, a reminder that it really is October now. Forget losing one week before. Somehow I lost more than three freaking months.

  Even worse? With every other bomb that Carolina has dropped on me, the idea that its October instead of June is barely a blip on my radar. My head’s still spinning at the idea that I’m either turning into one of the fae—or that I’ve always been one. And then there’s how Carolina seems to know even more about the Faerie races than I do...

  With a grunt, I jerk the pole, lifting the left half of the for sale sign out of the packed dirt. I immediately reach for the second pole.

  “Riley?” Carolina’s soft voice floats after me. “What are you doing?”

  Isn’t it obvious?

  I finish pulling the sign out, then carry it around the back. I tuck it behind a bush on the side, laying it flat against the dried mulch. Good chance someone’s going to notice it’s missing soon. That’s fine. I know I can’t stay here long but, for now, it’s better than the sewer.

  “Riley?”

  Carolina has followed me. I notice that she keeps looking nervously behind her as if she’s expecting someone to come out and scold us for hanging around the empty house.

  Yeah, so she’s definitely not from Acorn Falls. One thing I remember from my years at the Everetts is that the well-to-do community always had a very “mind your own business” policy. So long as you don’t draw attention to yourself, the friendly neighbors are more than willing to leave you the hell alone.

  How else could Madelaine and me sneak in and out of this very house all those times without getting caught once? If Rys hadn’t tried to convince me to leave with him that terrible day six years ago, no one would have ever learned about the way my sister and I turned the empty basement into our home away from home.

  I don’t know what’s going on. My memories of this house are twisted with the trauma of the day Madelaine died. I remember the fire. There was a fire. My hands are proof of it.

  But the house is still standing. Looking almost exactly as it had the morning before Rys set his blaze, the abandoned Wilkes House is here, it’s empty, and it’s open.

  And there isn’t a soul in either world—the human world or Faerie—who would believe that I’d willingly turn this house teeming with the horrors from my past into a sanctuary for my troubled present.

  The way Carolina is watching me as I wipe the dirt from the palms of my gloves
is another vote in the Riley has finally snapped column. She doesn’t even know the truth behind this particular spot—she’s only here because the Everetts’ old house is down the street—and she obviously thinks I’ve lost it.

  Maybe I have. Who knows? Sleeping inside the house where Madelaine died isn’t what I really want to do, either.

  But it’s not the sewer. And, right about now, that’s good enough for me.

  I bound up the porch steps before I lose my nerve. The second my glove closes on the doorknob, I hear Carolina again.

  “Riley?” Her voice wavers on my name. “You can’t go in there.”

  That’s where she’s wrong.

  Because yes.

  Yes, I can.

  Human Riley couldn’t. The Riley who’s just discovered that she has fae ears?

  There isn’t a damn thing that she can’t do.

  Without letting go of the doorknob, I turn toward Carolina.

  “Look, I’m tired. I haven’t eaten in a while and that was after I threw up my guts for the last two days. Now you want me to believe that after years—years— hiding from the fae and their existence, I actually am one? All because my ears look like someone put them through the pencil sharpener? I just spent who knows how long in a dirty, smelly sewer. I’m going in this empty house, finding a corner to hide out in, and going to sleep. Maybe, in the morning, this will all be some really terrible dream or something, I don’t know. It’s worth a shot.”

  “There’s so much more I need to talk to you about. Why don’t you come home with me? My house isn’t too far from here. Come with me, Riley.”

  Come with me.

  The last time someone tried to get me to leave this house with them didn’t work out so well for anyone involved. And if a fae couldn’t glamour and compel me into giving up my independence, this chick will never be able to pull it off.

  She figures that out as soon as I start to enter the house. It’s dark in there, but it’s also growing even darker outside. Hey, at least it should be a little warmer in there.

  “Okay,” Carolina calls after me. “That’s okay. We can talk here. Would you be mad if I come in, too?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  “No. Not really.”

  That’s what I figured. “Whatever. My abandoned nightmare house is your abandoned nightmare house.”

  You think that would’ve given her a second’s pause. It doesn’t. Before I’m even a few steps into the house, Carolina is moving quickly, slipping inside at my heels.

  Was that a mistake? I hope not. Another of one of Nine’s lessons—funny how they’re all coming back to me now—was to be careful not to invite the wrong sort of creatures into your home.

  But Carolina isn’t fae. I might be struggling with what I am at the moment—she’s still human. No denying that. So, after she closes the door behind us, I don’t give the invitation another thought.

  I think the dark bothers her. Not me. I actually feel a little more at peace once the door closes behind her and we’re hidden among the shadows of a bare kitchen.

  Carolina, on the other hand, searches the walls until she finds a light switch. She flicks it once, twice, then a third time. The click-click-click sounds like shots in the dark.

  Because, yeah, it’s still super dark in here.

  “There’s no electricity in here,” Carolina announces needlessly.

  I shrug, zeroing in on the sink. After whispering a fervent prayer under my breath, crossing my fingers against my thigh, I reach with my left hand and twist the tap. The metal twists, the pipes groan, and rusty-colored water spits out of the faucet. Within seconds, the water clears.

  Yes!

  I gesture at the sink so that Carolina can see. Then, before I can stick my head under the stream, I turn it off. That can wait until I’m alone again.

  “Hey,” I tell her, “it’s got running water. That’s way more than I’ve been used to lately. I’ll take it.”

  “Right. You said something about the sewer before. Did you… you weren’t serious about that, were you? Where have you been, Riley?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You said you wanted to talk. That’s fine. But I think it’s my turn to ask the questions now. Like this biggie: what are you doing here anyway? How did you even get out of the asylum?”

  “You mean the Black Pine facility?”

  I nod.

  “There was no point in staying there after you left. I checked myself out.”

  I blink, surprised. “You could do that?”

  “Sure. It was part of the deal I made when I checked myself in.”

  That’s right. While most of the juveniles on our floor were put into the asylum when we were minors and we had no choice, there were a few exceptions. Carolina joined the nineteen-to-twenty-one age group last year so she’s definitely older than eighteen. I guess she’d have some say when it came to how long she was inside.

  I’d say lucky, but I know better.

  “What about you? You weren’t released when you disappeared. I know because the whole place went on high alert when the techs realized you were gone. How did you do it? I have to ask. Breaking out of the facility is supposed to be impossible.”

  Supposed to be. Just like I’m supposed to be human and Carolina is supposed to be just another patient who forgot about me once I was gone—

  —like I forgot about Jason until me and Nine chanced up my former groupmate-turned-statue in the Fae Queen’s garden.

  I shake my head. I made a conscious decision to pretend that that never happened. I had to. Not only was the threat of the Fae Queen made real in that very moment, but Nine said that Jason—a human working for the fae inside of Black Pine—must have been working against me before he met his fate.

  Now that Carolina is here, now that she’s admitted to knowing something about the Faerie races, I keep getting flashes of Jason’s dark face, his terrible expression, and the way he was positioned in the garden, his body language screaming in fear before he was frozen.

  I have to kill this conversation.

  “I had help, okay? So I left a couple of days early. Big deal. Besides, it’s still my turn to ask the questions. Why did you check into the asylum in the first place if you left as soon as I did?”

  “Help,” she echoes, ignoring my last question entirely. She nibbles on her bottom lip, then asks softly, “Was it the fae?”

  Crap. Did she really have to go there again?

  “You keep bringing up the fae. I don’t want to talk about them. Okay?”

  “We both know that won’t make them go away.”

  As much as I’d rather pretend otherwise, I do. I do know that.

  To my continued surprise, so does she.

  9

  I’m torn between wanting to make her tell me everything she knows about the fae and trying to sell the act that I have no idea what she’s talking about. After six years in the asylum, I’ve gotten pretty good at convincing others that the fae aren’t real.

  Will it work with Carolina? I’m thinking no. I might have had a shot earlier, but once she saw my ears? Once she saw me freak out because, yeah, I definitely had no clue that that happened to me? Yeah. The time for hiding the truth is way behind us.

  Doesn’t mean that I need to tell her all the dirty, smelly details about what’s happened to me since the fae came back into my life.

  That’s not all, either. Something warns me against giving her any information about me, Nine, or what I’ve been dealing with. Then there’s my shade-walking. Shadow travel. Nine said it was a gift. I decide my weirdo talent should also be a secret.

  You know what would be good right now? A distraction. Her brow furrowed, her nose wrinkled, Carolina is watching me so closely, I feel like she can see everything I’m hiding. Letting her inside the house was a mistake. Choosing to enter it myself was probably pretty stupid, too.

  Oh, well. Nothing I can do about that now. Except, maybe, kick her the hell out.

  Right before I do, my st
omach grumbles. Loudly. So loud, the snarling growl rumbles like thunder in the quiet of the empty room.

  Hey. I wanted a distraction, didn’t I?

  “Sorry. It’s been”—Jesus, months, right? Except for the bread Nine gave me, the last thing I ate was the beef stew and the biscuit Carolina used to cover up her note and that was back in June—“...a bit since I’ve had something to eat. You don’t… you don’t have like a snack or something on you? In your car? Your bag? I’ll even take some tic-tacs at this point. Anything.”

  Oh, man. The second the words are out, I realize exactly who I’m talking to. Carolina tries to hide her reaction, I’ll give her credit for doing whatever she could to cover it up, but I see her wince and I feel like a complete ass.

  “If you don’t,” I say hurriedly, “that’s fine, too. I was just asking. I guess I kinda forgot...”

  I can’t even finish my sentence, letting the words trail off right there. Eesh. How could I have forgotten why Carolina was at Black Pine in the first place? The fae might have been a big part of it—at least, that’s what she made it seem like—but there’s no faking her other condition.

  “If you need food, I can take you to get some.”

  She still wants me to leave with her. That’s… odd.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find something somewhere eventually.”

  “Let me do it. You don’t have to come with me. Just open the door for me when I come back and I can bring you whatever you want.”

  Okay. That’s it. I’ve always been paranoid, looking out for myself, always expecting that anyone helping me is doing it because they want something from me. It’s a hard-earned lesson, thanks to years spent in the foster system—not to mention Nine’s lessons throughout my childhood—and it’s only gotten worse since I got committed to Black Pine.

  I’d brushed off every mention of Carolina looking for me because I didn’t want to know why she was. I just wanted her to go, especially once she started bringing up the fae.

  This, though? This is really weird.

  “Why?” I ask. “Why do you want to help me so bad? You don’t even know me.”

  My eyes have adapted to the dark. I don’t miss the pleading look that flashes across her face, or the way she folds her hands in front of her chest. “It’s because you’re my only hope.”