by May Dawson
He snaps his fingers at me. “Let’s go.”
I follow him to a stairwell. The rain is even louder here, pounding against the exterior wall, and the wind rustles around the building. Summer’s just ending, but the sudden storm has made it cold, and I shiver through my thin sweatshirt. We climb up, up, up. My calves burn.
He opens a door to a deserted hallway, then unlocks a door into an unused office space. There’s a lobby with one abandoned sterile leather couch, and at the end of the lobby, two long windows look out over the gray city. A third window is boarded up.
“Two windows for suicide and one window for the trip home,” he says.
That’s a really calming thing to say. Good thing I’m not already keyed up. “That’s the portal?”
“You came here, didn’t you?” he asks, his voice curt.
I don’t remember much of the trip from Avalon What I remember is all sensation: my throat hoarse from screaming, my hands cuffed for the first time, the terror wild in my chest like I would never catch a full breath again.
None of these memories helped me map my way back home. I used to run away from my foster home to walk the streets at night, hoping I’d find a clue to lead me to a portal. It took a long time for that hope to curdle.
“I’m not jumping out of a seventh-story window,” I tell him.
“Those two,” he says, pointing to the ones on the left, “Are actually the eighth-story windows. The one on the right has a terrifying two-foot plummet to the floor of the train station in Dorian. You might twist your ankle if you’re a klutz.”
I stare at him. I want to believe, but I’ve already taken leaps of faith—that is to say, I’ve been really stupid—to get in this man’s cab and to follow him to this abandoned space where no one can hear me scream. Jumping out of a boarded window is epically stupid. Even by my standards.
He carries my bags across to the window and drops them. Briskly, he turns latches at the edges of the warped, gray wood and pops the shutter off before leaning it against the wall.
“If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” he reminds me.
Actually, why they—whoever they are—want me alive and home in Avalon is another thing I’ve been panicking over. It’s easier to understand when people want me dead.
He’s not a very nice man, but I guess that makes him a fitting conduit back into the world I lost. The way I came here wasn’t very nice either. “Are you supposed to be comforting?”
He checks his watch. “No, I’m supposed to be picking up my next fare in twenty minutes cross-town.”
I edge toward the window.
He grabs the handle of my suitcase and starts to drag it, then grunts. “This thing is a real piece of shit, huh?”
“How do you feel about being stuck on this side?” I ask. “Driving people like me to the portals?”
“I think this whole place is a real piece of shit.” He grabs my suitcase by its broken handle and one of the wheels, pulling it up to side-eye it as he rests the edge on the window. “No big deal if this thing does plummet eight stories. It can’t be any worse off.”
“That holds all my earthly goods!” I rush to grab my duffel bag, slinging it over my shoulder along with my backpack.
“I’m sorry.” He lifts his hands off the suitcase. It teeters on the window ledge before it drops over the other side.
He kicks a stepstool across the room, nudging it underneath the window with his toe. “Let’s go.”
He holds a hand out to me, looking impatient.
“I’ve got it, thanks.” I smile at him so it won’t sound quite so much like I think he might be a murderer. I climb onto the stepstool and lean over the edge, trying to see what’s on the other side. I hope I’m about to stick my head into Avalon, that I’ll see a polished wooden floor two feet under my nose and hear the bustle of a train station. Instead, I poke my head into a cloud, thick and foggy and damp when I breathe in. I try to peer through the cloud, but I can’t see a thing.
“Shouldn’t I be able to see this two-foot drop?”
He grabs my legs. I scream and twist back for the window, kicking out at him. He raises my legs even with the ledge as I grab frantically for the window ledge. My fingers scrape across splintering wood.
“Sorry,” he says. “But I’ve seen people like you refuse to jump before, and like I said, I’ve got another fare.”
He shoves me through.
Chapter Three
My head slams into something, and I tumble over in a pile. As I scramble to my feet, I get the general impression of a polished—and painfully hard—wooden floor, and people gawking at me. My palms ache from trying to catch myself, but I brush them off on my jeans before turning to look at the portal; it’s nothing but an unlatched window swinging shut now.
My backpack’s burst open, and my books and my sunglasses and wallet and sweater are strewn around in the small roped-off area where I stand. A brass sign hanging alongside the rope says, ‘Please stand back. Portal. Exit Only. See Portal Master for details.’
There was no please when I went through a portal last time.
Someone clears their throat behind me. I turn as I bend down, scooping up my lost personal belongings to throw them back into my bag before I’m hustled out of here.
Polished black shoes wait patiently. The toes hover just under the red velvet rope.
“I’ve been expecting you,” the man in the polished shoes says.
I look up from the shoes at crisp navy-blue pants, a matching blue jacket with silver buttons, and a ruddy-cheeked, kindly face under a peaked blue cap. He holds out a paper packet to me. “Your tickets for the train to Corum.”
He seems a lot nicer than the guy on the other side. But, Earthside doesn’t bring out the best in anyone.
“Thanks.” I stuff my sweater into my backpack, zip it up, and sling it over my shoulder as I stand.
“I’ll walk you to your train.”
A few people have stopped on the other side of the rope, watching us: a woman with a little boy in her arms and a pair of sandy-haired children with freckles across their upturned noses. Further past them, other people are less blatantly curious but still watching.
I look up again, at the window which is now closed, looking absolutely every-day and ordinary.
“Thank you.” I want to take in everything, but there’s no time. I follow the portal-master as his shoes click across the wooden floors.
The busy sounds of the station swirl around me. A stand in the corner sells newspapers—God, I could stand to catch up with a newspaper after five years away—and hot coffee, which smells fresh and bitter all at once. The station is filled with light from enormous circular glass windows above the train tracks. There are just two tracks, running north and south, through the station.
He turns on his heel at the edge of the track. A train whistle blasts in the distance.
“It should be only a minute or two now.” He shakes the paper packet at me.
First, my hands were full, and then I’d been distracted by my wonder at being back in Avalon. I forgot about my tickets. I take the envelope from him quickly and flash him an apologetic smile. My thumb brushes against his hand when I take the package.
He flinches before he tucks his hands into his pockets, nodding as if nothing has happened.
Anxiety burns like familiar poison in my stomach. My smile freezes on my face as I turn away and study the tracks. Outside the station, I glimpse green trees, a bit of sunny sky.
I still hate standing on train platforms; I was always afraid in the Metro Earthside that someone would shove me off. One or two lousy attempts on my life, and I turned a bit suspicious.
“You’ll have a short trip. Just two stops to Corum,” he says. “I guess they don’t have a good rip of their own to put in a portal. Too bad.”
A good rip in the thin fabric that separates one dimension from another? I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a good rip. My father’s attempted reign began with a simp
le mission. Seal the rips. Save Avalon.
But things went sideways from there.
“Goodbye,” I tell him.
He hesitates as if he feels he should see me onto the train. Maybe they’re afraid I’ll run, whoever they are.
I’m about to ask him—what do I have to lose by asking?—but the train chugs into the station. When the driver slams on the brakes, a piercing screech fills the air. I breathe in hot metal against metal. That scent carries ghosts with it: little girls’ greetings and hugs as we get off the train at boarding school, a few rare, precious hours of independence between parents and dorm moms.
The train comes to a stop. I get on without a backward glance.
I’ve gotten what I want. A second chance in Avalon.
There’s no point in looking behind me now, and there’s nothing that I want to remember.
I don’t want to make myself out to be special or anything. Everyone’s probably nervous on their first day of college. But I have to wonder if anyone else is as nervous as a vanquished Dark Lord’s daughter walking onto a campus full of professors who once faced down her father.
When I get off the train at Corum Park, I feel anonymous.
The station is filled with milling students. But I must be the only freshman, or maybe I’m some special kind of outcast. All around me, people call out greetings and hug hello. An angry-looking girl with bright pink hair brushes past me, and I take a quick step back. She throws herself into the arms of a girl wearing a significant amount of leather. The two of them grin as they hug, chattering about the year ahead.
The crowd streams through the dark brick terminal, so I fall in with them, carrying all my worldly goods in a backpack, a shoulder bag bumping my legs, and a rolling suitcase with one completely unruly wheel.
You’d think a fucking future wizard could at least make her suitcase roll smoothly.
But at least for now, even though my face is flushed from trying to move this damn luggage and my shoulders ache, I blend in with the crowd. Just another eighteen-year-old with a dream of becoming the person I was always meant to be at university. Someone a little cooler, smarter, sharper, than I’ve ever been before. Just like everyone else.
But I bet they don’t need to reinvent themselves quite like I do.
Outside the terminal, some of the students form a tidy queue, stretching single-file in front of the shops that line the street to either side of the train station. Cabs roll along intermittently, picking up their luggage, and the students follow on foot up the hill. The town is nestled below a long, sloping hill, and along the hillside, white buildings rise like castles among the trees. I can’t be the only newly-minted freshman, but as I watch students streaming toward the campus, it seems like everyone else knows where they’re headed.
I stare around at the shops; we’re surrounded by three- or four-story stone buildings with colorful awnings flapping in the fall breeze. Across from me, a store advertises kebabs & vegan specialties. Maybe I’d feel more magical right now if I were a vegan. But good lord, do I love a cheeseburger. Across from me is an enormous bookstore with shelves of discounted books out on the sidewalk. A faint, warm breeze stirs the air. I wish I belonged here.
“You look lost.”
It’s a boyish voice, warm and kind of grumbly at the same time, and I clutch my bag tighter as I turn. The voice does indeed belong to a boy—who is tall and broad shouldered and taking off a pair of silver-rimmed aviator sunglasses so I can see his deep-blue eyes.
“Hi,” I say.
He is not a boy. There are faint smile lines at the corners of those gorgeous eyes, which sparkle in the afternoon sun, and his forearms are corded with muscle below powerful biceps. He is definitely a grown man.
“Oh, hi. I probably should’ve led with that, huh?” A lazy smile lifts one corner of his lips. “But I’m not wrong. You are lost.”
I half-expect him to say, because you don’t belong here, Donovan’s daughter. I don’t want to act friendly, then spit in my face. That happens sometimes. So I just stare at him.
“Okay,” he says when I’ve stared long enough to make it awkward for all involved. “Well, we’re walking up to campus.”
He jerks a thumb behind him at two other guys, also tall-and-handsome. One of them stands head-and-shoulders above his friends, his perfect skin burnished, a warrior in a sea of peasants. The other guy is talking to him a mile-a-minute, gesturing wildly in his enthusiasm for whatever the topic is. Blond hair flops into his eyes. The warrior listens to him with a look of patient bemusement.
“So, if you want help dragging that thing”—My new friend points at my dilapidated suitcase—“Or just generally finding your way, we’re happy to help. If not, that’s fine too.”
“I’m kind of an independent type.” I crinkle my nose at him so my rejection of his offer won’t sound quite so serious. I would like to make some new friends, but I have a funny feeling this is all a prank. If I go with them, I’ll end up humiliated. Tera Donovan thought we wanted to be her friends!
“Okay.” He slips his sunglasses back on, and those beautiful eyes vanish behind silver mirrored lenses, but the sunglasses are a good look too. His short black hair is slightly mussed, in the best way, and he has a big-jawed, craggily handsome face. “If you decide to follow us, I won’t call you a stalker. Your call.”
He turns and heads back to his friends. He walks with a bit of a swagger, leaning to his right as if he’s used to carrying a weapon.
He acts like a nice guy, but everything about him tells me he’s dangerous.
“Hey, what’s your name?” I call out. And I don’t even know why. I should let him walk away, yet I want him to stay.
He turns, taking another step backward toward his friends as he answers me. “Airren. Who are you, independent girl?”
I shrug with one shoulder, the one that isn’t dying from the strain of my bag.
“Okay,” he says, as if it’s totally normal I don’t want anyone to know my name.
“Go you.” The blond friend claps his shoulder as they walk away. “Picking the girl who doesn’t even know her name.”
“Leave her alone.” Airren’s husky voice is so low I barely hear him. “I wouldn’t hang out with us, either. You two are hooligans.”
“You’re the king of hooligans,” Blondie says.
“Thanks.” Airren shrugs as if he doesn’t mind his promotion to royalty. The warrior shakes his head, but whatever banter they exchange next is lost as they fade into the crowd.
Too late, I stare at the people melding together in front of me and wish I’d followed them.
Maybe I should take a chance on someone, sometime.
Otherwise, I’m going to be stuck being the same Tera Donovan for the rest of my life.
Read the rest of Tera’s story now… The True and Crown series is complete and free in Kindle Unlimited!
Also by May Dawson
The True and the Crown series:
One Kind of Wicked
Two Kinds of Damned
Three Kinds of Lost
Four Kinds of Cursed
Five Kinds of Love
Their Shifter Princess:
Their Shifter Princess
Their Shifter Princess 2: Pack War
Their Shifter Princess 3: Coven’s Revenge
Their Shifter Academy:
Their Shifter Academy: A Prequel Novella
Their Shifter Academy 1: Unwanted
Their Shifter Academy 2: Unclaimed
Their Shifter Academy 3: Undone
Their Shifter Academy 4: Unforgivable
Their Shifter Academy 5: Unwinnable
The Wild Angels & Hunters Series:
Wild Angels
Fierce Angels
Dirty Angels
Chosen Angels
Ashley Landon, Bad Medium
Dead Girls Club
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