Switched

by Amanda Hocking

  My attacker had managed to get to his feet, but I could hear the sounds of Finn punching him. The girl leaped on his back to stop him, but Finn elbowed her in the face. She collapsed to the ground, holding her bleeding nose.

  “Enough!” The guy had cowered down, his arms shielding his face against any more blows. “We’re done! We’ll get out of here!”

  “You better fucking get out of here,” Finn shouted. “If I see you anywhere near her again, I will kill you!”

  The guy walked over to the girl and helped her to her feet, then they both headed down the street to a black SUV parked at the end of the block. Finn stood on the sidewalk in front of me, watching them until they got in and sped off.

  A moment later, he knelt down next to me where I was lying on the ground. He placed his hand on my cheek where I had been slapped. The skin was tender, so it stung a little, but I refused to show it. His hand felt too good to push away.

  His dark eyes were pained when he looked me over, and as terrible as everything had been up until this moment, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything because it led to this, to him touching me and looking at me like that.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long.” He pursed his lips, clearly blaming himself for not getting here sooner. “I was sleeping, and I didn’t wake up until you were completely panicked.”

  “You sleep in your clothes?” I asked, looking at his usual dark jeans and button-down shirt combo.

  “Sometimes.” Finn pulled his hand from my face. “I knew something was up today. I could feel it, but I couldn’t pinpoint it because I couldn’t stay as close to you as I would’ve liked. I never should’ve slept at all.”

  “No, you can’t blame yourself. It was my fault for coming out of my room.”

  “What were you doing out here?” Finn looked at me curiously, and I looked away, feeling embarrassed.

  “I thought I saw you,” I admitted quietly, and his face went dark.

  “I should’ve been here,” he said, almost under his breath, and then he got to his feet. He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. I grimaced a little but tried not to show it. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I forced a smile. “A little sore, but fine.”

  He touched my cheek again, just with his fingertips, sending flutters through me. He studied my injury intently, and then his eyes met mine, dark and wonderful. It was at that moment that I knew I had officially fallen for him.

  “You’re going to have a bruise,” Finn murmured, dropping his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I insisted. “It’s mine. I was being an idiot. I should’ve known . . .” I trailed off. I had been about to say that I should’ve known it was dangerous, but how could I have possibly known that? I had no idea who those people were. “Who were they? What did they want?”

  “Vittra,” Finn growled, glaring down the road as if they would appear at the sound of their name. He tensed up as he scanned the horizon, then put his hand on the small of my back to usher me away. “Come on. I’ll explain more in the car.”

  “The car?” I stopped where I was, making him press his palm harder on my back until he realized I wasn’t going anywhere. His hand stayed there, and I had to ignore the small pleasure of it so I could argue with him. “I’m not going in the car. I have to go home before Matt realizes I’m gone.”

  “You can’t go back there,” Finn said, apologetic but firm. “I’m sorry. I know this is directly against your wishes, but it’s not safe for you there anymore. The Vittra have found you. I will not leave you here.”

  “I don’t even understand what this Vittra is, and Matt is . . .” I shifted uncomfortably and looked backed toward my house.

  Matt was tough, as far as people went, but I wasn’t sure what kind of match he would be for the guy who attacked me. And even if he could take him, I didn’t want to bring that element into the house. If something happened to Matt or Maggie because of me, I could never forgive myself.

  Red and blue lights lit up the neighborhood as a police car drew near. The neighbors must’ve called the cops when they heard me fighting with the trackers. It apparently hadn’t sounded dangerous enough to warrant sirens, but the lights were flashing a block away.

  “Wendy, we must hurry,” Finn insisted. The police expedited his urgency, so I nodded and let him take me away.

  Apparently he’d run to my rescue this morning, because his car was still parked at his house two blocks away. We jogged toward it, but when the cop car got closer, we ducked behind a shed to hide.

  “This is going to break Matt’s heart,” I whispered as we waited for the police to pass us.

  “He’d want you to be safe,” Finn assured me, and he was right. But Matt wouldn’t know I was safe. He wouldn’t know anything about me.

  Once Finn was certain we were in the clear, we stepped out from behind the shed and hurried on to his car.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” I asked.

  “Why?” Finn kept glancing around as we approached his car. He pulled his keys from his pocket and used the remote to unlock it.

  “I need to call Matt and let him know that I’m okay,” I said. Finn held the passenger door open while I got inside. As soon as he got in the driver’s seat, I turned to him. “Well? Can I call him?”

  “You really want to?” Finn asked as he started the car.

  “Yes, of course I do! Why is that so surprising?”

  Finn threw the car in gear and sped off down the road. The whole town was still asleep, except for us and the neighbors we’d awoken. He glanced over at me, debating. Finally, he dug in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

  “Thank you.” I smiled gratefully at him.

  When I started dialing the phone, my hands shook, and I felt sick. This was going to be the hardest conversation of my life. I held the phone to my ear, listening to it ring, and I tried to slow my breathing.

  “Hello?” Matt answered the phone groggily. He clearly hadn’t woken up yet, so he must not know I was gone. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Matt?”

  “Wendy?” Matt instantly sounded alert, panic in his voice. “Where are you? What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” My cheek still hurt, but I was fine. Even if I wasn’t, I couldn’t tell him that. “Um, I’m calling because . . . I’m leaving, and I wanted you to know that I’m safe.”

  “What do you mean, you’re leaving?” Matt asked. I could hear him open his door, and then the bang of my bedroom door being thrown open. “Where are you, Wendy? You need to come home right now!”

  “I can’t, Matt.” I rubbed my forehead and let out a shaky breath.

  “Why? Does somebody have you? Did Finn take you?” Matt demanded. In the background, I could hear Maggie asking questions. He must have woken her up with all the commotion. “I’ll kill that little bastard if he lays one hand on you.”

  “Yeah, I’m with Finn, but it’s not like you think,” I said thickly. “I wish I could explain everything to you, but I can’t. He’s taking care of me, though. He’s making sure I’m safe.”

  “Safe from what?” Matt snapped. “I take care of you! Why are you doing this?” He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “If we’re doing something wrong, we can change it, Wendy. You just need to come home, right now.” His voice was cracking, and it broke my heart. “Please, Wendy.”

  “You’re not doing anything wrong.” Silent tears slid down my face, and I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “You didn’t do anything. This isn’t about you or Maggie, honest. I love you guys, and I would take you with me if I could. But I can’t.”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘can’t’? Is he forcing you? Tell me where you are so I can call the police.”

  “He’s not forcing me, Matt.” I sighed and wondered if this phone call had been a bad idea. Maybe I just made it worse for him
. “Please don’t try and find me. You won’t be able to, and I don’t want you to. I just wanted you to know that I’m safe and that I love you and you never did anything wrong. Okay? I just want you to be happy.”

  “Wendy, why are you talking like that?” Matt sounded more afraid than I had ever heard him before, and I couldn’t be certain, but I think he’d started to cry. “You sound like you’re never coming back. You can’t leave forever. You . . . Whatever is going on, I can take care of it. I’ll do whatever I have to do. Just come back, Wendy.”

  “I’m so sorry, Matt, but I can’t.” I wiped at my eyes and shook my head. “I’ll call you again if I can. But if you don’t hear from me, don’t worry. I’m okay.”

  “Wendy! Stop talking like that!” Matt shouted. “You need to come back here! Wendy!”

  “Good-bye, Matt.” I hung up to the sound of him yelling my name.

  I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this was the only thing I could do. It was the only way that I could keep them safe, and it was the safest thing for me, which was exactly what Matt would want.

  If he knew what was going on, he would agree with this completely. It didn’t change the fact that it was absolute torture to say good-bye to him like that. Hearing his pain and frustration so evident over the phone . . .

  “Hey, Wendy. You did the right thing,” Finn assured me, but I just sniffled.

  He reached over and took my hand, squeezing it lightly. Ordinarily I would’ve been delighted by that, but right now it took everything I had to keep from sobbing or throwing up. I wiped at my tears, but I couldn’t seem to stop crying.

  Finn pulled over to the side of the road. “Come here,” he said gently. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him. I rested my head against his shoulder, and he held me tightly to him.

  SEVEN

  förening

  Taking a deep breath, I finally managed to stop crying. Even though Finn no longer had his arm around me, we still sat so close we were practically touching. When I looked at him, he seemed to become aware of this and moved his arm farther away.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Who were those people? Why did we have to run away?”

  Finn looked at me for a moment, then pulled back on the road and took a breath. “That is a very long answer, one that is best explained by your mother.”

  “My mother?” I didn’t understand what more Kim would know about this, then I realized he meant my real mother. “We’re going to see her? Where is she? Where are we going?”

  “Förening,” Finn explained. “It’s where I live—where you’ll live.” He gave a small smile, meant to ease my concerns, and it did, a little. “Unfortunately, it’s about a seven-hour drive.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s in Minnesota, along the Mississippi River in a very secluded area,” Finn said.

  “So what is this Förening place we’re going to?” I asked, watching him.

  “It’s a town, sort of,” Finn said. “They consider it to be more of a compound, but in the way the Kennedys have a compound. It’s just a glorified gated community, really.”

  “So do people live there too? Humans, I mean.” I was already wondering if I could bring Matt along with me.

  “Not in the sense you’re talking about.” He hesitated before he continued, and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “It’s entirely Trylle, trackers, and mänsklig. There are about five thousand who live there in total, and we have gas stations, a small grocery store, and a school. It’s just a very small, quiet community.”

  “Holy hell.” My eyes widened. “You mean there’s just a whole town of . . . trolls? In Minnesota? And nobody ever noticed?”

  “We live very quietly,” Finn reiterated. “And there are ways to make people not notice.”

  “You sound like you’re in the Mafia,” I commented, and Finn smiled crookedly. “Do you guys make people sleep with the fishes or something?”

  “Persuasion is a very powerful ability,” he said, and his smile disappeared.

  “So you have persuasion?” I asked carefully. Something seemed to upset him, and as I expected, he shook his head. “Why not?”

  “I’m a tracker. Our abilities are different.” He glanced over at me, and, sensing that I would just ask more questions, he went on. “They’re more suited for tracking, obviously. Persuasion isn’t particularly useful in that arena.”

  “What is useful?” I pressed, and he sighed wearily.

  “It’s hard to explain. They’re not even real abilities in the sense of the word.” His jaw ticked, and he shifted in his seat. “It’s more instinct and intuition. Like the way a bloodhound follows a scent, except it’s not actually something I can smell. It’s just something I know.” He looked over to see if I was getting it, but I just stared at him blankly.

  “For example, when you went to visit that woman the other night”—that woman being someone who I had thought was my mother my entire life—“I knew you were far away, and I knew something was distressing you.”

  “You can tell when I’m upset? Even when you’re not around me?” I asked.

  Finn nodded. “As long as I’m tracking you, yes.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t psychic,” I muttered. “Being able to know my feelings sounds awfully psychic to me.”

  “No, I said I couldn’t read minds, and I can’t.” Then, with an exasperated sigh, he added, “I never have any idea what you’re thinking.

  “I can’t even tell everything you’re feeling,” he went on. “Just distress and fear. I need to be alert to situations when you’re in danger so I can help you. My job is to keep you safe and bring you home.”

  “How do you know how to track people like me? Before you find us, I mean.”

  “Your mother has things from when you were a baby. A lock of hair usually,” Finn elaborated. “I get a vibe from that, and the parents usually have a general idea where you are. Once I’m around you, I start to get a real scent of you, and that’s it.”

  An odd warmth filled my chest. My mother had things from me. Kim had never treasured anything about me, but someone out there had. She had taken a lock of hair when I was born and kept it safe all these years.

  “Is that why you stared at me all the time? Because you were feeling this . . . this vibe?” I thought of the way his eyes were always on me, and the way I could never make sense of his expression.

  “Yes.” There was something about his answer—he wasn’t lying exactly, but he was holding something back. I thought about pressing him further but there were so many other things I wanted to know.

  “So . . . how often do you do this?”

  “You are my eleventh.” He looked at me to gauge my response, so I kept my face as expressionless as possible.

  I was a little surprised by his answer. It seemed like an incredibly time-consuming process, for one thing. And he seemed fairly young to have done it eleven times. Plus, it was unnerving to think there were that many changelings out there.

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Since I was fifteen,” Finn answered.

  “Fifteen? No way.” I shook my head. “So you’re trying to tell me that at fifteen years old, your parents sent you out into the world to track and find kids? And these kids, they trusted you and believed you?”

  “I’m very good at what I do,” Finn replied matter-of-factly.

  “Still. That just seems . . . unreal.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “Did they all come back with you?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said simply.

  “Do they always? With all the trackers, I mean?”

  “No, they don’t. They usually do, but not always.”

  “But they always do with you?” I persisted.

  “Yes.” Finn looked over at me again. “Why do you find it so hard to believe?”

  “I find this all hard to believe.” I tried to pinpoint what was bothering me. “Wait. You were fifteen
? That means that you were never . . . you weren’t a changeling. So not all Trylle begin life as changelings? How does this work?”

  “Trackers are never changelings.” He rubbed the back of his neck and pursed his lips. “I think it’s best if your mother explains the changelings to you.”

  “How come trackers aren’t ever changelings?” I questioned.

  “We need to spend our lives being trained to be a tracker,” Finn said. “And our youth is an asset. It’s much easier to get close to a teenager when you are a teenager than it is when you’re forty.”

  “A big part of what you do is building trust.” I eyed him with renewed suspicion.

  “Yes, it is,” Finn admitted.

  “So at the dance, when you were being a total dick to me. That was you building trust?”

  For a split second he looked pained, then his normal emotionless expression returned. “No. That was me putting a distance between us. I shouldn’t have asked you to dance. I was trying to correct the error. I needed you to trust me, but anything more would be misleading.”

  Everything that had transpired between us had just been because he was trying to get me to the compound. He had been keeping me safe, getting me to like him, and when he noticed my crush developing, he had tried to put me in my place. It stung painfully, so I just swallowed hard and stared out the window.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” Finn said quietly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I replied icily. “You were just doing your job.”

  “I know that you’re being facetious, but I was.” He paused. “I still am.”

  “Well, you’re very good at it.” I crossed my arms and continued to stare out the window.

  I didn’t feel much like talking anymore. There were still a million questions I had about everything, but I’d rather wait and talk to somebody else, anybody else. I thought I would be too anxious and excited to sleep, but after about an hour into the drive, I started nodding off. I fought to stay awake until I realized the ride would go quicker if I just slept.