by Emma Harley
Alicia turned on the water taps full blast and pulled a chair closer to her, leaning in to whisper.
“Raina, that’s the second time in two days you’ve thrown up, are you okay?” she whispered, resting a hand on her knee. Raina nodded.
“I can’t cope with the smells, it’s all so strong now,” she croaked, “and I did die yesterday, I’d imagine that’s wreaking havoc with my body.” Alicia raised an eyebrow and tucked Raina’s hair behind her ear.
“Answer me honestly Phoenix,” she breathed, “are you pregnant?” The word sent chills up Raina’s spine. She had been nauseous for a while now, and her period was definitely late, but she knew it was due to stress. She brought a finger to her lips and nodded towards the open door, knowing there was Fae ears listening nearby.
“No, there’s definitely no chance of that,” she chuckled, making an obscene gesture with her fingers and shaking her head. Alicia’s concerned face thought for a moment before the realisation hit her.
“That’s a relief,” she sighed, her eyes wide. Raina hadn’t argued with anyone when they had assumed she had a fling with Logan, “Maybe we can find you something in the pharmacy to help with the nausea for a while, or maybe some nose plugs,” she said patting her knee and squeezing it warningly. Raina nodded. Alicia stood up and grabbed Nick’s beanie hat from the pile.
“That should cover your ears while we’re out,” she sighed, “just don’t talk or smile at anyone okay?”
The girls left the kitchen to grab money from their bags, only to find the men standing around the foot, obviously having listened in. Kalen had pulled Logan away, but he shrugged him off and strode towards Raina.
“Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone,” he added. Raina ignored him. Her team were sitting on the stairs, a clear distance between them and the Blanchard brothers.
“Ready to go?” Alicia chirped, brushing her hair over her shoulder. Raina shook her head.
“Can we just get a move on?” she muttered quietly, despite being very aware that every male had their eyes on her, “it’s just stress though. Anyone would be feeling sick if they woke up like this.” She gestured to her ears and Alicia smirked. Nick interrupted them with a soft cough.
“I looked over the flash drive Green gave us, since we have your blood, everything else should be easy,” he stammered. Izak patted him roughly on the back.
“Damn Nick it’s like you have no experience with opening magic portals.”
JJ snorted and Raina joined them on the stairs. Nick handed her the roughly folded pages he had printed out and she scanned over them.
“You said this should be easy Nick,” she breathed, glued to the sheet of writing, “They said my…magic… is unstable. And it’s necessary for the spell.” She slapped the paper down with a muddled look on her face.
“How the hell was I able to use magic if there is none in this world?” she demanded, staring at the chandelier on the ceiling. Kalen pushed off the doorframe, twisting a key between his fingers.
“Humans don’t believe there is magic here, but the truth is they simply can’t access it. So far throughout history, there hasn’t actually been any world without some traces of it, it’s more to do with how it’s used. A magic-wielder can access the power in other worlds, but if a normal human attempted to try it, nothing would happen. It’s like a foreign language in other worlds. Despite your power being unstable, you’re in a world with very little access to magic. However if you had lost control like that in our land, you would have fried us all and probably yourself,” he explained. “Magic is very much controlled by your emotions,” Elias butted in, “like if you get angry, your power will flare. Magic-wielders begin training at the first sign of their powers, but you haven’t been given any of that.” Raina bowed her head, trying to process the information. Davin laid a hand on her shoulder.
“If she was sent away because her powers were unstable, why didn’t anyone try to train her?” he asked Kalen, a surprising civility in his tone.
“I don’t think it’s possible to train her. Fae usually don’t show any signs of magic until they are around eight years old, a half-Fae like Raina usually wouldn’t begin showing signs until she hit puberty. But due to the curse on her maternal grandfather’s bloodline, her powers began as a babe. There’s no possible way to train a child to control their emotions, so her mother tried to bind her powers. It worked for a while, until something happened to anger Raina and she broke through her bonds. That was when her parents decided to send her away,” Kalen clarified, “once she passes through the portal, it’s impossible to tell how badly her power will run rampant.”
Raina tossed her arms up and growled in exasperation.
“So if I go through the portal everyone around me is in danger and if I stay here, I’m in danger?”
“Maybe not,” Logan mumbled from the doorway. All heads except Raina’s turned as she made a point to ignore him. “Once we get home we could find something to lock your power in. We used similar measures for prisoners, but I doubt any of them were as powerful as Raina, so it would act more like a bottleneck.” Elias nodded.
“So it would let a little bit of her power escape, but not all of it.” Raina stood up and straightened out her shirt.
“When are we doing this then?” she echoed quietly, to no one in particular. Davin shrugged.
“I’d like to pack some of my stuff together, it’s not like we can take a lot with us. We were talking about heading out today to wrap things up.” Kalen gestured towards the front door.
“There’s a few cars you can use, we won’t need them anymore.”
“Alicia and I can go together, anything important we need to take is in a storage locker on the other side of the city,” JJ announced, looking to Alicia for confirmation. Nick and Izak had an apartment in the city under false names where they left anything of value, and Davin had a studio close to the care facility his sister lay in on the outskirts of town.
“I’d suggest packing as much as you can into maybe one or two bags,” Elias suggested, “portal-walking is a strange experience, you don’t want to have everything hanging off you to get sucked into the rift.”
As her team started to leave, Raina realised she would be alone with the Blanchards for quite a while.
“All my stuff is here, I don’t think I left anything in Thea’s house when I moved,” she called to their retreating backs. Alicia pulled a dagger from her boot and tossed it to Raina.
“Try not to kill them before we get back, okay Phoenix?” she winked, pulling the front door closed with a loud click. Raina twirled the dagger between her fingers, sucking on her teeth.
“I left my bag in the safe house,” she mumbled, “I can’t leave without it.” Kalen held out a set of car keys to her.
“Take Logan with you, if someone sees you it will be a nightmare for us.”
“Like hell I will,” she snarled, not even looking in his direction. Before she could grab the keys from Kalen, Logan had them in his hand.
“First of all, it’s my car. Secondly, we can’t risk you getting road rage and wiping out the block. You can sit in the car and huff all you want, but you’re not going alone.” Raina glared at Logan as he jangled the keys in his hand. She darted into the kitchen and returned, strapping a holster around her waist and shoving a gun into it.
“If I feel my rage building, I’ll just shoot you instead,” she grinned threateningly. Logan flashed his canines and growled at her.
“I’ll break your wrist before you can reach for that gun. I’ve got centuries on you princess. Don’t act cocky just because you have a weapon.” Raina smirked at him and stormed out the door, ignoring the glances between Kalen and Elias. Logan grabbed his jacket and stormed out behind her, slamming the door with such force the wood cracked along the frame.
∞∞∞
“Why are we stopping?” Raina asked, as Logan pulled into a parking lot alongside a pharmacy. He tossed her his wallet before saying anything.
> “Ask at the counter for a collection for Raina Blanchard. You have a hat on, no one will notice you aren’t human.”
Raina scoffed. “Why did you have to give me your name?” He smirked, checking around the windows.
“For fun.”
She slammed the car door and stormed into the pharmacy, squinting her burning eyes despite the dull day.
The fluorescent lights hummed loudly against her ears. Even the quiet radio in a back room was unbearably loud, the static crackling sharp and painful. Raina approached the counter to a very bored looking woman.
“Hi, collection for Raina Blanchard?” she breathed, her words slurred as she tried her best to avoid showing her lengthened canines. The woman slapped a lazy hand on the counter and shoved off behind a row of shelves, emerging seconds later with a taped-over bag. She handed it over with a mumbled “have a nice day” as Raina scarpered quickly back to the car.
She thrust it into Logan’s lap without a word and slammed the door behind her. He sat it gently back onto her thighs.
“It’s not for me princess,” he chided, “it’s the only other thing I can think of considering you won’t let me near you.” Raina pulled the bag open and peeked in to find a number of bottles full of pills. “What are these?”
“It’s just stuff to help with nausea. Since ginger is so repellent to taste, there aren’t a lot of home remedies available to us in this world.” Raina winced as Logan began grinding his teeth, taking large, deep breaths. “That’s really loud,” she snapped, covering her ears with her hands.
Logan spun the car over into an abandoned gas station, pulling his hood over his head and getting out of the car. Raina watched as he sat on the bonnet, out of view of any cars driving past. Minutes passed, and she listened to him breathing heavily before sliding back into the car and driving off again.
Neither of them uttered another word until they reached the dilapidated farmhouse tucked away on the mountainside. Raina slid her gun from the holster and racked the slide, slipping silently around to the back door. She cleared the bottom floor before moving upstairs. It was hard not to slightly admire her new body, she slipped around the house like a wraith.
As she cleared the top floors, she realised she could easily have used her beastly ears to listen out for movement, because she was at the top of the house in the dusty attic room she had shared with Alicia, and she could hear Logan walking on the ground floor.
She grabbed the small backpack and handbag she had forgotten, scouring the room in case she had forgotten anything before going back downstairs to join Logan.
“My other bag is in the van we drove to the manor, I have to stop by there on our way back,” she sighed, glancing around the living room. Logan was examining their makeshift board full of post it notes and blue wool.
“How the hell did your team manage to work anything out from this mess?” he scoffed. Raina pulled a can of lemonade from the fridge and grabbed some food from the cupboard, rolling her eyes at his jibes as he pored over their work.
“Seriously Raina, this is supposed to be an elite team and honestly you all seem like a bunch of airheads thrown together with guns.” Raina bristled at the insult as the smug prick poked at the shabby interior.
“Sorry we can’t all live the life of luxury while we’re on the run from psycho pricks who want to sacrifice me. I wouldn’t have been in this place if it wasn’t for you and those Fae assholes you call family.”
She cracked open her can with a loud hiss, and before she could raise it to her lips, Logan was in front of her, canines bared. His finger was inches from her face, tempting her to bite it. Nothing riled her temper more than some prick jabbing a finger right in her face.
“I told you we had nothing to do with Coralynn.”
“I don’t care,” she hissed, “you’re pathetic Logan, you could have let me live out a normal human life and went back home but no, you and your little beast tribe had to hunt me down and turn me into a freak so you could all get back to your weird alien planet.” Raina could see the anger flash in his golden eyes as his knuckles went white.
Her temper flared as she slapped his hand away from her face, only to find her arms jammed behind her and Logan snarling before she could blink.
“I warned you princess, I have centuries on you, and I have my strength back now. You’ve been getting a little bit too cocky with all your fancy military training and guns and I’m sick of you aiming a gun at me or slamming me into things.” The fingers gripping her jaw lessened slightly, but the hand holding her wrists didn’t budge.
He dropped her wrists and pushed away from her, snatching her bag up from the floor without a word. Raina blocked the doorway as he tried to leave, her eyes wild with fury.
“Touch me again and I’ll take us both out,” she growled furiously. Logan snarling face dropped into a look of pure curiosity as he inhaled sharply.
“Raina, sit down.”
Her fingers were stinging as small sparks of electricity zapped recklessly between them. She held her hands cautiously in front of her, both mesmerised and terrified of the sparks zipping along her skin. Raina shook her hands, trying to rid herself of the magic, instead flinging a bolt of sparks into the ancient television, which promptly exploded.
Raina hit the ground, hard. Pain exploded in her head as the booming sound reverberated through her skull into the very nerves of her teeth. Logan groaned on top of her, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he shielded her from the blast.
“Breathe, Raina look at me,” he hissed, cupping her chin and forcing her face up to his, “breathe.” Raina slumped against him as she took deep shuddering breaths, her panicked sobs tearing from her chest as she desperately tried to breathe. The sparks faded away with each breath as she gripped Logan tightly, unable to stop the tears leaking down her cheeks.
“I’m a monster,” she whispered, cupping a hand to her weeping face. Logan winced as he tried to move, the metallic tang of blood seeping into Raina’s nostrils. She sat up, only to see a sharp piece of glass stabbing into his back.
“I can’t reach it Raina I need you to pull it out for me,” he gasped, each movement forcing the glass to move within his flesh.
“Okay, just lie still, I’ll get something to stop the bleeding.” She scrambled to her feet but Logan groaned at her to stop.
“I’ll heal quickly just pull it out before my skin heals over it,” he winced, sitting up carefully. Raina pinched the shard, but Logan’s blood was making it slippery.
“I can’t be delicate about this,” she warned, wrapping her fist around the shard and yanking it out, shredding her own palm as she did so. Logan yelped in pain as she winced at her sliced palm, wiping the blood onto her dark trousers. After a few moments of panting as his flesh knitted together in front of Raina’s awestruck eyes, Logan stretched his arm out and got to his feet, extending a hand to her. As he pulled her up he wrapped her in a gentle hug, resting his lips on her head.
“You aren’t a monster princess,” he whispered, his breath hot on her skin. She rested her forehead against his chest, gripping his bloodied shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, pulling away swiftly and jamming her hands into her pockets. Logan cleared his throat and lifted her bags to shake off pieces of broken glass and wood. He just nodded and they left quickly, driving off and leaving the farmhouse as fast as they could.
“Do you have any idea how much weight you’ve lost?” he scolded, earning himself a glare from her.
“How the hell would you know that I’ve lost weight?” she snapped coldly. He smirked slightly and rolled his eyes.
“I paid a lot of attention to what you looked like before. Fae tend to be quite slender, but you’re almost skin and bones Raina. When is the last time you had a decent meal?”
Raina shrugged, blushing slightly. “I can’t remember. After I was put into protection the most I could manage was a few snacks from motel vending machines. I was constantly panicked and stressed, I couldn�
��t eat.”
Logan paused thoughtfully for a moment before checking his watch.
“How about I swing through a drive-through, we’ll grab something for the road?” he suggested. Raina’s shocked expression confused him. “What?”
“We can’t interact with any more people right now, you’re very clearly not human. We’ll eat when we get back to the manor,” she sighed, leaning forward to rest her arms on the dashboard. The rest of the journey was completed in silence, broken only by Logan’s complaints about bad drivers.
The horizon seeped through shades of lilacs, peaches and blushing pinks like watercolours on paper as the last burn from the sun disappeared behind the hillside. Night crept in as Raina’s eyes began to droop, lulled over by the heat and vibrations from the car. She jumped and shook her head when Logan coughed loudly.
“You were snoring you know,” he smirked.
Raina shot him a disgusted glare and ignored the jibe. “The van is down the next road on the left,” she sighed, rubbing her face and sliding the window down for a blast of cool air. Sure enough, the mini-van was still hidden away out of view, untouched. Raina emptied it of anything they had left behind, since the team had rushed out of the not-so-safe-house with everything they could carry.
Before long they had reached the manor, and judging by the cars parked haphazardly outside, the squad had already returned. Raina was instantly bombarded by Alicia’s scowling form as she walked in the door.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us you were leaving?” she snapped, barely stepping back for Logan to squeeze past the small gap in the door, “and why the hell are you alone with her?” Logan sucked his teeth, fighting against his will to argue with the soldier. Her sneering face didn’t lessen, and Logan looked down to Raina.
“You need to get your team in line, we can’t afford anymore outbursts or fights,” he sighed before turning his attention to Alicia, “I went to keep her safe alright?”
Alicia’s arguments were drowned out as Kalen and Elias came flying into the foyer, a panicked look on their faces.