by Karen Lynch
I shook it off and finished my meal. Having a full stomach made me feel better, and there was no dizziness when I stood to carry my dishes to the sink.
Violet took my plate and glass from me. “I got this. You go shower.” She scrunched up her nose. “Trust me; you need one.”
Laughing, I left her to finish cleaning the kitchen. On my way to my bedroom, I stopped to check on Finch, who was surprisingly absent. “Finch, you in there?” I called to his tree house.
He appeared in the doorway. Are you better?
“Good as new. Why are you hiding in there?”
In case they come back, he signed.
I walked over to him. “Who?”
The faeries.
I tried to make sense of what he was saying. Was he referring to the two Seelie faeries who had tried to break in here weeks ago?
“Don’t worry. Even if they come back, they won’t be able to get in. Our ward will keep them out.”
Finch shook his head. They came last night. They gave you medicine.
“What?” My voice rose an octave as I replayed a part of my dream. “Faolin was really here?”
And Lukas, Finch said. They stayed all night.
I sank down on the couch with a hand to my chest. It wasn’t a dream. Lukas and Faolin really had been here, and Faolin had given me medicine. But how had they known I was sick, and why would they care about me having the flu? It wasn’t like that was life-threatening.
Another memory floated free of the fog in my head, one of Lukas wiping my face with a washcloth. It was followed by one of him pulling the covers over me in bed. I tried to focus on those images, but they kept slipping away the harder I tried to remember them.
“Did the faeries frighten you?” I asked Finch.
He nodded. But they didn’t hurt me.
“I’m sorry you were scared.”
I’m glad they came, he said. You were really sick, and they helped you.
Violet came into the living room. “What are you two talking about?”
“Finch just informed me I was not tripping on crazy dreams after all.” I brought her up to speed on our conversation.
“Holy Shih Tzu!” She jumped up and down. “He must really like you. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
Her face fell. “Why not?”
“All I want right now is to find Mom and Dad. I don’t have time for anything else.”
“But you have thought about it,” she pressed.
If she only knew how much I’d thought about Lukas while I was staying at his place. “Yes, but we’re just too different.”
Violet scoffed. “He’s not an alien, Jess. You are compatible in all the ways that matter.”
“Not all the ways. He’s immortal, and I have an expiration date, which means it could never go anywhere. Other people are okay with a faerie fling, but I don’t think I would be.”
She tilted her head to one side to study me. “No, you wouldn’t.”
I pushed up off the couch. “On that note, I’m going to get my shower.”
I returned to the living room thirty minutes later to find Violet and Finch sitting on the couch together. They were completely engrossed in some reality TV show where people competed for a date with a faerie.
“That stuff will rot your brain,” I teased as I sat on the couch with my legs tucked under me.
She slanted a look at me. “You sound like my mom.”
“Your mother is a brilliant woman, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Oh!” Violet tossed the remote on the couch. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this. Mom told me about this lawyer who owns a warehouse that got broken into yesterday. Get this. His name is Cecil Hunt.”
My mouth fell open. “The same Cecil Hunt who owned that house we almost broke into?”
“Yep. What are the odds?” She smirked. “At least we both have alibis for this one.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t believe your mom knows him, out of all the lawyers in this city.”
“I don’t think she knows him well. They’re both representing clients in the same trial, and he asked the judge for a recess yesterday because of the break-in.”
“Wow.” I shifted until I was facing her. “Does your mom know you were arrested for trespassing at his house?”
Violet gave me a hard stare. “Are you kidding? She would murder me if she ever found out.”
“Then it’s probably a good thing Lukas made those charges go away,” I joked.
“No kidding.” She shuddered dramatically. “I’d rather spend a whole night in that horrible jail than face Mom’s wrath.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Um, are you forgetting this is the same woman who made a police officer cry on the stand last year?”
I laughed. “Who could forget that? I’m glad to have her on my side.”
Violet grinned. “She is a total badass, isn’t she? She took care of your Agency problem.”
“Yes. Though, I don’t think I’ve seen the last of Agent Curry.” I pursed my lips. “I honestly can’t tell if he’s corrupt, inept, or just seriously misguided, but he definitely has it out for my family.”
“If he harasses you again, you call Mom, and she’ll take care of it.”
“I will.” I didn’t point out that in two days’ time, she and her parents would be on another continent for two weeks. All I could do was hope nothing bad happened that required an attorney.
Violet cast a sly smirk at me. “Or you could call Lukas. I bet he’d take care of all your needs.”
“You have a one-track mind.” I tried to scowl at her, but she waggled her eyes at me, making us both dissolve into girlish giggles.
On the outside, I was laughing, but in my belly, butterflies took flight at the thought of being intimate with Lukas. Not that it was going to happen, but for the first time, I almost wished it would.
Chapter 17
I hung the last stocking on the mantle. “How does it look?”
Finch whistled and gave me a thumbs-up when I looked at him. I hadn’t planned to decorate for Christmas because it felt wrong putting up a tree without Mom and Dad. But when Finch had pointed out that we needed our stockings for Santa, I couldn’t say no.
I stepped back to look at my work, and my throat tightened at the sight of Mom’s and Dad’s stockings hung in their usual spots. I’d been doing my best to keep our spirits up today for Finch’s sake, but sometimes it was hard to fight the sadness pressing down on me. I’d never had a Christmas without my parents, and I missed them so much it was a physical ache.
Sleet swished against the windows, and the lights flickered. It had snowed all morning, coating everything in a pretty blanket of white. But around noon, the snow had turned to freezing rain, and the news reports were now predicting heavy icing and widespread power outages.
We had lanterns, a gas stove and fireplace, and plenty of fruit and canned foods so we’d be okay. I should check on Mrs. Russo, though. She lived alone, and she had no relatives in the city to help her out.
The lights flickered again and went out. It was only mid-afternoon, but the room was thrown into semi-darkness. I picked up the flashlight I’d placed on the coffee table and went to light one of the kerosene lanterns I’d brought up from our storage unit in the basement.
“Finch, I’m going to run down and see if Mrs. Russo is okay.” Grabbing my flashlight and a spare lantern, I headed down to the first floor.
After one knock, Mrs. Russo answered her door, wearing a long, orange, wooly cardigan that looked older than my mother. It clashed violently with her bright red hair, which was piled in its usual messy updo. Behind her, the soft glow of candles lit her apartment, and I could see her friend Mrs. Henry, who lived one street over, sitting on the couch.
The old woman looked delighted to see me. “Jesse, we were just talking about you. Do you have plenty of candles up there? Nora and I have enough to last us
through Armageddon if you need some.”
“I’m good. I came to see if you needed anything.”
“We’ve lived through much worse storms than this.” She motioned for me to enter. “I just put on a pot of tea, and Nora brought cookies. Come in, and have some with us.”
For the next hour, the two women regaled me with tales of working on Broadway when they were young. Neither of them had been a star, but they’d met and worked with a lot of big names at the time. I’d heard a lot of Mrs. Russo’s stories before, but I didn’t let on because she loved to relive her past.
It was dark outside when I left Mrs. Russo’s apartment. I peered out through the window in the main door at the vehicles already coated in a layer of ice. The sleet had turned to a heavy rain, but it was supposed to freeze overnight. The streets were going to be a mess tomorrow, and I was glad I had nowhere to be for once.
Finch was sitting on the window ledge looking out when I got back to the apartment. He loved storms, and he could sit there for hours watching the rain. I left him to it and went to fill up some large water containers because we had lost our water before during a bad storm. After that, I filled the bathtub with water for flushing the toilet just in case. It never hurt to be prepared.
I was thinking about what I could heat up for dinner when a knock came at the door. Wary of unannounced visitors, I quietly approached the door. I checked the peephole, but it was too dark in the hallway to make out the person standing there.
“Who is it?” I called.
“Trey.”
I opened the door and stared at him. He was drenched from head to toe and shivering. “What happened to you?” I asked as I moved aside to let him in.
“Some asshole in a truck splashed me,” he said through chattering teeth as he pulled off his wet coat and hung it on the back of a chair.
I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from me. “What are you doing out in this weather?”
He kicked off his boots. “I called when the power went out, but you didn’t answer. So, I came over to see if you were okay.”
Touched by the gesture, I said, “I was downstairs at Mrs. Russo’s, and I forgot to take my phone with me.”
I pointed him toward the bathroom and went to grab some of Dad’s clothes for him to change into. I laid the clothes on my parents’ bed and returned to the kitchen to make coffee in Mom’s old stovetop percolator.
“Coffee smells great,” Trey said from behind me.
“It’s the stuff you gave me.” Taking two large mugs from the cabinet, I turned toward him. I yelped and almost dropped the mugs when I caught sight of him standing there in nothing but a towel.
“Trey, what the hell?” I yelled at him.
He leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his muscled arms over his chest. He was in good shape, and it was obvious he worked out, but I couldn’t help comparing him to Lukas. Trey was a good-looking guy with a great body, but he didn’t make my insides quiver or my heart race the way Lukas had done that day in his bedroom.
“Like what you see?” he asked with a smug smirk. Ah, there was the old Trey.
I set the mugs on the counter. “No. Now go put on some clothes.”
Laughing, he straightened and started to turn away when the towel around his waist suddenly loosened and fell to the floor.
“Oh, my God.” I averted my gaze but not before I got an eyeful of parts of Trey Fowler that I could happily have gone my whole life without seeing.
“Impressive, huh?” he drawled as he bent to retrieve the towel.
“Yeah. There really is something smaller than your IQ.”
His brow furrowed, and I nearly laughed at his look of confusion. The fact that he had to think about it said more than words could.
I removed the coffee percolator from the burner just as there was a loud knock at the door. “What now?” I pictured Mrs. Russo standing outside, and I glared at Trey as I passed him. “Would you please go put on some damn clothes?”
I didn’t bother with the peephole. “Who is it?”
“Me,” said a male voice that sent a small thrill through me despite my annoyance.
“Perfect,” I muttered as I unlocked the door and opened it to Lukas and the ever-dour Faolin.
“I called you. Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Lukas demanded. His gaze swept over me as if he expected to find me bleeding out.
“Hello to you, too,” I said with false cheer. Then I registered that he’d said he had tried to call me. I hadn’t spoken to him in days. Why would he call and come out in this weather to see me unless there was a new development? “Do you have news?” I asked quietly.
His eyes lost their angry glint. “No.”
“Then why are you here?”
The look he gave me was part exasperation and part amusement. “The power is out in half the city, and you’re here alone.”
“Maybe not as alone as we believed.” Faolin cocked an eyebrow as he looked past me into the apartment.
I glanced over my shoulder and narrowed my eyes on Trey, who had donned the jeans I’d set out for him, but was still shirtless and barefoot. My face heated because I knew exactly how this must look to Lukas and Faolin.
“Are we interrupting something?” Lukas asked, no longer sounding amused.
Trey crossed his arms. “Yes.”
I made a face. “In your dreams, Trey. And put your shirt on!”
A frown marred Lukas’s handsome face. “Trey Fowler? The boy you went to school with.”
“How do you know that?” I shot Lukas a suspicious look as I tried to remember if I’d ever mentioned Trey or my friends from school to him. I didn’t think I’d spoken about anyone but Violet.
Trey pulled on the shirt I’d loaned him and came up behind me. “Jesse, are you going to introduce me to your friends?”
I invited the faeries inside and made the introductions. “Trey and his father are bounty hunters, too,” I said to Lukas, not sure why I felt the need to clarify that.
“And we go way back,” Trey added in a tone that implied there was more than work between us. “How do you know Jesse?”
“Lukas and Faolin have been helping me look for Mom and Dad,” I told him.
“I thought the Agency was searching for them.”
I was unable to keep the anger from my voice. “The Agency doesn’t seem to care much about a pair of missing bounty hunters. So, I’m doing my own search.”
Trey’s forehead wrinkled in concern. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. What if you get hurt out there alone?”
“She’s not alone,” Lukas stated crisply, and I tried not to think about how much I liked hearing that from him.
Trey’s gaze shifted to Lukas. “And what’s in this for you?”
“That is between Jesse and me.”
“Is that so?” Trey took a step toward the faeries, displaying as much sense as someone sticking their hand into the lion’s cage at the zoo. How he’d survived this long was a mystery to me.
I turned to Trey, placing myself between him and Lukas. “It was really sweet of you to come by to check on me, but as you can see, I have everything I need here.” The words had no sooner left my lips than the lights flickered on. “See. The power is back. But you should probably get home before the roads freeze.”
He cast another wary look at Lukas and Faolin. “You want me to leave you alone here with two strange faeries?”
“They’re not strangers to me.” It was on the tip of my tongue to say Lukas was a friend. I didn’t know where that thought came from, but it felt right. If I was being honest with myself, the only time I felt completely safe these days was when I was with him.
“But what would your parents say about this?” Trey pushed.
“My parents would trust my judgement, and they’d know I would do anything to bring them home.” I laid a hand on his arm. “I appreciate your concern, but I know what I’m doing.”
“Okay.” He pulled on his boots, and I gr
abbed one of my father’s leather jackets from the closet for him. It was freezing outside, and I couldn’t let him walk home in his wet coat.
“Thanks.” He donned the jacket, which was a size too big for him, and picked up his own coat. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.” I walked him to the door. “Merry Christmas, Trey.”
He smiled. “Merry Christmas.”
I shut the door behind him and faced Lukas and Faolin, who stood near the kitchen, watching me. Now that we were alone, I felt awkward. This was the first time I’d seen them since Finch had told me they’d taken care of me when I was sick. Faolin, of all people, had given me medicine. I needed to thank them, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.
“This storm is going to get worse,” Lukas said. “The power will go out again soon, and it’s not likely to return for a day or two.”
“We have lanterns and heat. We’ll be okay.” I didn’t like the thought of being without power that long, but it wouldn’t be the first time we lost it.
“And when your phone battery dies, you’ll be cut off here with no way to contact anyone if you need help. Or for anyone to contact you,” he added.
I pressed my lips together. He had a point. I had been meaning to buy one of those mobile phone chargers, but I’d never gotten around to it. What if someone tried to call me about Mom and Dad, and they couldn’t reach me?
“You won’t have power either,” I said.
Faolin cut in impatiently. “Our building has a backup power source.”
“Of course, you do.” I’d read about the Fae crystals that could power an entire building. Hospitals and key government buildings had them, but they weren’t available to the general public. I wasn’t at all surprised to learn Lukas had them. He wasn’t the type to be inconvenienced by a storm.
Lukas assumed that authoritative stance I knew well. “You and your sprite would be better off with us.”
“Are you guys going to try to make me go if I don’t want to?”
Faolin scoffed, and Lukas’s eyes lit with amusement. “If I thought you were in danger, I would try.”