That’s it. Time to go.
Once I’ve climbed up the ladder again, I hand the lantern off to Carolina. She doesn’t seem bothered by it. I don’t realize how close I am to buckling under another panic attack until she’s holding onto the lantern and I can get away from the destructive fire.
She tucks it securely in the back seat of her car, far from me in the front, and we’re off again.
The trip back takes nearly three times longer than the one out. At first, I suspect that Carolina is driving out of Acorn Falls because she’s decided to, I don’t know, kidnap me or something ridiculously as crazy. I’m wondering just how much it’s gonna hurt if I throw open the door and jump out of the car while it’s moving when I figure out what she’s doing.
Acorn Falls is a small town with small businesses. While Black Pine is only a town or two away on one side, the northern border of Acorn Falls touches the edge of an urban city. It’s late, well past midnight, but Carolina finds me a fast food restaurant. We hit the drive-thru, my mouth watering before she even pulls up to the speaker.
“It’s on me,” she says. “Get whatever you want.”
I’m not about to say no. And I don’t. I order close to twenty dollars worth of food—Carolina hands over a credit card without a word—and I have just enough restraint to stop at one burger so that my stomach stops rumbling. I’ll eat the rest once we get back.
When we pull up in front of the house, Carolina insists on parking a couple of spots away before walking me inside. During the drive, while I was shoving that burger in my face, she mentioned she lives in a suburb not too far from Black Pine and, because she was so close, she took the ride into Acorn Falls once a week in the hopes that she might run into me.
Because she thinks I can help her.
Can’t forget that part.
Whatever. I grab the bags of food and my drink, leaving Carolina to grab the lantern from the back seat. She tries to shield it with her slender body, bowing over the flame. It’s so freaking bright, you could probably see it from down the block.
I just hope no one’s looking.
Once we’ve snuck through the back again, I plop my butt on the floor and start to tear into the bags. The first burger was only a snack. I’ll probably regret it in the morning, but I’m starving. I can’t wait another minute to eat the rest of this food.
Carolina places the lantern on the kitchen counter. Good spot. It’s behind me, so I don’t have to see it, and it’s far enough away that I’m not so put off by it being in the room with us. Plus, the height gives it strength, splashing light over the floor where I’m sitting.
Careful to keep some distance between us, Carolina joins me on the floor. She’s not looking at me, though. Her eyes are narrowed on the food I’ve set out on napkins in front of me.
She’s frowning at it, but there’s no denying how wistful she looks.
In the car, at the drive-thru, I asked Carolina if she wanted anything. I didn’t think she would, and I wasn’t surprised when she shook her head and didn’t order a damn thing for herself.
Now I feel like an ass. I gesture at the food.
“You want some? I’ve got more than enough. We can share.”
She shakes her head. “No, thanks.”
“I don’t want to push you to do something you don’t want to. I mean that. And I get it. You’ve got this thing about food. I’m not gonna judge. But it’s here if you want it.”
I grab one of the wrapped burgers and slide it closer to her.
Her eyes watch it as the plastic wrapper crinkles against the wood floor. I can see the way her hand twitches, almost like she’s itching to reach for it.
And then she sighs and turns so that it’s not tempting her. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“I know why you were at the facility. I’m local. Even before I first heard of the fae, I remember the story of the Everett girls and the fire.”
I stiffen. Of all the things I’d thought she might say, that’s probably at the bottom of the list. “My name is Thorne,” I say, correcting her. Can’t help it, either. “Only Madelaine was an Everett. She was adopted. Not me. I was just a foster.”
“Right. Sorry. Anyway, I knew you ended up at Black Pine. When my mistress told me that I could find the Shadow inside the same place, I wondered if there was more to the fire than was on the five o’clock news.”
It’s bad enough that I’m back in this house. Six years later, without a single sign that this place nearly burned down to the ground, I’m here again, hiding out again. So dinner put me in a much better mood. That doesn’t mean I want to sit here and be reminded of what happened to me the last time I snuck inside the Wilkes House.
I pop a fry into my mouth. Chew. “Is there a question in there somewhere?”
“Kind of,” admits Carolina. “I know why you were in Black Pine. Why did you think I was there?”
Good thing I had already swallowed. If not, I might have choked.
She’s… she’s kidding, right?
“I don’t know. I mean, I know what you talked about in group. It’s ‘cause you… your...” I can’t bring myself to say the word out loud. Thinking back on it, Carolina never did, either. Instead, I wave at her skeletal frame. “You know.”
Her expression turns sad. She looks down at her hands in her lap. They’re more bone than flesh. “Yeah. I do. Good excuse, huh? What I talked about in group… it’s how I got my parents to agree to a voluntary check-in. They wanted to help me. But it’s not what you think… it’s not what any of them think.”
Call it a premonition or something, but a horrible feeling starts to prickle my stomach. Almost like fear mixed with a terrible sense of deja vu. Uh oh. “Then what is it?”
“It’s not that I don’t eat because I don’t want to. I can’t, Riley. I… I physically can’t. That fry would turn to ash the second it hit my tongue.”
“You didn’t.” Tell me she didn’t. “You didn’t eat food from Faerie.”
She nods miserably, careful not to meet my horrified face. “Last year. I didn’t know better, and my mistress told me it was a treat. She offered me an apple—”
“That’s okay,” I cut in. “I had a peach, but then Nine came and he fixed me. I’m not cursed anymore. He can fix you, too. I’ll call him for you.”
“No!”
“What? Why not? He can help.”
“My mistress offered me an apple,” Carolina repeats, “but then it was pear, some grapes… a peach. It didn’t matter how sick I got, I couldn’t stop. No one told me what would happen if I didn’t. Now it’s too late. Unless my mistress feeds me from her hand, I can’t eat. No one can help me, especially not another fae.”
“But—”
“I didn’t tell you that because I want you to feel sorry for me. Honest. I’ve almost gotten used to the hunger and she’s fair enough that, so long as I do what she says, she doesn’t let me starve. You, though… I’m kinda worried about you. A fae fixed you, right? How? How did he do that?”
I don’t want to admit what I let Nine do to me. “He just did. He felt bad for me. He was being kind. That’s all.”
Carolina shifts. She goes from sitting on her ass to rising up on her knees, almost hovering. “No. Oh, no, no, no… you have to listen to me, Riley. The fae who fixed you… however he did it, whatever ulterior motives he had, he wasn’t doing it to be kind. The fae don’t know how to be kind.”
“Nine’s different,” I argue. “He’s not like the Light Fae I know, the one who killed my sister—”
“Light or Dark, they’re all terrible. If you let your Dark Fae get too close, even if he’s the one in the prophecy, he’ll take everything you have and leave you for dead.” She sounds so certain. So bitter. “Like my mistress. She uses faerie food to get me to do what she wants. I behave, I get to eat. If I don’t, she punishes me with hunger. I’ll do anything to break free from her control before...”
Carolina doesn’t finish h
er sentence. She doesn’t have to.
...before she gets left for dead.
That’s it. I’ve lost the last of my appetite. Shoving the pile of half-eaten fast food away from me, I say, “That’s why you want me to be the Shadow so bad.”
“It’s part of the bargain. I help you end Melisandre, I don’t have to rely on the mercy of my mistress to eat.” Her lips thin, her cheeks even more noticeably sunken in than before. “I won’t beg like a dog looking for scraps. I won’t.”
Rys is a Light Fae. A Blessed One. The first time we met, he killed my sister because he thought she was a nothing human who was an obstacle to get to me.
Carolina said the fae female who touched her was a Dark Fae like Nine. A Cursed One. If tricking the human girl into eating faerie food to turn her into her trained pet was considered a treat, I’d hate to find out what she did when Carolina pissed her off.
Or what she would do if she ever discovered that Carolina was plotting against her.
“The fae are big on their bargains, aren’t they?” I muse, more to myself than to Carolina.
“That’s something else I learned too late. They’re tied to their contracts, but don’t ever forget that it’s about following the letter of the law, not the spirit. If they can cheat you, they absolutely will, and they’ll do it as they’re forced to only tell the truth.”
Carolina picks up the wrapped burger that’s still sitting untouched between the two of us. She squeezes it, then rears her hand back and lets it fly. The burger hits the wall on the far side of the kitchen with a wet slap, then lands in a pile of mangled patty, scattered lettuce, and splattered ketchup that, in the dancing light of Rys’s lantern, looks way too much like blood.
“You can’t ever trust them,” she says in a voice so soft that you’d never guess she just chucked a burger across the kitchen. “You can’t trust anyone.”
Whoa. And I thought I had trust issues.
Carolina hates the fae for her own reasons. I respect that.
Don’t blame her, either. And, sure, she definitely wants to use me so that she can break free of the Dark Fae who controls her.
I’m surprisingly okay with that.
Way I see it, it would’ve been worse if she tried to sell me that she wanted to “help” me because she felt bad for me. Knowing she has her own motives—hearing her put them out there like that—actually makes me trust her more.
We both want to escape the fae. Carolina wants to be free of her tie to the Dark Fae female who controls her food. Me? If I keep my head down, keep myself hidden from the Fae Queen, I’m good.
I decide to keep that to myself. I’m not a moron. Carolina’s offer of help is very much conditional. She believes wholeheartedly that the Shadow will give her her freedom. And, since she also believes that I’m the Shadow, she’s going all in on me.
If I tell her that I have no intention of going to Faerie or meeting the Fae Queen—let alone killing her—I know that Carolina’s generosity will shrivel up. For now, I’m gonna take what I can get for as long as I can.
Whether I’m way tired or just relieved to finally have someone on my side, I let down my guard enough to invite Carolina to stay that first night. She can’t, though. As late as it is, she has to drive home so that her parents can make sure that she’s okay. Since I haven’t had an adult care about me since the Everetts when I was fifteen, I don’t really get it, but she insists.
Then she promises that she’ll come back in the morning if she can get away.
Honestly, I don’t hold my breath. As soon as Carolina leaves and I lock the back door behind her, I try to find a soft patch of floor in the depths of the dark shadows inside the empty living room.
It doesn’t seem right to go upstairs. For a few seconds, I wonder if I should hide in the basement—but I can’t even bring myself to step onto the landing.
Living room it is.
No dreams. With a full belly and eyes that just can’t seem to stay open any longer, I fall asleep easily—and I don’t dream.
Thank freaking God.
Halfway through the night, I start to shiver. The temperature dips at night during October, especially in Acorn Falls, and no electricity means no heat. I pull the sleeves of my hoodie off of my arms, tucking them against my middle, trying desperately to warm myself up. It must work because I fall asleep in a curled-up fetal position, too tired to even care about the chill.
I’m up with the sun. The way it angles in through the bare window, the bright rays seem to slap me awake. I squint and groan and pull myself up so that I’m sitting instead of lying sprawled out on the hardwood floor.
Something whispers as I shift. Glancing down, I see the same black, silky blanket pooling around my waist, rustling beneath my filthy jeans as I move to get a better look at it. I blink, peering down at it, not quite sure what I’m looking at it.
In the morning light, it seems to glimmer. Sparkle. Shine. A dark, rich cocoa color that ebbs and flows through the pitch-black material. It’s so much prettier in the daylight. And, just like when I was in the sewer, it did an amazing job keeping me comfortable and warm.
One question, though: how did it get here?
I left the blanket in the sewer. I had no choice. When I went back for it, it was missing. Nine’s scarf, too.
Did it… did it follow me here?
Or was it another gift?
Nine? No. He wouldn’t have. I’d sooner believe it was a blanket fairy or something ridiculous like that than think Nine did after the way we left things between us.
I don’t know where it came from. Can’t explain it, either. And, honestly, having a weirdo blanket following me around like a puppy dog is the least of my worries right now.
It’s so strange, too, and not only the material it’s made of. It’s so warm when I have it on, but it doesn’t seem to weigh anything at all. Seriously. When I pick it up, folding it loosely so that I can stick it in the corner before I trip on it, it feels like air.
It’s so, so weird.
Once I toss it in the corner of the empty living room, I lift my hands to my head, running my gloves through the tangled snarls that used to be my long, white-blonde hair. It’s all one big knot now, no thanks to another hard night sleeping on the hard floor, and I try to finger-comb some of the more mild tangles out.
Of course, that stops the first time my fingertip accidentally brushes against the sensitive tip of my newly pointed ear.
My stomach sinks.
How the hell could I have forgotten about that?
Easy. After being told my entire life that the fae are dangerous, mythical creatures, it’s a shock to even think I could be one.
So I choose not to.
Denial’s worked for me so far. Might as well keep it up.
Hey, right now, it’s the only plan I’ve got.
11
My hands fall to my side, settling against my thighs. Even through the leather gloves, I can feel how stiff my jeans are. They’re so covered in dirt and grime and who knows what else, I wouldn’t be surprised if they stood up on their own when I finally took them off again.
Thinking of that makes me realize that I’ve got to pee. I know there’s a bathroom on this floor—I used it last night after Carolina left—and I’m hoping there’s at least one other with a shower or a tub in it. With the daylight streaming in through the windows, this is the perfect time to check out the upstairs.
Before I can head to the stairs, though, I hear a tentative knocking coming from the back of the house. My heart stops beating for a second, I’m so suddenly convinced that I’ve been found out, before I realize that only one person would be tapping so politely, yet insistently, on the kitchen door.
When I unlock the door and yank it open, I’m right.
It’s Carolina. She’s come back, just like she said she might—and she didn’t come empty-handed, either.
“Holy crap,” I breathe out. “What’s all that?”
“I don’t know how long y
ou’ll want to stay here,” she answers, stepping carefully into the house so that she doesn’t overbalance and fall over. Between the bundle made up of a comforter and a pillow nestled in her arms, the overstuffed backpack strapped on her back, and a huge plastic shopping bag hanging in the crook of her elbow, it’s a possibility. “I wanted to be prepared. Where should I put this?”
“Um. The living area, I guess. That’s where I slept last night. It didn’t feel right going in the basement.”
I don’t explain. I don’t have to.
She doesn’t pry. As soon as I add that part, Carolina stays silent, carrying her load into the living room.
At least, she stays silent until she notices the billowy blanket that I haphazardly tossed into the corner and promptly forgot about.
She gasps. Her reaction isn’t as bad as when she saw my new fae ears last night. It’s close, though, as she marvels and stares. And then she grins.
“Shadows,” she says softly. There’s triumph in the way she almost murmurs it. “See. I knew I was right.”
Huh?
“You talking about that?” I jerk my thumb over at it. “It’s just a blanket.”
“Sure it is. Now. With the way you can manipulate the shadows, they can be whatever you want them to be. That’s so cool.”
I blink. “Are you telling me that my blanket is made of shadows?”
“Well, yeah.” Carolina frowns. “Wait… didn’t you weave the shadows into a blanket on purpose?”
I would’ve had to know that it was possible in the first place to do it on purpose.
Whoa.
Is it?
I mean, this isn’t the first time I found myself wrapped in a patch of darkness lately. It’s not even the first time I woke up with a black blanket that I couldn’t explain. The scarf might have been a gift from Nine, but he never claimed the blanket I slept with in the sewer.
Is it really possible? Did I do that?
I just… I don’t get it. When I woke up this morning, the blanket was thin, silk-like, but it’s definitely solid. Sturdy. As light as it was, I couldn’t rip it. The shadow—if that’s even what it was—that wrapped around my legs last night reminded me of thick smoke that disappeared as soon as I kicked it away.
Shadow (Touched by the Fae Book 2) Page 10