Aidan went rigid at my back.
“I know her,” Sarah whispered in disbelief.
“How?” Maddy asked.
“She’s a legend in Faerie,” Aidan answered.
“More like a cautionary tale.” Sarah cut him a sharp look over her shoulder. “Of love gone wrong.”
“And revenge,” Kimbra added with a smirk, “something I imagine you are quite interested in. I can help you get it.”
“That seems like a mighty convenient way to save your ass right now,” I replied, “and it also assumes that we believe what you’ve said.”
“What do you feel?” she asked me. “You’re an empath. Can you not feel the truth in my words?”
Yeah, I could. But that didn’t mean much coming from a legendary figure from the world of morally grey tricksters.
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” Aidan said. The shadowy appendage holding her in place tightened around her throat. “None of us should…”
“And what if I could give you what you needed to bring down the Council?”
“I’d say that sounds awfully convenient, too.” Maddy’s irritation with the fey-whatever-she-was was thick in her tone, and I wondered if the dragon was getting as restless as she was. I placed my hand on her back and took a deep breath. Seconds later, she did the same, and the tension in her shoulders eased somewhat.
Our actions did not go unnoticed by the keen-eyed fey.
“You two,” she mused, eyeing us tightly, “sisters, but not. Opposites, but balanced.”
At that, I scoffed. “You should probably quit while you’re ahead, lady, especially if you want us to believe anything you say.”
She canted her head. “You think she is more powerful than you are.”
“Think? Ha! I know she is.”
She quirked a brow. “And this is why she is the smart one.”
“We won’t trade you anything for information,” Sarah said, having found her composure again. She folded her arms across her stomach and popped a hip. “And we won’t make any deals. Whatever information you give us, you do so freely without expectation of compensation. Understood?”
A wicked smile spread across the woman’s face. “Of course.”
“Good. Then say what you need to say and go.” Sarah turned back to us. “We shouldn’t linger here any longer.”
“Clever girl. You will be a force to be reckoned with one day.”
Sarah chuffed. “I already am. Now…” She waved her hand expectantly. “The information?”
Kimbra’s eyes dropped down to where Aidan held her neck, then lifted to his. Reluctantly, he released her. She rubbed her throat, then cleared it dramatically as she fixed her piercing stare on us.
“If you want to bring down the Council,” she began, addressing us as though she were a queen and we were her court, “two things must happen. First, the truth behind Wadsworth must be uncovered and supported by actual evidence, not just the stories of the children who escaped there after killing their fellow students.”
Confusion tugged at my brow. “But we didn’t—”
“As if the truth matters in the court of public opinion,” she said, cutting me off. “The Council will paint you however they need to in order to meet their goal, regardless of the truth. And who would question them?” I gulped at the truth in her words. “You cannot beat the Council at their own game, which is why you must play your own. You must gather incriminating evidence against them.” She paused to smile at us. “Unless, of course, you decide to just kill them like I suggested.”
“We want answers first,” Maddy said, and I nodded in agreement.
“Then you need to leverage them—threaten them with something that can bring them down.” She turned to Rhys. “The history of how Wadsworth came to be what it is now must be unearthed.” Her gaze drifted to Aidan. “And the truth behind those responsible and their actions must be exposed. Because it wasn’t only the Council who poisoned Wadsworth...”
“How do you propose we do this?” Maddy asked, stepping closer to the magical barrier still separating us from the mysterious fey.
Her keen eyes turned to Rhys again. “It is his history that can uncover the former,” she said before turning her stare to Aidan, “and his that can unravel the latter.” The five of us looked at each other, a mixture of frustration and confusion clouding the air around us. “But you must hurry,” she said, her heading swiveling, as though trying to locate a sound none of us could hear. “You don’t have much time…”
Before we could ask anything else—get some concrete information from her that could actually be helpful—her visage rippled like a mirage. Then she disappeared from sight altogether. I gasped at her exit, my mind reeling at what she’d said—and hadn’t said. And at the possibility that she could have left at any point. That her imprisonment might have only been for show. That she’d allowed us to keep her there so that she could deliver her message.
“We need to go,” Sarah said again as her gaze jumped around the room.
“Go where?” Maddy asked.
“My history…” Rhys mused. He lifted his hand, and his shield dissipated into nothing. “She’s talking about why the property was taken from my family...and why we were stripped of our power as guardians.”
“And she’s talking about my parents,” Aidan said coolly. “About their involvement in what happened at Wadsworth after that.”
“Okay great, then,” Sarah said. “Let’s split up and get to figuring this shit out, because I for one don’t plan on hanging out here until the Council figures out where we are or that sketchy bitch sells us out.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe she’s telling the truth, and maybe she isn’t. Her story hinges upon details I can't figure out how she would know.”
“And the story that there was an APB put out by the Council,” Aidan observed. “She could have made that up. Everything she told us in the car could be bullshit.”
“But,” Maddy said thoughtfully, “how could she know so much about us? How could she convince us that she was Dad so easily?”
“When she took on his appearance, she must have taken his essence along with it,” Sarah explained. “His memories...whatever was still left in his brain. If he hadn’t been dead long, she could have taken almost everything. There are fey that can—”
“Which means she would have had to be there really close to his demise,” Maddy pointed out with a growl. “So how do we know she didn’t do it? How do we know she didn’t lure us here to kill us? Maybe it was only once everything went to hell—when I freaked and breathed fire at her, a trait Dad wouldn’t have known about—that she decided to change her tune. To play us for fools so she could escape.”
“Except she just showed us she could have escaped at any time,“ I countered. “She just up and ghosted us in a hot second without effort.”
“But Aidan had released her,” Rhys pointed out, further confusing the matter.
“He’s right.” Maddy stepped to Rhys’s side and entwined her fingers with his. “We can’t be sure of any of this.”
“Then what do we do, Mads?” I asked, tugging at my purple hair. “We can’t stay here. We can’t go home. And we can’t trust anyone but ourselves.”
“We need to get rid of the body,” Sarah said, pushing the curtains aside to look out the window. “And then we need to split up.”
“Nobody asked you,” I snapped at her, the thought of Dad’s cooling corpse threatening to break the dam of emotions I didn't have time to work through. Not yet, at least. But I couldn’t avoid my grief forever. Not even an empath could manipulate her feelings that long.
“Doesn’t matter if they did or not,” she replied. “I’m still right.”
“With a car, I can get to my parents’ and then my grandfather’s place,” Rhys said thoughtfully. “If anyone has information on Wadsworth, it’s my grandfather, but I’ll quiz my mom and dad first. Maybe it will help us f
igure some of this shit out.”
“And maybe the Council will expect that,” I countered. “Maybe that’s what Kimbra wants. Maybe she’s working for them.”
“Staying together won’t make that any better,” Sarah pointed out. I wheeled on her, ready to gouge her eyes out, but Aidan’s hands caught my wrists and held me still.
“You can leave whenever you want,” I yelled at her. “Nobody’s keeping you here.”
She cocked her head. Her sly gaze slipped to Aidan and back to me. “He is. Because he can’t get home without my help, and I won’t leave him here—and thanks to that fucking mark he gave you, I can’t leave you either, even though nothing would make me happier. So, if you could get on with the goodbyes, that’d be great.”
She peeked out the curtain again, then shivered.
“Maddy…” The pleading tone in my voice didn’t go unnoticed, and she walked over and threw her arms around my neck. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“We have to do it,” she said. A sniffle escaped her to punctuate her sentence. “Even if Kimbra is up to something, we have to figure out how to destroy the thing in the reformatory and save Wolfy.”
Wolfy …I’d all but forgotten about him. Guilt sank into my belly like a concrete slab.
“But I just got you back.”
She placed her hands on my shoulders and, in a weird reversal of roles, played the big sister. “Cece, you can do this.” Her narrowed eyes drifted to Aidan. “And you’re going to keep her safe.”
Not a question. Not a suggestion. A bold command from my once-shy and uncertain younger sister to the fey lord.
“You worry about getting answers,” he replied. “I’ll worry about your sister.”
“I’ll always worry about my sister,” Maddy said, and I swore I saw a curl of smoke escape her lips.
Aidan’s grip on my wrists tightened slightly, and I felt a flare of magic in the mark on my hand. “So will I.”
I looked up to find ink swirling through his ice-blue eyes, and my heart stilled.
“Um,” Sarah said, stepping away from the window, “I think we have a situation. Like a Council-sized one.”
The five of us shared a look, then ran to the window. Sure enough, shadows shifted in the tree line surrounding the cabin. I reached out with my senses until I met a wall of hostility emanating from whoever stalked us in the darkness.
“Go,” Aidan said to Maddy. “I’ll distract them.”
“We should take them out,” she argued.
“I’m pretty sure they have reinforcements,” Sarah said soberly.
“Burn them back with your fire,” I told my sister. “Sarah, choke the shit out of as many as you can at once. Rhys, do that magicky shit that you do so well.”
“And I’ll package it all in a terrifying way while Rhys and Maddy escape,” Aidan said with a vindictive smile. “I like your style, little witch.”
“I learned from a pro,” I said with a shrug, which conveniently hid my shaking shoulders. Because shit was about to get real in a second, and there was no denying the danger we were in.
Aidan grinned at me, then stared through the window in the direction of the car. His brows furrowed in concentration while he breathed hard. Finally, he let out a breath and turned to Maddy and Rhys.
“I’ve set a glamour on the car. Once you escape, it will look different to anyone who sees it so it can’t be tracked easily.”
“Thanks,” they replied in unison. Then Maddy turned to me. “Don’t put up with any fairy bullshit while you're there, okay?”
I nodded once before throwing my arms around her neck. “And you drive like I did that night we stayed out late to drink beers with the Thompson twins. Don’t stop for anything or anyone—not even red lights.”
She sniffled lightly in my ear, then laughed. “I can do that.”
“You ready yet?” Sarah asked, lining up her stance like a fighter’s. The others followed suit. “On three. One…two…three!”
A melee of magic erupted. Fire, dancing shadows, and glowing streams of God only knew what crashed through the window into the trees not far beyond. They were met by an invisible barrier that didn’t hold up well against Maddy’s dragon fire. Seconds later, panicked shouts rang out through the dark night, and all hell broke loose.
“Trap them inside!” a male voice yelled just as Rhys kicked out the front door. With his shield in place, he led Maddy toward the vehicle, her fire spilling out at anyone who dared to approach. But no one made it far. Those that got near stopped short and clutched at their throats as Sarah’s slightly homicidal ability came into play. Handling two at a time, she’d toss one aside as soon as he went limp and snatch the next one in line. And there was a steady line of attackers. The Council had most definitely brought reinforcements.
Or bounty hunters. Maybe Kimbra hadn’t lied about the APB after all.
Aidan stormed out next, pulling me directly behind him, so close that my chest rubbed against his back as he, too, worked to clear a path for Rhys and Maddy to escape. They jumped into the glamoured vehicle and fired it up. The engine roared and the reverse lights flared. Then Maddy stomped on the gas and reversed her way through anything in her path. The distinct thud of a bumper meeting a body echoed through the fight, but that was fine by me. As long as they got away, that was all I cared about.
A few men piled into a vehicle down the road and attempted to give chase, but their efforts were cut short by Aidan’s tentacular magical arms. They scooped the SUV up like it weighed nothing and threw it over the trees into the woods, where it landed with a horrific crash. There was no way that thing was driving anywhere.
The voices grew fewer and further apart as Sarah, eyes glowing with delight, continued to incapacitate the strays. Only when Aidan’s hand landed on her shoulder did she snap out of her macabre trance.
“Open the gate,” he said as he battled with whoever remained. It was only then that I noticed that none of our would-be attackers looked—or felt—familiar, which posed a whole new slew of questions I had no intention of unpacking right then.
It was time to go.
Sarah dipped back into the cabin and stood in the middle of the room. She began chanting under her breath, and I looked back to find a soapy, iridescent ripple forming in the air before her. Aidan retreated toward the house and glanced over his shoulder at the portal. He must have approved of what he saw because he ran to my side and grabbed my hand as our attackers closed in on the cabin.
“Hurry up! I can't hold it forever,” Sarah ground out.
Aidan looked down at me and smiled. “You ready for this, little witch?”
Before I could even answer, he hauled me into Faerie.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maddy
With fury ripping through me, I slammed my foot on the gas pedal, and the engine roared. The tires spun, shooting dirt and stones at whoever might be after us.
We bumped up the dirt road as chaos broke loose at the cabin.
My foot eased off the gas. “Cece...”
I already missed her. I hated leaving her to the Council’s minions. We had never been separated for more than a few days until I’d been sent to Wadsworth. The second we got back together, I promised myself I’d never let anything pull us apart again.
“Keep going,” Rhys said softly. He reached over his shoulder and yanked on the seat belt so hard that it locked, and he had to ease it back and pull it out more slowly to secure it.
“I...” I gulped and peered into the rearview mirror. Magic lit up the night, followed by a flash inside the cabin. “I’m worried. About her getting away, and what will happen with Aidan and Sarah.”
“Aidan will watch out for her.”
“You’re right. He will.” My fingers blanched on the steering wheel as I hit the end of the camp road and screeched out onto the main drag. “I should have killed that woman. Why wouldn’t you guys let me do it?” Pain bled through in my voice, an open cut that wouldn’t stop seeping.
Kimbra had said she hadn’t murdered him, but I didn’t believe her. She’d played him so well, even I had thought he was my father.
“I can’t believe everything that’s happened,” I said.
“It’s been crazy, but we’re free of Wadsworth now. We’ll figure this out.” His voice deepened. “And then we’ll take down whoever is responsible.”
“Too much of this is unknown. I mean, we had to escape.” The words rushed out of me. “We would’ve died if we’d stayed inside Wadsworth, but what now? I don’t even know if we’re going the right way.”
“We need to go right,” Rhys said.
“Did you understand what she was talking about?”
Sighing, he snarled his hair with his fingers. “I have an idea. She said that we need to learn the truth about Wadsworth’s history, about my family’s history.”
“How are we going to do that?” A glance in the rearview mirror showed me that no one was following, but it was only a matter of time. “I should’ve fried her to a crisp. She was toying with us. With our combined power, we could’ve made her talk before she disappeared. She didn’t even begin to feel the full force of my magic.”
“You couldn’t have let loose, though, don’t you see?” He hitched up his knee, turning on the seat to watch me. “You could’ve hurt someone, and I don’t mean her.”
“I know.” And I hated that fact. My shoulders sagged, and I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. “I wouldn’t have hurt any of you, though,” I said weakly. “I would have controlled it somehow. I’m still me when I’m in my dragon form. I’m in charge now, not the dragon.”
“I know you are.” Reaching out, he placed his hand over mine that was gripping the steering wheel. “You always have the best intentions, but sometimes you and your dragon are—”
“A bull in a china shop,” I said through my tears.
He snorted. “A bit.”
When our vehicle flew past a car coming from the other direction, I glanced at the odometer. Maybe going seventy-five wasn’t a great idea right now. I slowed my speed to something more reasonable. It would be a mistake to draw attention. Especially while we had…
Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3) Page 8