“It’s not like that anymore.” I shook my head, looking away from him. “She doesn’t live here, and my brother and my aunt would do anything for me. I can’t just leave them. I won’t.”
Finn eyed me carefully, trying to decide if I was serious. I hated how attractive he was and whatever power it was he held over me. Even now, with my life in complete shambles, the way he looked at me made it hard to focus on anything besides my racing heart.
“Do you realize what you’re giving up?” Finn asked softly. “There is so much that life has to offer you. More than anything they can give you here. If Matt understood what was in store for you, he would send you with me himself.”
“You’re right. He would, if he thought it was what’s best for me,” I admitted. “Which is why I have to stay.”
“Well, I want what’s best for you too. That’s why I found you, and why I’ve been trying to bring you home.” The underlying affection in his voice shivered through me. “Do you really believe I would encourage you to return home if it would adversely affect you?”
“I don’t think you know what’s best for me,” I replied as evenly as I could.
He had thrown me off guard by hinting at caring about me, and I had to remind myself that that was part of his job. All of this was. He needed to make sure I was safe and convince me to return home. That wasn’t the same as actually caring about me.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” Finn asked gently.
“Absolutely.” But I sounded more confident than I really was.
“I’d like to say that I understand, but I don’t.” Finn sighed resignedly. “I can say that I’m disappointed.”
“I’m sorry,” I said meekly.
“You shouldn’t be sorry.” He ran a hand through his black hair and looked at me again. “I won’t be going to school anymore. It seems unnecessary, and I don’t want to disturb your studies. You should at least get an education.”
“What? Don’t you need one?” My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as I realized that this might be the last time I saw Finn.
“Wendy.” Finn gave a small humorless laugh. “I thought you knew. I’m twenty years old. I’m done with my education.”
“Why were you . . .” I said, already figuring out the answer to my question.
“I was only there to keep track of you, and I have.” Finn dropped his eyes and sighed. “When you change your mind . . .” He hesitated for a moment. “I’ll find you.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked, trying to keep the disappointment from my voice.
“You’re still here, so I am too. At least for a while,” Finn explained.
“How long?”
“It depends on . . . things.” Finn shook his head. “Everything about your situation is so different. It’s hard to say anything with certainty.”
“You keep saying that I’m different. What does that mean? What are you talking about?”
“We usually wait until changelings are a few years older, and by then you’ve already figured out that you’re not human,” Finn explained. “When the tracker comes to find you, you’re relieved and eager to go.”
“So why did you come for me now?” I asked.
“You moved so much.” Finn gestured to the house. “We were afraid that something might be the matter. So I was here monitoring you until you were ready, and I thought you might be.” He exhaled deeply. “I guess I was wrong.”
“Can’t you just ‘persuade’ me to go along?” I asked, and some part of me that wanted to go with him hoped he could.
“I can’t.” Finn shook his head. “I can’t force you to come with me. If this is your decision, then I’ll have to respect it.”
I nodded, knowing full well that I was turning down any chance of getting to know my real parents, my family history, and spending more time with Finn. Not to mention my abilities, like persuasion, which Finn had promised there would be more of as I got older. On my own, I’m sure I’d never be able to master or understand them.
We looked at each other, and I wished he wasn’t so far away from me. I was wondering if it would be appropriate if we hugged when the door to my bedroom opened.
Matt had come in to check on me. As soon as he saw Finn, his eyes burned. Quickly I jumped up, moving in front of Finn to block any attempts by Matt to kill him.
“Matt! It’s okay!” I held up my hands.
“It is not okay!” Matt growled. “Who the hell is this?”
“Matt, please!” I put my hands on his chest, trying to push him away from Finn, but it was like trying to push a brick wall. I glanced back at Finn, and he just stared blankly at my brother.
“You have some nerve!” Matt reached over my shoulder, pointing at Finn as he yelled. “She is seventeen years old! I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing in her room, but you’re never doing anything with her again!”
“Matt, please, stop,” I begged. “He was just saying good-bye! Please!”
“Perhaps you should listen to her,” Finn offered calmly.
I knew his composure must be pissing off Matt even more. Matt’s day had been horrible too, and the last thing he needed was some kid in here defiling me. Finn’s only reaction was to stand there, cool and collected, and Matt would want him too scared to ever come near me again.
Matt actually knocked me out of the way, and I fell backward onto the floor. Finn’s eyes flashed darkly at that, and when Matt pushed him, Finn didn’t move an inch. He just glared down at my brother, and I knew that if they fought, Matt would be the one with a serious injury.
“Matt!” I jumped to my feet.
Already I had started chanting, Leave my room. Leave my room. You need to calm down and get out of my room. Please. I wasn’t sure how effective it was without eye contact, so I grabbed his arm and forced him to turn to me.
He tried to look away instantly, but I caught him. I kept my eyes focused and just kept repeating it over and over in my head. Finally, his expression softened and his eyes glazed.
“I’m going to leave your room now,” Matt said robotically.
Much to my relief, he actually turned and walked out into the hall, closing the door behind him. I’m not sure if he walked any farther than that, or how much time I had, so I turned to Finn.
“You have to leave,” I insisted breathlessly, but his expression had changed to one of concern.
“Does he do that often?” Finn asked.
“Do what?”
“He pushed you. He clearly has an anger problem.” Finn glared at the door Matt had left through. “He’s unstable. You shouldn’t stay here with him.”
“Yeah, well, you guys should be more careful who you leave babies with,” I muttered and went to the window. “I don’t know how much time we have, so you need to go.”
“He probably shouldn’t ever be able to come into your room again,” Finn said absently. “I’m serious, Wendy. I don’t want to leave you with him.”
“You don’t have much of a choice!” I said, exasperated. “Matt’s not usually like that, and he would never hurt me. He’s just had a really hard day, and he blames you for upsetting me, and he’s not wrong.” The panic was wearing away, and I realized that I had just used persuasion on Matt again. I felt nauseous. “I hate doing that to him. It’s not fair and it’s not right.”
“I am sorry.” Finn looked at me sincerely. “I know you did that to protect him, and it’s my fault. I should’ve just backed down, but when he pushed you . . .” He shook his head. “My instincts kicked in.”
“He’s not going to hurt me,” I promised.
“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.”
Finn glanced back at the door, and I could tell he really didn’t want to leave. When he looked back at me, he sighed heavily. He was probably fighting the urge to throw me over his shoulder and take me with him. Instead, he climbed out the window and swung back down to the ground.
With that, he turned past the neighbors’ hed
ges and I couldn’t see him anymore. I kept looking after him, wishing that this didn’t mean we had to say good-bye.
The awful truth was that I was more than a little sad to see Finn go. Eventually, I shut the window and closed my curtains.
After Finn left, I found Matt sitting on the steps, looking bewildered and pissed off. He wanted to yell at me about Finn, but he couldn’t seem to understand exactly what had happened. The best I could get out of it was that he vowed to kill Finn if he ever came near me, and I pretended like I thought that was a reasonable thing to do.
The next few days, school dragged on and on. It didn’t help that I found myself constantly looking around for Finn. Part of me kept insisting that the last week had been a bad dream, and that Finn should still be here, staring at me like he always had.
On top of that, I kept feeling like I was being watched. My neck got that scratchy feeling it did when Finn stared at me for too long, but whenever I turned around, nobody was there. At least nobody worth noting.
At home, I felt distracted and ill at ease. I excused myself from supper early on Thursday night and went up to my room. I peered out my curtains, hoping to find Finn lurking around somewhere nearby, but no such luck. Every time I looked for him and didn’t find him, my heart hurt a little more.
I tossed and turned all night, trying not to wonder if Finn was still hanging around. He’d made it painfully clear that he’d soon have to move on and end this assignment.
I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t like the idea of him moving on when I hadn’t.
Around five in the morning I gave up entirely on sleep. I looked out the window again, and this time I thought I saw something. Nothing more than a shadowy blur of movement in the corner of my eye, but it was enough to indicate that he was out there, hiding nearby.
I just needed to go out and talk to Finn, to make sure he was still there. I didn’t even bother changing out of my pajamas or fixing my hair.
Hastily, I climbed out onto the roof. I tried to grab on to the branch and swing to the ground like Finn had. As soon as my fingers grabbed the branch, they slipped off and I fell to the ground, landing heavily on my back. All the wind had been knocked out of me, and I coughed painfully.
I would’ve loved to lie on the lawn for ten minutes while the pain subsided, but I was afraid that Matt or Maggie might have heard my fall. I gingerly got to my feet and rounded the hedges toward the neighbors’ house.
The street was completely deserted. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself to ward off the cold that seeped in and looked around. I knew he had been out here. Who else would be moving around out here just before dawn? Maybe my fall had scared him away; he might have thought it was Matt.
I decided to walk a little farther down the street, investigating everyone’s lawn for a hidden tracker. My back ached from the fall, and my knee felt a little twisted and weird. That left me hobbling down the street in my pajamas at five in the morning. I had truly lost my mind.
Then I heard something. Footsteps? Somebody was definitely following me, and based on the dark chill running down my spine, it wasn’t Finn. It was hard to explain how I knew it wasn’t him, but I knew it just the same. Slowly, I turned around.
SIX
monsters
A girl stood a few feet behind me. In the glow from the streetlamp, she looked ravishing. Her short brown pixie cut spiked up all over. Her skirt was short and her black leather jacket went down to her calves. A wind came up, blowing back her coat a bit, and she reminded me of some kind of action star, like she should be in The Matrix.
But the thing that caught my attention the most was that she was barefoot.
She just stared at me, so I felt like I had to say something.
“Okay . . . um, I’m going to go home now,” I announced.
“Wendy Everly, I think you should come with us,” she said with a sly smile.
“Us?” I asked, but then I felt him behind me.
I don’t know where he had been before that, but suddenly I felt his presence behind me. I looked over my shoulder, where a tall man with dark, slicked-backed hair stared down at me. He wore the same kind of jacket as the girl, and I thought it was neat that they had matching outfits, like a crime-fighting duo.
He smiled at me, and that’s when I decided that I was in trouble.
“That’s a really nice invitation, but my house is like three houses down.” I pointed toward it, as if I didn’t think they already knew exactly where I lived. “So I think that I should probably just get home before my brother starts looking for me.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you left the house,” the guy behind me suggested.
I wanted to take a step forward to get away from him, but I thought that would only encourage him to pounce on me. I could probably take the girl, but I wasn’t so sure about him. He was like a foot taller than me.
“You guys are trackers?” I asked. Something in the way they stared at me reminded me of Finn, especially when I’d first met him.
“You’re a quick one, aren’t you?” The girl smiled wider, and it didn’t sit right with me.
They might be trackers, but not the same kind as Finn. Maybe they were bounty hunters or kidnappers or just big fans of chopping up girls into little pieces and disposing of them in a ditch. Fear crept through me, but I tried not to let on.
“Well, this has been a blast, but I have to get ready for school. Big test and all that.” I started taking a step away, but the guy’s hand clamped painfully on my arm.
“Don’t damage her,” the girl insisted, her eyes flashing wide. “She’s not to be hurt.”
“Yeah, ease up.” I tried to pull my arm from him, but he refused to let go.
I had already decided that I wasn’t going wherever they wanted to take me. Since they were under some kind of instruction not to hurt me, it would give me the advantage in a fight. I only had to get a few houses down, then I’d be at home, where Matt kept a gun under his bed.
I elbowed the guy in the stomach as hard as I could. He made a coughing sound and doubled over but didn’t let go of my arm. I kicked him in the shin and moved to bite the hand that was gripping me.
He yowled in pain, and then the girl was in front of me. He had let go of me, and she tried to grab me, so I punched her. She dodged, so my fist just connected with her shoulder.
Then I was off balance, and the guy grabbed me around the waist. I screamed and kicked at him as hard as I could. Apparently he got tired of that, so he dropped me on the ground.
I was on my feet instantly, but he grabbed my arm again and turned me so I was facing him. He raised his hand and slapped me harder than I had ever been hit before. Everything went white, and my ear started ringing. Then he let go of me, and I collapsed backward on the grass behind me.
“I said not to hurt her,” the girl hissed.
“I didn’t. I was subduing her,” the guy growled and looked down at me. “And if she doesn’t knock it off, I’ll subdue her again, but harder this time.”
My neck ached from the force of his hit, and my jaw screamed painfully. A throbbing spread behind my left eye, but I still tried to stagger to my feet. She kicked me then, not hard enough to really hurt, but enough so I’d fall back down.
I lay on my back, staring up at the sky. From the corner of my eye, I could see a light flick on in the window of a house behind me. We were making enough of a ruckus to wake the neighbors, even if we weren’t close enough for Matt to hear us.
I opened my mouth to scream and yell for help, but the male tracker must’ve realized what I meant to do. Little more than a yelp had escaped my lips when I felt his foot press down hard on my throat.
“If you make a sound, I’ll make this much harder for you,” the guy warned me. “I might not be allowed to snap your neck, but I can make you wish you were dead.”
I couldn’t breathe, and I clawed at his foot, trying to get it off me. When he asked if I promised to be good, I nodded frantically. I w
ould’ve agreed to anything that let me breathe again.
He stepped back and I gasped for breath, taking in big gulps of air that burned my throat.
“Let’s just get her to the car,” the girl said, exasperated.
He bent down to try to pick me up, but I hit away his hands. I was lying on my back, and I lifted up my legs. I wasn’t really trying to kick him, but I was going to use my legs to push him back if he came near me.
In response, he hit my calf hard enough to give me a charley horse, which I gritted my teeth through. He put his knee on my stomach, holding me down so I couldn’t fight as much.
When he tried to grab me, I pushed him back with my hands, so he grabbed my wrists, pressing them tightly together with one hand.
“Stop,” he commanded. I tried to pull my hands free, but he just squeezed tighter and my bones felt like they were about to snap. “Just stop. We’re going to take you no matter what.”
“Like hell you are!” Finn barked, his voice coming from out of nowhere.
I swiveled my head so I could see Finn. I had never been so happy to see anyone in my life.
“Oh, dammit,” the girl said with a sigh. “If you hadn’t spent so much time fighting with her, we’d be out of here by now.”
“She was the one fighting with me,” the guy insisted.
“Now I’m the one fighting with you!” Finn growled, glaring at him. “Get off her! Now!”
“Finn, can’t we just talk about this?” The girl tried to sound sultry and flirty as she took a step closer to Finn, but he didn’t even look at her. “I know how you feel about duty, but there’s got to be some kind of agreement we can come to.”
She took another step closer to him, and he pushed her back, so hard she stumbled and fell backward.
“I hate fighting with you, Finn.” The guy let go of my hands and took his knee off my stomach. I took the opportunity to try to kick him in the nuts, and reflexively he whirled on me and smacked me hard again.
Before I could even curse him for hitting me, Finn was on him. I had rolled onto my side, cradling my injured face, so I could only see part of what was going on.
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