The Deepest Black

by Rainy Kaye

  I force myself up, sitting on the edge of the mattress, and rub my face, makeup be damned. I'm sure it was already smudged somewhere between watching a fae rip out a heart and getting assaulted in a restroom.

  “I'll just go crash in Cassia's room,” I say, staggering to my feet. “It'll be a slumber party like grade school all over again.”

  I start to head for the door. Remy blocks me with his shoulder, and my gaze drifts up his chest, to his lips set in a hard line, and then settles on his eyes. There's flames in them, an indicator of a distant bonfire in the deepest night. Heat races up my arms and converges at the base of my neck. I swallow hard and pull back.

  Silence surrounds us, even though I know Mom and Cassia are probably still being loud. The tension is sudden and knee-weakening.

  “Why?” he asks.

  I become a little light-headed with giddiness. Why did I bring him here? Why am I helping him find his brother? Why am I the nicest, sexiest woman he's ever met?

  “Why did you kill them?” he says evenly.

  The intensity drops to zero. I snap back, and the heat no longer reaches me.

  “Kill who?” I wrap my arms around me and stare at him head on, even though I can make a good guess on what he's talking about.

  “The fae. You've been killing them,” he says, and I can't make out how he feels about his theory at all.

  “Who says?” I counter, but the quiver in my voice is difficult to miss. I repeat, stronger, “Why would you think that?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  My brain reels, trying to make sense of the accusation. I push past him, catching a glimpse of the bottle of sage oil on the dresser. I pluck it up, stuffing it into my pocket, and hurry out the door.

  As I pass by the living room, I say over the noise of the infommercial on TV, “Cass, I'm crashing in your room tonight.”

  Cassia turns from where she's sitting on the couch to look at me, eyebrows wiggly again. I roll my eyes and make a pfft sound to indicate that some men are losers and the current one in tow is no exception. Like I want to explain to her that he's a fae, and he just accused me of killing his kind, and that he's entirely correct.

  In her room, I flip on the lights, shuffle through the mess of half-assembled baby furniture, stacks of clothes for miniature humans, and boxes of diapers to check the glass balcony doors are locked. Then I crawl onto the bed. With one hand, I jerk the unicorn-patterned blanket from under me and cocoon myself in it, enveloped in the scent of fresh laundry, before closing my eyes and allowing my brain to sort through the damage.

  I'm cut up, roughed up, and beaten up. And that's just on the outside. I don't feel safe, though I don't have enough concrete understanding of the situation to know what, exactly, I'm afraid of. Furthermore, I feel a little sick, both at the predicament but mostly at myself. The dark faes are demons, but Remy is not, and they are both the same. I have no idea how to reconcile this, so I let myself off the hook for now.

  Just as a drift into sleep, my mind screams, wake up!

  I fumble with the covers, forcing my way out of my self-imposed prison. As I flail for the door, stumbling over a baby walker, my lungs gasp for air.

  I have to tell Remy. Right now. Before I sleep, before I do anything. He would know who those men are. Those men who took me. The ones who injected me. The ones who are coming back for me.

  Of course they're coming back for me. They've probably been on my trail the whole time. How could I just let myself go to sleep like that? Those men hadn't been done with me, and I hurt one of them. No, I killed one of them.

  Did they know I had killed so many others of their kind? Is that the reason they took me? If they caught me again, what would they do? They're going to punish me for escaping. They're going to catch me again and punish me and. . .

  With thudding steps, I crash into my bedroom door, then shove it open.

  Remy looks up from where he's sitting on the edge of my bed. His eyes are wide, stricken. My panic drops. My gaze lowers to his arm, elbow rested on his knee and he leans forward with something in his opposite hand. A needle, posed to stab himself.

  I snap back to his eyes. “What?”

  An expression dark—and deadly—crosses his face. Then he jams the needle into his arm, and inhales as he shoots up something. . .blue? Like window cleaner.

  Is that the stuff those men had stuck into me, too?

  He pulls out the now-empty syringe and places it in a case sitting next to him on the bed. It's the little black one he had taken from the clubhouse when I had barged in.

  “What is that?” I ask through gritted teeth.

  Did he really have the audacity to shoot up in my house?

  I storm over to the bed, snatch up the case, stomp to my open window, and fling the whole mess down into courtyard. It lands with a soft thud. I spin around, crossing my arms, ready to decimate his argument.

  He just stares up at me, features soft and unchallenging.

  “You know, leaving used needles lying around is a safety hazard,” he says in such a calm voice, it infuriates me.

  Never mind that he's right.

  “Get out of my house!” I point to the door, looming over him. “You are not doing. . .that. . .sitting here in—”

  “It's my medication,” he interjects, simply.

  I halt, mouth open mid-rant.

  “Without it, things get bad.”

  I clamp my jaw shut to keep my heart inside where it belongs. He and I remain silent, not quite looking at each other but also not quite looking away.

  What kind of medication is he talking about? Is that a euphemism for something little fae children are warned about not taking from strangers? Or is it actually a necessity? Is it the same as what the men gave me? If so, why?

  The last point clings to my thoughts, enough that I have to fight back the urge to ask. A part of me is uncomfortable telling him the men injected me. Partly because I don't know for certain if it was the same blue kind, and partly because that would require telling him about the men, first.

  I still don't know who Remy is and until I do, I will continue to trust him as much as I trust week-old takeout in the back of the fridge.

  At length, he stands up, brushes off the front of his legs, and crosses to the window. He leans far over the edge, pushing himself up on the sill, feet off the ground. Which is a little bit stupid since we're so far up. He drops back down and turns to me.

  “Can't see it.” He shrugs. “I don't expect it to do much to humans, and my kind. . .”

  “What about your kind?” I ask, even though I'd really rather pry about what impact it does or does not have on humans—just in case. But I don't know if it's the same drug I received and nothing has happened to me from it yet, so I push the second-most important topic. “Why would you take it?”

  He shakes his head. “Do you want me to leave or not?”

  “I want to know what that. . .that stuff. . .is,” I say harshly.

  I'm still not amused with his antics, even though I'm again uncertain which ones or why. The whole night is becoming a bit of a blur that I can no longer compute.

  “Just don't be alone with anyone who needs it,” he says.

  “Including you?”

  “Especially me.”

  I roll my eyes. “Cliché .”

  “So are shark warnings at the beach,” he says, sitting back on the edge of my bed, “but you still shouldn't go into the water.”

  “Oh, such a bad boy, right?” Even as I mock his attitude, I mentally stomp down the embarrassment at the attraction I had felt earlier. It had been brief, and it was long gone, but it shouldn't have happened, at all. “Forgive me if I don't swoon.” I start to head for the door, but then halt and look back at him. “Is there a reason I should let you sleep here?”

  “Yes,” he says, solemn.

  I narrow my eyes. “And why's that?”

  “Because I won't need it again for a while.” He nods toward the window. “If I ever stop
taking it. . .run.”

  “You wouldn't be the first fae I've run from. It's sort of what. . .” My voice trails off. We both know I don't always make a clean escape. In my defense, they don't always let me, either. They may be his kind, but the wings are the only similarities between them I've found, so far. He hasn't contorted and turned savage. “It's that. It's the elixir. That's why you aren't ripping my throat out.”

  He nods, but his expression tightens, jaw clenching.

  “Why do you have a magical cure that others don't?” My tone is far more accusatory than I had meant to be—I'm certainly not in a position to be making judgment calls on who deserves fairyland medicine—but I also see nothing particularly special about him, except that he's maybe hiding a pair of nice abs.

  “Friend of the family,” he says indifferently, fingers rubbing together, but I get the distinct impression that he's trying to sound like it's a more casual occurrence than it actually is.

  Or maybe I'm just friggin' tired.

  I sigh, resigned. “Look, you can stay here. Tomorrow, we'll sort all this craziness out and figure out what to do.”

  And how to get rid of him in a way that won't trigger his apparently submerged evil side. Just knowing that he's one missed dose away from becoming like the other dark fae makes me want to cut him loose ASAP. Any brewing camaraderie has been washed down the drain.

  I leave without another word, check that Mom has made it off to work, and then return to Cassia's unoccupied bedroom. Body aching, I once again cocoon myself in the girly-girl blanket. The smell of fresh laundry relaxes me. With a deep breath, I close my eyes and will myself to fall asleep. Not like I need much coaxing. Today was almost an actual hell.

  Tomorrow will be better. It has to be.

  A little smile ticks on my face as I start to drift away.

  Something taps on the glass balcony doors. Then the pane shatters.

  I bolt upright, screaming.

  Men—no, fae—swarm into the room. They surround the bed. I kick off the covers, but the fae are on me. Even as they pull me down, restrain me, I realize they aren't shifting. No elongated faces, no razor claws. Do they pick and choose when to do that?

  I shove against their hold, body arcing as I twist to get away. The commotion kicks up. Between them, Cassia's shadow waddles in and out of my sight. There's an oomph. One of the fae goes down.

  She's swinging the baby walker like it's a weapon. With obvious strain, face going red, she heaves it up again and slams it into the back of another fae's head. The walker cracks. The fae's face goes blank. Then he reels around on her. I expect him to change, but he doesn't—and he doesn't need to. She is no real match for him. He twists the broken walker from her grasp, throws it aside, and storms toward her.

  I buck against the men restraining me, yelling for her. He backhands her across the face. She stumbles and catches herself against the dresser. He lifts his arm again as she cowers. His arm is caught and yanked down. Remy grabs the fae by his hair and slams him face first into the dresser—repeatedly.

  Cassia looks at me, wide eyed. I scream for her to run—like she can actually run, but she has to get away. Remy is throwing elbows and punches, tearing through the swarm toward me.

  “No! Get Cassia out of here! Help Cassia!” Even as the words come out, I hate them because I know he will do the right thing and save her, leaving me alone with these...creatures.

  I grit my teeth, clenching my eyes shut, and wrench my body all the way over, breaking a hold on my leg. Just one hold, on one leg. I wrench again the other direction.

  I'm freed, even though it should have taken more effort. My eyes pop open. Remy yanks me up; he had gotten to me and beat down some of my captors. Cassia is still huddled by the dresser.

  Remy drags me from the bed, my hip hitting the floor. Pain shoots through my joint, but I scramble to stand. He's got me by the back of the shirt, forcing me out of the bedroom, as the men try to pull me back into their midst. I reach for Cassia, screaming nonsense. Words don't really mean anything right now, just sound.

  Remy shoves me forward, hard. My feet root to the dirty living room carpet like it's quick sand, and I'm sinking into the realization that he's taking me away from her. Leaving her alone.

  I swing my fist behind me, striking him in the stomach, rib cage. He doesn't seem to care as we emerge out the front door, into the cold night. I glance back. The fae are bumping around in the house, making their way out after us.

  I head across the balcony and down the stairs, Remy right behind. He doesn't give me an inch to turn back. In the parking lot, he shoves me into the passenger seat of the truck, then darts around the back. The front is being surrounded with fae; they're climbing up to the windshield.

  Remy hops into the driver side. He cranks the ignition, the engine rumbling alive, and throws the vehicle into reverse. Fae fall off the hood as the truck squeals into the street. He makes a wide turn, then slams it into drive, and hits the gas.

  “We left Cassia there!” I screech at him, beating his shoulder, then fumbling with the lock on the door. I didn't agree to driving off without her. “You fuckin' asshole!”

  “She's fine,” he says evenly.

  “Fine?” I snap around to glare at him. “I'd trade you for her any damn day!”

  He's unmoved. “Doesn't matter. They don't want either her or me.” He glances at me, his face scrunched up with imploring darkness. “How did you get the freakin' mercs onto you?”

  “The what?” My voice is little more than a whisper, but my mind is shouting back and forth about what he had said.

  I don't need to go back for her. She will be fine as long as I'm not around, and the evidence is there: they only came at her when she tried to free me from them doing martial arts with baby furniture.

  Still, I've never left her behind in my life. And I don't want to start now.

  “Those are our mercenaries,” Remy says. “They don't usually come into this world, but I guess if the portal is open, it widened their playing field. They're only sent when you've been very, very bad.”

  I'm not sure what he means by any of that, but my brain is more stuck on that I have mercenaries coming after me.

  “I didn't. . .” I hesitate, but there's no point in not throwing it all out there now. I've nothing to hide, because I don't know what I should or shouldn't know. Moreover, I don't know what he should or shouldn't know. “The only thing I've done that would possibly elicit interest from anyone is hunting the fae...well, the evil kind,” I add in a rush. “The ones who rip out hearts and eat appendages and—”

  “Alright!” He slams his hand on the steering wheel.

  I jerk forward, fingers going for the door lock again. “I was just pointing out that I didn't go around killing innocent people. I mean, they were doing bad things, and I just didn't want them to—”

  “I get it!” He shoots me the world's deadliest glare, then turns back to the road, taking a steadying breath. “It's a mess out here, Ember. Everything is just. . .gone. The way we were. Ever since the shadows, since the Order of Ice started.”

  “You ordered what?”

  He shakes his head. “It's this. . .group. . .run by someone from home, named Franjo. He's doing something to us, making us, well—” He chuckles softly. “—you've seen it.”

  I tighten my jaw to keep from bursting out with another tangent and stare into the night. Passengers in cars zoom by, a few pedestrians stroll down the sidewalk, groups stand around in parking lots—and I can't help but expect every one of them to shift into the dark fae. I want my baton back. But mostly, I want my life prior to this—prior to running into Remy for the first time when all of this started. When the fae became aware of my existence, for some reason.

  “What does Franjo want?”

  Remy shrugs, but his expression says he's searching his brain for the umpteenth time for that answer.

  Just as I'm about to prod him for more details, he says, “I don't know, but I think he has my broth
er.”

  “Franjo kidnapped your brother?” I sit forward, brain reeling to build a recognizable structure from the Lego pieces I've been handed. “Did he send those. . .mercenary guys. . .after him, too?”

  “No, not that I'm aware of. It's just. . .my brother left in the night, and that's where all the fae have been winding up. Rumor says, anyway.” Remy rubs one of his thumbs against the steering wheel. “No one really knows anything for certain, because most of us are. . .gone.”

  I fall back against the seat, defeated and annoyed that I was momentarily led into thinking I finally had some kind of useful information.

  “So your brother ran away? Big deal.” I scan the night outside the car again, trying to pick out any nearby fae, though the car window is fogged up. “Kids leave home all the time.”

  He blows air like he's got something in his face, but I suspect he's just getting as irritated with me as I am of him, even though he's saved my ass once more. Dammit. I owe him one again.

  I try to soften my point by adding: “I mean, I even came up missing as a kid once, and I wasn't solicited in the Order of Ice, either.” I shrug. “I just got lost, and a few hours later, the search party found me.”

  “I don't think you get it, Ember,” he says in a tone that indicates I did not take the edge off my indifference at all. “We're disappearing en masse.”

  “Well, what the hell does this have to do with me?” Might as well go all-out with being an asshole. Besides, it's really the heart of the matter. To me, anyway.

  He doesn't reply. I turn back to the passenger window and press my hand against it to clear the condensation, as if it will also clear the fog over my brain enough to find the right questions.

  “I never saw the fae before, and now they're everywhere,” I say, at last. “What is here? What do they want?”

  I fear his answer like it's a living, breathing monster. If the dark fae really are here for me alone, then I've been fighting a losing battle. I cannot halt their advance forever.

  “They're convening,” he says.

  I open my mouth to ask what they are convening for as a chill creeps up my arms, like someone is watching me. Then I notice the icy draft through the window, and my gaze turns back to the fogged-over pane. The speckles of ice.