by H. D. Gordon
On either side of the bridge, the little dots of lights were still blinking to life all over the city, muting the glow of the stars above. There was a cough, and I looked down to see that I was cradling Sam in my arms. Her aura hung like a lovely wreath around her. I stared at her for what seemed a small eternity, afraid to believe my eyes.
“Sammy?” I asked, brushing some of the hair off her face. “Sammy? Can you hear me?”
“You’re holding me like I’m your newborn babe,” Sam mumbled, rubbing at her eyes as if awaking from a deep sleep. “Why wouldn’t I be able to hear you?”
The air tumbled out of me in a rush, and tears began streaming down my face as if duel faucets had been turned on behind my eyes.
“Oh, thank God,” I said, and had to snap my mouth shut before I uttered anything else. As Saleos had promised, no one seemed to have noticed that we’d ever gone.
“Uh, Aria,” Sam said, “you can put me down now.”
I swallowed back a choked laugh and did as she asked.
Thomas, Matt, Raven, and Caleb were at our side in the next moments, crowding close like a pack.
They stared in wonder at Sam, who was now standing independently, staring down at the charred spot on her t-shirt in confusion.
“What happened?” she asked, and the rest of them looked to me likewise, wanting an explanation for what seemed inexplicable.
There was little time to formulate a brilliant answer—not that I could have formulated one, even with the time—so I wet my lips and lifted my shoulders a little in a weak shrug.
“Sam was hurt,” I said, “so I was taking her to the hospital, but then she woke up, and now she seems…fine.”
For several heartbeats, no one said anything, and I began to sweat a little under the weight of their stares. Matt was the first to break the silence.
“I thought,” he said, looking and Sam and clearing his throat twice before he could continue. “I thought Sam was dead. I mean, it looked like… It looked like he killed her.”
The others nodded in agreement, staring at both Sam and I as if… Well, as if we’d just raised the dead.
I shook my head and spread my hands. “I thought so too… but maybe when I killed Boyce, the power that affected her disappeared, and now she’s okay again? Maybe she was just unconscious.”
There, that wasn’t such a stupid lie. Or if it was, at least my friends seemed willing to buy it. After all, how else could they explain what they were seeing?
Anyway, that was all the explanation I cared to give on the matter, and I didn’t need to feign fatigue when I said, “I don’t know about guys, but I think I need to sleep for a week.”
Thomas came over to me and put his arm around my shoulders. I could see in his aura that he had questions, but that his relief over our mutual survival was good enough for now.
“Let’s go home, little Halfling,” Thomas said, and we did just that.
CHAPTER 34
The return of the power to Grant City had an instant and wondrous effect. All of a sudden people had access to things they’d so often took for granted, but had gone swiftly mad without. Air-conditioning made apartments and office buildings habitable again, giving people places to escape the stifling August heat.
Streetlights blinked to life, giving order to the chaos of inner city traffic, freeing up many of the police officers who had been put on the endless task of directing traffic on the busiest throughways. The local convenience and grocery stores were able to stock their freezers and refrigerators again without concern over food going bad, and gas station pumps were revived to their former capacity.
People were able to return to work and their everyday routines. The angry, opportunistic citizens who had seeped up from the cracks to loot and riot slunk back to wherever they had come from. People were able to take warm showers, do their laundry, watch a show on television and surf the Web.
In short, the world began to make sense again, and the seven days of total blackout would soon fade further and further into the past, like the memory of an unpleasant dream.
This meant I could also return to work at the Bay Bar. While I wasn’t exactly psyched at the prospect, I needed the tips to pay for life, so a day after the power surged back into Grant City, (and less than thirty-six hours after I’d sold my soul to a Demon to save my best friend’s life) I was back wearing my apron and my smile and taking orders from people who were sometimes nice and sometimes rude.
Well, I’d wanted to fit in somewhere, right? I supposed the experience didn’t get more human than this.
“Excuse me, Miss?” said an impatient voice behind me.
I turned and saw that it was from a man at one of my tables who had been complaining since the moment he’d sat down. I suppressed a sigh and moved over to him.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I’m not trying to give you a hard time,” he began, “but the music is really too loud in here. Is there any way you could turn it down for me a bit?”
The dude was wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and had to be like seventy. He certainly didn’t have the same sensitive hearing I had, but there was no sense in arguing, so I told him I’d see what I could do and shuffled quickly away before he could tell me that his beer was too flat.
I relayed the request to the manager, who sighed and rolled her eyes as if I were the one trying to be annoying, and said she’d turn it down “a bit.” After, I went over to the computer near the wall to put in the order I’d just taken from the party of six over by the windows that faced the bay. While I was ringing up the burgers and beers, Tyler came over and gave me a little nudge.
“Sup?” I asked, still looking at the computer screen.
“I missed you,” Tyler said. “You miss me?”
“So much,” I replied.
Tyler laughed. “There’s a lady at two twenty-six asking for you. I told her I’d send you over. She’s kinda hot, in like, a scary way, so put in a good word for your boy.” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows.
“You’re an idiot,” I said, and leaned around him to see whom he was talking about.
My heart skipped a beat as I saw that it was Vivian Night, Vampire Halfling and operative of the Peace Brokers. I thanked Tyler, finished my order, and scooted over to table two twenty-six, taking a seat in the booth across from Vivian. It was close to closing time, and since the bar environment was so chill, it wasn’t a big deal if the servers sat and visited with the patrons, as long as we didn’t ignore our customers.
“Just showing up out of the blue is mildly creepy,” I said, half smiling. “You guys still keeping tabs on me?”
Vivian Night quirked a fine eyebrow, her posture as straight as a line, her skin smooth and pale like alabaster.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Right. Stupid question. So what are you doing here, then?” I looked around and lowered my voice, though most of the restaurant had cleared out already. “You have an update about Cross Corp?”
I watched as confliction swirled through Vivian’s aura, and tilted my head as I tried to decipher it. She wanted to tell me something, but wasn’t sure if she should. I knew enough about people to know that it was best to let her come to a decision on her own, so I sat patiently and waited.
After a couple of moments, Vivian sighed and shifted a bit in her seat. “Actually, I’ve been called off the investigation of Cross Corporation and all of its people and operations,” she said, and her aura told me that this was not a decision she was pleased with, the words surely a direct order from her superiors.
“What?” I said. “Why?”
Vivian’s shoulders rose and fell. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I was getting close. There was no reason to call me off.”
I found myself leaning forward over the table, my mind flying a mile a minute. “What do you mean you were getting close? What did you find?”
In her aura, I could see that Vivian was nervous, which was n
ot a common state among Vampires. Her sharp eyes scanned the restaurant as if it was possible we were being monitored in this very moment. And, really, I supposed it was.
“I was on the trail,” Vivian said vaguely. “And then I was yanked off the trail.” She barely moved her lips as she spoke. “I could get in trouble just for being here and telling you this, but something is going on, something way higher up than my pay grade, something big.”
“Okay…” I said. “So where do I fit in all of this?”
“Where do you fit? You’re the one who tipped us off on Cross Corp in the beginning. A vanishing lab full of unconscious Halflings? Remember that?”
“Uh, yeah, I remember, but if the superiors have called you off, what more is there to be done?”
Vivian scoffed, as if semi-appalled by my answer. “You, of all people, should know that I can’t just… I can’t just let it go.”
I leaned forward even further, careful to hold her gaze. “I’m pretty sure your position with the Brokers depends on you letting it go, my friend.” I didn’t add that I felt guilty about the whole thing because of my friendship with Caleb, and part of me was relieved by this revelation. That wasn’t really Vivian Night’s business, as far as I was concerned.
I could tell that she’d thought about all this, of course, and that whatever ‘trail’ she’d been on had piqued her interest enough to make her question her orders, which was no small thing for a Peace Broker.
I spread my hands, seeing that she wanted more from me—agreement, or at the least, advice, maybe.
“I don’t have to tell you how much it pisses off the higher-ups when an operative decides to go off the reservation,” I said, “but I consider you a friend, Vivian, so I guess my advice would be to let it go. I know that sounds kind of crappy, but fighting with the Brokers only makes life hard for a Halfling.” I looked down at my hands. “And when you take things into your own hands and make decisions on your own, you can end up down a road you don’t want to be on.”
I swallowed and met her gaze, surprised to see that she looked angry.
“You’re joking, right?” she said. She leaned over the table between us, pointing one of her neatly trimmed nails in my face. “You’re the one who threw me this bone, fairy, made me believe that something bad was going on, and now that I’m telling you something bad is really going on… You want me to back off? You’re a real piece of work if you’re serious right now. What happened to doing the right thing?”
The man in the Hawaiian shirt, sounding rather impatient, said, “Excuse me, miss.” I barely heard him. I’d forgotten he was even there. I slapped Vivian’s finger out of my face and spoke between clenched teeth.
“And who the hell knows what’s right, bloodsucker?” I snapped. “If there is something going on with the Cross family and their corporation, I’ll be the one to figure it out. It was a mistake to even bring it to you and the Brokers.”
“Excuse me? Miss, I said excuse me,” insisted the man.
Vivian’s dark gaze went over my shoulder and locked with the man’s in the Hawaiian shirt, and whatever he saw there had him snapping his mouth shut. I suppressed a groan of frustration as I counted on not receiving a tip from that table.
“Listen here, Aria Fae,” Vivian Night said, “I know you’re carrying some kind of torch for the Cross boy, but you need to get over it. You’ve got a responsibility to your kind, and whether you think so or not, these humans are not your kind. All they’ll do is get you killed.”
I stood from the table, done with hearing what she had to say. If I didn’t remove myself from the situation, my overall fatigue and frustration would likely lead to a fistfight. Since Vivian and I were both highly trained and super strong, that would surely end badly.
Vivian’s glare followed me as I dusted off my apron and stood beside her at the table. “You got your orders, Vivian,” I said, trying to be cool and take things down a notch. “I think you should follow them.”
As I walked away, under her breath, where she knew I would still hear it, Vivian Night said, “And I think you’re a coward, Aria Fae.”
By the time I looked back at table two twenty-six, the Halfling Vamp was gone, leaving only guilt and a dash of harsh truth in her place.
CHAPTER 35
“Seriously, dude, I’m totally fine,” Sam said, batting at the hand I tried to place against her forehead. “You’re driving me nuts with your temperature checks and tissues and hot soups. I don’t even have a cold.”
No, you just died and came back to life, I thought.
What I said was, “I’m just making sure. You did get captured by Hellhounds and electrocuted by a crazy man.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, and it’s been two days and I haven’t experienced so much as a sniffle. You snuffed his power out when you…did what you did, so stop worrying, okay?”
Did what I did. That was Sam’s way of referring to how I’d killed someone. Whether that person deserved it or not was a matter of opinion. The crazy part was, I’d been taught all my life to have a deep respect for life of all sorts, and one of the things that I’d feared the most as a Fae Halfling who engaged in the types of activities I did, was that some day I might have to take a life, either in defense of myself or others or both. Now that it had happened… Well, I didn’t feel any different, really. Then, again, it had only been two days, and it was possible I was still in shock.
On top of this, I was contending with the fact that I had less than a year left to live. I felt numb to all of this information, and knew there was no way I could share it with Sam or even Thomas. Sam didn’t need to know she’d actually died; I could only imagine how that might mess her up. And she definitely didn’t need to know I’d traded my soul to save her. As far as I was concerned, I would file those under the secrets one keeps solely.
“Hey?” Sam said, breaking into my thoughts. “Did you even hear me?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. My mind wandered off.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed a bit behind the thick lenses of her glasses. “I’m probably the one who should be worried about you. How’d you sleep last night?”
“Fine,” I lied. “I slept fine.”
Sam’s lips pursed. “Right. And your emotional state? I suppose that’s just fine, too?”
I only looked at her. She was probing at something that was prone to burst, and I really just assumed not.
Surprising me, Sam pulled me to her in a hug. At first, as I always did with hugs—warm embraces were not something practiced among the Peace Brokers, who provided most of my life experiences up until recently—I clammed up. My shoulders were rigid and the urge was to pull away. Then, something broke in me as I returned Sam’s hug, and I relaxed for a moment in the arms of the human teenager I’d come to look at like a sister, like something closer than blood.
As we held each other, I rested my chin on her shoulder and felt a single tear escape my eye. No matter what else I’d done, what hand I’d played in everything, I was sure of one thing. Saving Sam had been the right choice.
Saving Sam had been the only choice. The best I could do now was enjoy my time with her, live every moment as if it were my very last, because reality wasn’t that far from it.
“So,” Sam said, pulling back from me, “you up for a movie or something? Celebrate, you know, being alive? Another win for Team Maiden.”
Actually, the last thing I wanted to do was celebrate. But, now, more than ever, I had to make the most of every moment, and so I plastered a smile across my face and nodded.
“Sounds like a plan, bestie,” I said.
Sam was silent a moment as she studied me. “You’re not alone, Aria,” she said. “You understand that, right? You can tell me how you’re feeling, what you’re going through. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what family does.”
I swallowed and nodded. “I know. I know that, Sammy.”
“Okay, good. So?”
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, widening th
e smile almost until it hurt. “So, what movie were you thinking about?”
***
Work, hanging out with Sam, making time to eat and sleep. These things filled my days, same as they had before the madness with Leonard Boyce. Life was like that, after all. You could fall face-first into the dirt and life would keep on trucking right over your back if you didn’t get out of the way.
Thomas had been called away on another top-secret mission just hours after the whole incident on the bridge. He’d tried stay with me, insisting that wild horses could not drag him away from my side, but I’d insisted he go. I ensured him probably a hundred times that I was just fine before he finally followed orders and headed into the black hole that seemed to swallow him up occasionally.
At the moment, his absence didn’t bother me, mostly because I was a depressive person who liked to wallow on my own. I didn’t need someone to sit by my side while I cried like a baby. I was perfectly capable of crying like a baby on my own.
During the second full night after I killed Leonard Boyce and sold my soul, Caleb Cross paid me a visit at my apartment. He showed up unannounced, and I made us some hot tea. We sat in the two salvaged wooden chairs over by the single window in the small space, sipping tea like a couple of old hens.
The silence between us was heavy, but I was not going to be the one to break it. Caleb was the one who’d come to see me, after all, and I was too messed up inside emotionally to trust myself to free speech.
When Caleb finally did speak, his words were more than unexpected.
“Aria,” he said slowly, “I want you to know, I forgive you.”
I sat for several seconds without responding. All I could manage, in fact, was a nod. I looked down at my hands, teeth gritted against stupid tears.
Caleb’s chair creaked as he leaned forward and took my hands into his. When I wouldn’t meet his gaze, he lifted my chin gently with his fingers, the scent of his expensive cologne filling my lungs, and forced me to look at him.