Taste

by Claire Farrell

  I struggled to breathe, reaching out for my dagger blindly until my fingers brushed against beautiful magical steel. Gripping the handle, I shoved the knife right in the warrior’s crotch. It didn’t matter that I didn’t make it sink, or that I didn’t hit hard enough to do major damage. That strike hurt him. He fell off me with a howl, and I leapt to my feet, barely swinging around in time to cut through a fighter about to jump on my back.

  I heard a shout to my left, and Peter ran toward me. I was going to kill him.

  “Duck!” he yelled, and I dropped to the ground as a fighter swung a sword right where my neck had just been.

  Maybe I would thank Peter before I killed him.

  He joined in the fight, and we soon cleared the path. All that lay in our way were some dying fighters. At Mrs. Yaga’s feet were three corpses, all sucked dry. The look in her shining white eyes terrified me, making me glad I hadn’t seen her in action.

  “Everyone inside!” I shouted.

  Esther and Val stayed to patrol the entrance until everyone was safely in the cul-de-sac.

  Peter had a massively smug grin on his face, so I grabbed his shoulder and punched him in the jaw, knocking him flat on his arse.

  “What the hell, Ava?” he hissed as he held his face.

  “I told you! How many times did I tell you? Never leave Emmett alone!”

  He jumped to his feet. “You needed help!”

  “Bullshit! You just wanted to hurt something, you big eejit! Anyone could have gotten to him while you ponced about trying to act like the big man.” I shoved him, ridiculously annoyed.

  Carl nudged me. “We should probably take this into safer territory.”

  I glared at Peter, chest heaving, growing more annoyed by the fact he didn’t even care. “Arsehole.” I stalked into the cul-de-sac, wanting to strangle the man. “Everyone okay?” I asked, trying to ignore the people staring at me as if I were a complete raving lunatic.

  “They’re all okay,” Gabe said. “That was interesting.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “I meant the way you ladies fought. They completely underestimated you three, and Val is something special.”

  “I told you. Where’s Mrs. Yaga?”

  He rubbed his temples. “She needed a couple of minutes alone. We’ll wait here until she’s ready.”

  Emmett ran up to me, but I stopped him and held him at arm’s length. “I don’t want to get you messy.”

  His eyes shone. “That was amazing!”

  “Told you there’s nothing to worry about. I can protect us from whoever comes at us.”

  “No! I meant the way you hit my dad. You’re strong!”

  Gabe’s laugh turned into a cough at my glare.

  “Oh, Emmett. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “He didn’t listen. He should have. Serves him right.”

  “That’s not really the way it’s supposed to work,” I said.

  Mrs. Yaga returned, her eyes almost completely brown. “I requested that the tenants accept some refugees into their home in exchange for a strong fighter staying there, too. Most agreed, given what I hinted may be on the way, but some chose to be relocated. It will be a tight fit either way.”

  “It should be temporary,” I told her, “just until I can figure out some way of protecting them again.”

  “Hiding underground is no way to live,” she said, gazing around. “Anyway, there are fourteen cottages, including yours. Some have more room than others. Now comes the time to figure out who goes where, without leaving anyone unprotected. The cul-de-sac can only do so much, and if something gets through, we need to ensure all are safe.”

  “Yeah, of course. Peter, Emmett, and Carl can stay with me. If we need to make room for anyone else, that’s fine. Did Anka stay?”

  “Yes. She thought little Dita would be safer close to you than anywhere else.”

  I nodded. “Val can stay with them. She’s the best fighter we have. She’ll need Leah with her.”

  “Cam!” I called out. “Come here.”

  He walked over to me, a grimace on his face.

  “I need you to check our numbers. Some of them ran. Some died while trying to run. We need to know how many are still with us and who can fight. We have to split up, and there needs to be at least one fighter in every home.”

  He nodded. “They didn’t trust that you could protect them. They were waiting for their chance to run.”

  “Well, thanks a million for the heads up.”

  His gaze turned scornful. “I owe you nothing.”

  We spent the next hour trying to figure out the best ways to place everyone. One of Gabe’s Guard chose to stay with us, but the others left as soon as they could, rattled by the idea of choosing a side. Anka and an older resident called Margie had made casseroles, and the remaining residents seemed happy to invite strangers into their homes.

  Still thinking of Cam’s words, I went around to each cottage later, making sure everyone knew how to contact me and how to raise the alarm if anything happened.

  How to survive.

  Chapter Eight

  Facing Peter was tough. We were both mad at each other, leaving Carl stuck in the middle. I ended up sitting out on the gate just to get away from the tension inside the house. I shouldn’t have hit him, but he had left Emmett. No matter what I said, he didn’t listen.

  The cul-de-sac was quiet. Everyone was settling in, excited to be in real homes with windows, probably, and the residents were getting to know their new guests. Margie was positively ecstatic to be involved with real live rebels.

  I shivered a little, hoping I was doing the right thing. People kept coming at us, blind-siding me. Someone had their own undercover notification system. We were in their way and inviting danger to stalk us in our sleep. I thought of all of the dead bodies that had been outside. Mrs. Yaga and Gabe had organised their removal, but that couldn’t wipe the images from Emmett’s brain. Things were spiralling out of my control so quickly I could barely catch a breath.

  Yvonne had been right. I brought trouble with me. Even Gabe was screwed because of me. He couldn’t go back to the Council. He knew too much about both sides of the coin, but not enough to protect himself, to protect any of us.

  I heard the door open and caught Peter’s cinnamon scent.

  He came closer. “Does this mean we’re even for the first time we met?”

  I scowled, but he grinned at me, and I knew all was forgiven. He stood behind me and rested his chin on my shoulder. I leaned against him, and he wrapped his arms around me.

  “You were right,” he said. “I should have put him first. But there were so many of them. If one of you died, they were coming for us anyway, you know?”

  “I know. But you would never forgive yourself if something happened to him while you were a couple of feet away.”

  His breath hitched. “It can never be the same again, can it?”

  “That’s a good thing.” When he didn’t answer, I jumped off the gate to face him. “Seriously. You can have a long and happy life now, Peter. So can Emmett.”

  “You know what’s coming, Ava. If it’s an army of them, chances are we won’t survive. This won’t be the last thing. There will always be something.”

  “But he’ll always have you protecting him. That’s your mission now, Peter, to get him to adulthood.”

  “I know you care about him, but you can’t depend on him like this.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

  “It means what it means. He’s your priority, but you barely know him. You can’t base everything on him surviving.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m not. It’s important to me that both of you survive. That both of you have a relationship. I care about both of you. I want what’s best for you.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I stared at him, but he refused to look at me.

  “What’s with the enigmas, Peter? If you want
to say something, spit it out. Stop hinting around it.”

  He sighed. “Nothing. Can we just act like we won something today?”

  I relaxed. “Of course we can. How did Emmett take… seeing that?”

  The line in his forehead deepened. “Didn’t blink twice. Makes me think he saw worse things in the market.”

  I shuddered. “I hate that he saw us like that. I hope he isn’t scared of Val and Esther now.”

  “Are you kidding? He has a new appreciation for the fairer sex. Good thing Dita isn’t some kind of a shifter, or he’d be her shadow for the next few months.”

  I laughed. “I don’t think she would protest.”

  “I’m gonna head in and pop open a beer with Carl to celebrate.”

  “Okay, I’ll follow you in a minute.”

  He stepped onto the porch and looked back at me. “That was pretty amazing earlier, Ava. It’s like you’ve finally found your own style. You’re a natural.” He opened the door and went inside.

  A natural at what? Killing things? I didn’t want that. I had only wanted to keep Emmett safe. I kept thinking of Mrs. Yaga’s words about making a choice, deciding to step away from the fights. But then I thought of her soul-sucking tendencies and wondered if she was the best person to listen to.

  I saw a figure leave a cottage a few doors down, and I waved.

  Kate, a human woman who had somehow gotten herself caught up in our world, approached me with a smile. “Hey, I wanted to feel the air for a bit.” She rubbed the pretty blue-black skin on her arms as if to demonstrate.

  “Feels good, right?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “After what we’ve been through, yes. Are we safe here?”

  “Safer than anywhere else. Nowhere is a surety, but we’re together, and we’ve enough strength to give us a fighting chance. What else can we ask for?”

  She smiled wryly. “Freedom?”

  “How did you end up in the sanctuary anyway?”

  “It’s kind of a long story. Turns out my family secrets weren’t so secret after all, and Cam came to save me. He needed me to find Leah, actually. Or to make sure I didn’t tell anyone else anything about her. We found Leah with Val, ended up on the run, and finally found safety in the sanctuary.” She shook her head. “But that wasn’t ideal.”

  “Is Cam with you?”

  “Yeah.If he stays.”

  “Think he won’t?”

  “Track record,” she said softly. “He tends to check out when you need him.”

  “Maybe this time will be different.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Um, any idea which house Lorcan might be in?”

  I grinned, and she looked away, obviously embarrassed.

  “Don’t be shy,” I said. “I’m a huge fan of Lorcan. He’s two doors that way. Val and Leah are next to me if you need them. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but we might as well all get friendly.”

  “I’d love that. I’m, um, just gonna…” She twirled around a little, super girlishly, and I couldn’t help laughing.

  “Go have fun. Tell the twins I said hi.”

  She practically skipped away, and it made the chilly feeling in the pit of my stomach warm a little. Something had been bothering me; I wasn’t altogether sure which problem it might be, but hope, love, and friendship still existed.

  I went inside after a while, satisfied that nothing else was going to happen. Carl and Peter were laughing together in the living room, while Emmett was busy in the kitchen drawing away, his tongue sticking out with the effort.

  “You doing okay, kid?” I asked him. “Hungry?”

  “I’m good. Look.” He added one last flourish to his picture and held it up for me to see.

  I gasped. He had drawn me leaping into the air with a knife in my hand. The dagger was coloured blue, my hair fire-engine red. I stood amidst a field of bloody bodies.

  I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “Emmett… what I did was not a good thing.”

  “You saved us,” he said, adding a few more touches to the picture.

  “Yeah, but killing is wrong. Hitting your dad was wrong. I would rather anything but this.”

  He gazed up at me. “You had no choice. It’s okay if you have no choice.”

  I hesitated. “Is it? What makes you say that?”

  He shrugged and looked back down at his picture. “Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. If you want to stay alive.”

  I knelt next to him, ripping myself apart over the look in his eyes. “Is this about you, Emmett? About the market? Did you have to do bad things to stay alive?”

  He shook his head. I tried to hug him, but he didn’t respond.

  “Emmett, talk to me.”

  He looked at me then, hazel eyes full of pain and anger, fear, and desperation. “I can’t.”

  “No matter what you did, you’re still the same Emmett to me. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  He wrapped his arms around me with surprising strength, and after a couple of seconds, I felt him sob. My heart ached with wanting to heal his.

  After a few minutes, he pulled away. “I’m hungry now,” he declared.

  The four of us ate together, but something hung in the air, a tremor of words unsaid. Carl had to think about Maria and what he wanted to do with his life. Peter had to worry about Emmett and what would happen next. Emmett was trapped in the pain of his unspoken past. And I was unable to help any of them.

  The high from the battle had left me hours ago. The thought of how close we had come to disaster unnerved me. I could have died. Peter could have died. Worse, Emmett could have died. It hit me, what Peter had been talking about. The thought of Emmett dying felt like the end of days. I couldn’t imagine what carrying on after that would feel like. I caught a mere taste of what Peter must have gone through, and I understood him better than ever.

  I kept thinking that keeping Emmett happy would fix everything else somehow. It wouldn’t, and I had to face up to that. I watched him all evening, saw how he smiled, but not with his eyes. The day had changed something in him, maybe forced him to recall feelings he wanted to bury. The only way to help Emmett was to help him face his past so he could begin to heal from it.

  I dreaded to think about what he had gone through. Part of me didn’t want to know. I vowed not to tell Peter any of what I suspected about Emmett, just another item on the long list of things I hid from him.

  After Emmett went to bed, Peter and Carl stayed up, joking and laughing together. I sat with one ear open, waiting for one of Emmett’s night terrors, but heard nothing.

  I went upstairs to check on Emmett and found him sitting on his bed, his knees pressed against his chest.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s wrong? You sick?”

  He shook his head, and I noticed his fingers were trembling. His heart thudded loudly against his ribcage.

  “Want to talk to me?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I was scared today, Ava. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t strong enough to help you. Dad was, though.”

  I snorted. “I didn’t need his help. Seriously? You think I needed his help?”

  He smiled, but it was a weak one. Not very Emmett-like. “I was afraid you were going to get hurt, and it reminded me of my dreams.”

  “Your dreams or your night terrors?”

  “I don’t know. It just reminded me of stuff. I didn’t… I didn’t like it. But it was exciting to see you, too. I wanted to be there. To be like you.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just patted his hand.

  “Does that make me like Peter, I mean, Dad? Yvonne said I’m like her sister… my mother, I mean.”

  “I think you’re like Emmett, which means you have bits of both inside you. You can choose what you want to be.”

  “I felt sad when I was at Yvonne’s house. There were so many people there, and they all knew me, but I didn’t know any of them. I didn’t recognise them. They kept talking about my mother, and I’ll… I’ll neve
r see her, never know her. I don’t know. I just thought that was sad.”

  “It is sad, Emmett. And I know what that’s like.”

  He looked at me questioningly, forgetting his own sadness in his interest.

  “My parents died on the night I was born. It makes me sad that I’ll never know them, too. But it makes me happy that I know you.” I nudged him, and he surprised me by wrapping his arms around me.

  “I love you, Ava.”

  Startled, I tightened my grip on him. “I love you, too,” I whispered.

  He lay down, and I stroked his hair until he fell asleep. Feeling a million and one different things, I went downstairs and joined Peter and Carl.

  “He asleep?” Peter asked.

  I nodded. “He was a bit upset though. About today. I think he’s glad to be home.”

  “Home,” Peter echoed.

  Carl cleared his throat as I snapped my attention to Peter. What was that tone of voice supposed to mean?

  “Today was pretty wild.” Carl sounded nervous. “Any thoughts on who sent them?”

  “Someone who knew exactly what we would do,” Peter said. “Which means someone talked.”

  “Or else we’re exceptionally predictable,” I snapped. “Nobody talked. They know us, and they have power. We don’t have the upper hand here.”

  “Tell all of those dead bodies that,” Peter said, a smile curling his lips. “If that didn’t tell them who’s boss, then I don’t know what will.”

  The tension finally broke, and we spent the next two hours speculating on who was involved and what they actually wanted.

  “I hope Shay stops asking questions,” I said. “If whoever sent those fighters after us is the same one who is in charge of the gardaí then he’s screwed.”

  “He’s a big boy,” Peter said. “He can handle himself.”

  “I have a question,” Carl said. “What the hell is your landlady? Because I’m going to have nightmares tonight.”

  My cheeks grew hot. “She’s kind of a hag.”

  “And you’ve known this for how long?”

  “Not long. Just since I kind of let her take a little energy from me.” I winced as they both glared at me.