by Fleur Smith
While we walked toward our possible doom, Clay shifted the small knife into a new position in his hands, so that the blade rested along his forearm and he gripped the hilt tightly in his fist. Even though I’d actually caught a glimpse of the weapon, I still couldn’t say what it was. It appeared to be a highly sharpened letter opener with an intricate pattern drawn into the handle.
When we turned the corner to head to the room—one of the ones that had been dark during my first trip to this floor—Ethan loosened the knot on my ropes even further. He released it to the point where I was able to slip my hands completely out of their bindings. Following Clay’s lead, I wrapped the rope around my wrists and held my hands in place behind my back with my palms together.
Once Ethan pushed me into the room, he closed the door behind us. Troy threw a key at him and Ethan used it to lock us in before slipping it into his pocket. Although the lights in the room were all on, they didn’t emit much luminance. The color of the muted glow was an almost sickly yellow, casting long shadows over everything and giving all of the occupants a deathly pallor.
Along the center of the room were a series of chairs, each with what appeared to be chains around the back and shackles around the place where ankles and wrists would naturally rest. In front of each chair stood a small, smooth metal table and behind each one stood something that looked suspiciously like a toolbox. It was the stuff of nightmares and closely resembled what I’d pictured whenever the Rain headquarters had come to mind—far more than the corridors had.
The mental image of Louise chaining me to one of those chairs, of being completely at her mercy, sent a new heat scorching over my body. Forgetting that my hands were supposed to be secured, I absently rubbed the scar around my wrist from where I’d burned off a pair of handcuffs years earlier. I couldn’t do that to the metal chairs—the steel was far too thick and solid. I’d kill myself long before I was free.
Troy forced Mackenzie into one corner of the room before grabbing Fiona and forcing her into one of the chairs, twisting her so that he could secure her arms behind the seatback. Louise headed toward me with an evil smile plastered on her scarred face.
“Welcome to the treatment room,” Ethan said in a quietly menacing voice as he pressed me against one wall. “Sound proof, well-equipped, and with a magnetic field that renders all electronic devices useless.”
Almost the instant his words stopped, he twisted and grabbed Louise around her waist. In the same move, he shoved her away from me and pinned her against the wall. Seeing his brother making the stand that would show everyone whose side he was actually on, Clay dropped the rope in his hands and deftly spun around. He moved behind Ben and wrapped one arm around Ben’s shoulders before lifting the small blade to his throat.
The shock of the move caused Ben’s grip on the gun to loosen and Clay took advantage of the weak moment, grabbing for the weapon while shoving Ben’s back to push him away. Holding the gun level and whipping it quickly between Troy, Abraham, and Ben, Clay moved closer to me before handing the blade back to Ethan.
“Back away from her,” Clay hissed at Troy when he tried to move closer to Fiona.
Troy raised his hands and moved back a step, but he was still within striking distance.
“You’re wrong if you think you’ve got the upper hand,” Abraham said, twisting his arm tighter around Aiden’s head.
Aiden scoffed at him. “You have made a miscalculation if you truly believe any of them will be affected by anything that happens to me.”
I could understand what Aiden was doing, but I hoped he didn’t actually believe what he’d said, because it was wrong. I may not have been in love with him, I might have walked away without a second glance, but I cared whether he lived or died. He’d proven himself to be a worthy friend over and over.
“Nice try, Aiden, but I don’t think anyone believes that,” Clay said.
“It was worth a shot.” Aiden shrugged. “And so is this.”
In a move similar to the one Clay had shown me in our training, he rammed against Abraham’s arm, wrenching his head free of the hold. Then he spun around, twisting his arms away from his body in one fluid movement.
The rope fell away free from his hands, but he caught it at the last moment. Almost quicker than my eyes could watch, he knotted it around Abraham’s arms. With Abraham caught, Aiden grabbed the radio from Abraham’s pocket and smashed it against the ground.
Ethan unlocked the door and the other three fae raced in to help Fiona, Mackenzie, and Aiden. Fiona stood quickly from the chair and raced to Mackenzie who stared around the room, slack-jawed, as her body tremored.
Aiden and the three other fae guards moved to Ben, sidestepping to stop him from getting past, and forcing him backward until they had trapped him in a corner. Once Ben was subdued, Aiden secured his arms with rope as well.
“St Johns Wart? Honestly?” Aiden said to Ethan with his crooked eyebrow raised.
Ethan smirked as one shoulder lifted. “Well, it might have worked. If they were actually soaked in it.”
“So this was a double cross?” Abraham asked Ethan in disgust. “Is there no good left in either of you?”
“Technically, it was a triple cross.” Ethan laughed. He was having way too much fun.
“Besides, good or bad depends entirely on your viewpoint,” Clay said. “And your viewpoint is wrong.”
Troy glared at Ethan. “I knew we’d lost your brother, but I can’t believe you would turn your back on us for this filth.”
Ethan’s jaw set rigidly. “Why not? After all, I am one of this filth, aren’t I? Aren’t we all? You know us best, Dad, so let’s get it all out on the table, shall we?”
“What are you talking about, Eth?” Louise’s voice was small as she asked the question. A pang of pity raced through me. She didn’t ask for the hand she’d been dealt in her life. In fact, if her father had been slightly less prejudiced, she might have had a completely different view—she certainly would have suffered less.
“Why don’t you tell her, Dad?” Clay spat.
Troy opened his mouth to speak, but Fiona cut him off. Her voice was soft and soothing as she spoke the words that were almost certain to drive Louise into madness. “I’m their mother. Your mother.”
She took a small step closer, but stopped at the alarmed expression on Louise’s face.
“No,” Louise said, shaking her head fiercely. “That’s a lie.”
Ethan loosened his hold on her a little and grabbed her face, twisting her gaze to him. “Look at her, Lou. Don’t you remember her at all?”
Louise’s eyes turned to Fiona, and once she’d seen what Ethan meant, her breath hitched and she screwed her eyes shut. “No, she can’t be,” she said, but with less conviction than before.
“Even if you don’t remember her just look, you’re the spitting image of her.”
Louise sank to the floor, clutching her head. “It can’t be true. I’m not . . . I’m not . . .” Her breath hitched again, and she began to hyperventilate. Her gaze swung wildly between Fiona and Mackenzie, and I wondered whether she was finally seeing the resemblance that had been right in front of her all along.
Ethan knelt in front of her and tenderly stroked her hair as sobs wracked her thin frame. Troy started to move forward, but Clay raised the gun and shook his head.
“Tell her what really happened,” Clay said venomously. “She deserves to know the truth.”
“The truth about what?” Troy’s response held no concern or apology.
“About her past. About why she woke screaming in the middle of the night for years. About the reason she had to suffer so much agony. Tell her what you did to her!” By the end of the sentence, Clay’s voice rang with hysterical rage.
“We didn’t do anything,” Troy said.
“She’s suffered for years because of you. It isn’t her imagination,” Clay seethed. “She’s relived it over and over again. Her pain and tears weren’t my imagination.”
T
roy shook his head. “Everything that I did, I did to get my daughter back.”
“She was your fucking daughter!” Clay shouted.
Louise stood up and faced Troy. Her face was stained with tears, the stress she was under made the skin around the scar tissue running down the length of her face grow redder, making her scars appear angrier than usual. “What am I, Daddy?”
I recalled a similar conversation with my own father. It was almost as if I’d slipped back in time almost seven years and was witnessing my own history repeating itself—with one key difference. Even though he hadn’t told me everything, my dad had always treated me as if I was the most important person in the world. He had never filled me with hate or prejudice or allowed any harm to come to me. He’d definitely never tortured me for information that I didn’t have.
Looking back with a new perspective of what our life had been like, it was easy to see how blessed I was to have had him caring for me for over nineteen years. I only hoped that if anything were to happen to me, Clay would be there for my child the way that Dad had been for me.
Louise advanced on Troy, demanding that he tell her the truth.
“I didn’t know what she was.” Troy indicated Fiona with his arm. “I thought we were happy; I thought we were normal. I thought she was human. It all went to hell the day I came home and found you playing on the fucking ceiling. What was I supposed to think?”
Louise, Clay, and Ethan all stood still, absorbed in the story. Clay had heard it from Fiona’s side, but based on the expression on his face hearing it from his father cemented it into reality. Troy stepped closer to Louise and Ethan. The gun in Clay’s hand lowered a little as the tale stole his attention. I could see his stance softening and couldn’t help worrying whether that might have been part of Troy’s plan.
“She told me what she was, but I didn’t believe her. I grew convinced a doppelganger had broken into our house and taken my wife. In fact, I was so convinced of it, I packed you guys up, and we left. All of my life I’d learned how dangerous fae were, so keeping Ethan and Clay safe was my number one priority. My other priority was getting back my wife and daughter.”
“How long was it before you realized that she wasn’t a changeling?” I asked.
Troy turned on me, his face etched with hatred. “This is your fault! If you hadn’t turned my son against his family, this would never have come out.” He made a menacing move in my direction. “You ruined their lives!”
“Don’t!” Clay warned, shaking off the spell he was under and lifting the gun in his hands again. He held the weapon steady, aiming it squarely between his father’s eyes. There wasn’t a trace of remorse on his features as he slowly moved around to clear a path between us and the door. “I think we’ve heard enough. It’s time to go.”
“You’re not leaving,” Abraham protested.
“You’re hardly in any position to make demands,” Aiden said.
“How do you expect to get past security?” Ben asked in his father’s stead.
“That’s our concern,” Ethan said.
Louise let out a terrible death cry, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
“You tortured me!” she screamed as she advanced on Troy with a look of murderous intent on her face. It was almost as if something had clicked into place in her head—maybe suppressed memories were rushing to the surface now that she knew the truth. I had no idea what had caused it exactly, but the look in her eyes was downright deadly. “How could you do those things to me? I was just a child!”
“Get her out of here!” Clay yelled to Ethan. “Evie, Fiona, Mackenzie, I want all of you out too.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” I insisted.
“Don’t argue with me,” he spoke tightly between clenched teeth. “Just go! I don’t want you to have to live with the memory of what comes next.”
Troy leaped forward. “Clay, don’t do this. Don’t let them go. You have to see how wrong they are—just look at the damage all of those creatures have done already. We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for fae trickery.”
“Do not push me,” he hissed. “You’ve done more damage than any of them. More than enough already. And they are not creatures!” The last part was issued in such a feral growl that I was surprised Troy didn’t take the hint and back away.
“Everything I did was for you. For our family. I did it so that you didn’t have to be freaks.”
“I don’t care! You’re the one that destroyed our family, and it’s time you owned up to it,” Clay said. “You are dead to me.”
Understanding that Clay needed this—needed to do whatever was going to happen next to put the demons of guilt to bed once and for all—I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Just be careful.”
I only hoped that he wouldn’t do anything that he’d regret later.
Ethan wrapped his arms around Louise’s shoulder. Ensuring that all of the Rain members were secured and unable to make a break for it, Ethan unlocked the door. When he went to guide Louise through it, something forced him back into the room.
“What the hell?” he said.
Disembodied laughter echoed off the walls around us.
I closed my eyes as I recognized the sound. “Not now!” I cried.
A moment later, a dark, looming figure came out of the shadows from a corner of the room. Where there had previously been empty space, a tall man stood dressed in a long, hooded cloak. He ripped the cloak off to reveal a suit as black as night with a pressed white shirt underneath. For only the second time ever, I was able to get a proper look at him.
Surprisingly, some aspects of his features were reminiscent of the fae, but others seemed to be almost the inverse. Instead of being bright and full of light, his eyes were milky-gray cesspools that seemed to suck all of the surrounding energy into them. The way the dark suit seemed to cling tightly to his thin frame made him appear otherworldly. He’d slicked his jet-black hair back into a ponytail that hung low on his back. His appearance caused my stomach to twist with unease and seemed to sap the very life from the air. I moved closer to Clay for support.
“The shadow,” I whispered to him.
“No,” Clay said with a confused tone. When he continued, his voice was darker, traced with every part of his voice. “He’s not a shadow person. He’s fae.”
“Thank you for clearing the way for me,” he said, glancing between Clay and me with a twisted smile on his lips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TO MY SURPRISE, Clay’s father was the first to speak. “Caelan, what are you doing here? This has nothing to do with you.”
The man—the shadow person who wasn’t actually a shadow person—who Troy had identified as Caelan, laughed again. The sound sent chills racing down my spine and made me think of Zarita and our confrontation in the forest.
“Are you trying to be amusing, Troy? You stole my daughter, caged her, and held her captive, and yet you think it has nothing to do with me.” He smiled at Mackenzie. “Everything will be perfect now, sweetie. Daddy’s here.”
His daughter?
“No!” Fiona cried, jumping forward toward Caelan. “You leave her out of this!”
“Oh, Fiona, darling, how could I have forgotten your part in this?”
“She’s part of the Seelie court, Caelan,” Fiona cried. “She was assigned as a healer; a force for good. She will never join the Unseelies.”
My mind twisted as I struggled to keep up with the influx of information. Fiona and Caelan? They were Mackenzie’s parents? Could he be the Unseelie in Fiona’s stories?
“Is that not my choice, mother?” Mackenzie asked, shifting away from Ethan and distancing herself from our little group. She didn’t rush to Caelan’s side though, Instead, she wavered somewhere in the middle, uncertain of her next action.
I saw Clay trying desperately to keep Troy at bay and knew that the farther our little group separated, the harder it would be for us to escape smoothly. As if they saw it too, Aiden and the thre
e other fae he led moved to Clay’s side and raised their weapons as well. Troy looked at them all, disgust clear in his eyes and in the twist of his lips.
“You have no right to choose my life for me, Mother,” Mackenzie said, shifting closer to Caelan. “You have no right to decide with whom I spend my time!”
Caelan’s mouth twisted up into a sadistic smile. “Like mother, like daughter, is that not right, Fifi?”
“Do not call me that,” Fiona rebuked. “You lost the right to use those terms years ago!”
Caelan sighed with impatience. “Are we really going to do this here, dear? In front of all these lovely people?” He began to circle the room, edging closer to Mackenzie.
I wanted to protect her. I’d seen what he was capable of. Visions of Zarita’s death flashed through my mind, and my palms heated. I would make him pay for what he’d done, but I had to wait. Mackenzie didn’t need to see that, and I didn’t need to prove myself a threat to Ethan or Louise.
“Are you really going to tell them all the story of woe about leaving your true love behind for a human, just to run back to my arms after screwing him over? How about the fun fact of leaving your fledglings in the arms of a man whose life revolves around the eradication of us fae? Or begging me to help you get them back, so that we could have a family together before stealing my child away before I even had a chance to know her?”
“You are sadistic,” Fiona said. “I could never love you.”
“You loved me once, just as I loved you,” Caelan said.
“You do not have the capacity to love,” Fiona spat.
“That is untrue!” Spittle flew from him as he clenched his fists and shouted. With one deep breath, he calmed himself. His next words were spoken with a quiet menace that chilled my blood. “I loved my daughter. All I wanted was for her to be just like me. You stole that chance away from me. Well, you tried to, until she found me. Did you know that? Did you concern yourself enough to query her on why she was leaving your court? She came to my court in search of me, as she wanted to know her daddy. Oh, but once you found out that she was going anywhere alone, you had to put a stop to that, did you not?”