Starren rolled her eyes. Good thing she couldn’t read minds. At least I hoped she couldn’t.
“Cray, do you feel him?” Starren asked.
Crap. That could be bad. Shoulda thought of that.
Cray looked at me, eyes wide. I gave him a slight shake of my head.
He pretended to concentrate for a minute, or at least I hoped he was pretending. He better not give me up. “Maybe this way?” he made it more of a question than a statement. Good thinking. He wasn’t lying.
“Lead the way, just don’t get too close,” Starren said.
Cray walked past her, hopefully leading us on a wild goose chase until I could figure out a way to get Starren to let me go somewhere on my own. Not like I could pretend to sprain my ankle. Wait. Food.
I waited a block so I didn’t annoy her right away again. “Starren, I have to eat soon.”
Starren growled something under her breath. “Are you a small child? You’ve been acting like one all day. I think you can wait a bit to get something to eat.”
“We still don’t know why the Council is after him,” I said. Even though I’d do what I had to, that wasn’t sitting well with me. So far all I’d seen is that he wanted to be with his family. I definitely couldn’t fault him for that. Maybe if I planted some doubt it would help him in the long run. “I can’t help it. My metabolism runs too fast.”
“She probably is incredibly hungry, Star,” Wade said. “It’s the regenerating fae’s weakness. I did some research after I’d found out Trish was still here.”
Great. So now he probably knew different ways to kill me. Oh well, we were almost done. After today, once I’d led them to Jaden, I’d be finished with the fae and I’d never have to see this guy again. Any of them again. A pang hit me. Did I really not want to see any of them again? Wade was watching me out of the corner of his eye. I didn’t smile, but I didn’t glare either. He had just stood up to Starren for me, which was back to something a boyfriend would do. So confusing!
“Fine. Get something to eat. Try to find us after. Cray, Wade.” She took off again, body rigid. Whew boy, good thing I was bringing Jaden back with me, otherwise I’d be afraid to show my face. Handing him over would make up for whatever else I had to do in the next few hours. Hopefully. That or she’d run her sword through me, just to make herself feel better. Oh well, it definitely wouldn’t feel good, but I’d get over it.
The others were gone quickly. I moseyed off for a minute or so to make sure they were gone, then headed for Jaden’s house at a good clip. My stomach rumbled as I trotted along, showing that I’d been telling the truth when I’d told her I was hungry. Not hard. I was always hungry.
It took me a lot longer than it should have, but I found the place. I let myself into the house quietly. Just relay his message, grab him and go. No reason to get involved. The murmur of voices came from the back room. I headed that way, pausing to catch a look at pictures every few feet. Most of them were of Jaden with the little girl that had been watching TV earlier and a girl who looked like she was between the two of them in age. They looked so happy. A real family. How was any of this fair? Some of us didn’t start out with a family in the first place, some of us were torn away from them.
The house was neat and somewhat sparse. It didn’t look like the family had much money, or maybe hadn’t lived here long. Which made sense, with everyone thinking they were somewhere in California. There wasn’t much, but everything was well taken care of. Someone ahead of me laughed.
The noise was coming from the kitchen. I peeked around the hallway corner. The two girls from the picture were there, with a woman about Nina’s age who looked nothing like Jaden. The kids must have gotten the dark looks from their dad. She was sitting at the table, paying bills. There was Jaden, standing behind the little girl as she colored. The teen leaned against the counter, working on a piece of pizza. My stomach growled. I clapped a hand over it, trying to distract myself. Luckily no one seemed to hear it.
The little girl cocked her head my way for a second, then went back to coloring. The lady and the other girl just kept talking. Something about school. Jaden made his way over, headed for the back door and gestured for me to follow.
I stepped around the corner wall and waited until the voices were loud enough I didn’t think they’d hear the door and slipped out with Jaden. Hopefully he wasn’t about to jump me, I’d ditched my backup. We stepped out into a neat little back yard, the sparse grass clipped, a couple balls on the ground.
“How do you want to do this?” I asked.
“Get my mom alone. First we have to get her to believe you.”
“Got any great ideas for doing that?”
“Yes, just get her out here. Before your friends come back.”
He had a point. We definitely were on a schedule here. And the sooner this mess was done the better. Cray could only stall so long before Starren wanted to come back and check the house. I took a big breath. This should be interesting. I dropped the cover Cumat had taught me to make and made my way to the back door. I rapped on it twice. The noise inside the house stopped.
“I’ll get it,” I heard a woman say. The same voice that had been talking to the girls in the kitchen. She was at the door a few seconds later.
“What can I do for you?” she asked from behind the screen door.
“Mrs. Martan?” So much for sounding sure of myself. That didn’t come out as confident as I would have liked. “Would you mind coming outside for a moment? I need to talk with you.”
“Her name is Rebecca,” Jaden whispered to me. I don’t know why he was whispering, obviously she couldn’t hear him or I wouldn’t be here.
Rebecca looked past me, like she was checking to make sure no one was hiding out here. With the neighborhood they lived in, I didn’t blame her.
“What are you doing in my back yard?” she asked.
Here’s where things would get a little harder to explain. I took a second, trying to come up with something that wouldn’t get the door slammed in my face. Maybe I should have made Jaden be a little more forthcoming before knocking.
“Who is it, Mommy?” a little voice asked.
“Jaime,” Jaden said.
“Just someone who wants to talk. Go finish your picture.” Little footsteps headed back toward the kitchen. Rebecca pushed the screen door. It squealed all the way open.
“What’s this about?” Rebecca asked.
“Jaden.”
She sucked in a breath, took the first couple steps down and let the door bang shut behind her. “Do you know something about his death?”
“Ask her if she knew dad’s secret,” Jaden said.
Great. Start with a secret about the dead husband when I was talking to her about her dead son. Wonderful plan. “Do you know of any secrets your husband was keeping? Not from you, of course, but from everyone else?”
Rebecca’s face went ashen, like she was bleeding out somewhere. She had better not faint. I was bad enough at dealing with my own emotions, let alone someone else’s.
“What are you talking about?”
Okay, so I’d hit a nerve. I’d never been one for tact. “Did your husband tell you where he was really from?”
Her face went smooth as marble. “Milwaukee.” Oh she knew all right, she just didn’t want to be the one to say it out loud.
“Just tell her,” Jaden hissed.
“Well, apparently my parents were from ‘Milwaukee’ too. Anyway, I’m here with Jaden. He wants to talk with you.”
Rebecca’s face went from fake calm to anger. “Jaden’s dead. Supposedly a freak accident, a transformer fell from a pole. I don’t know what you expect to get from me, but I’m not giving it.” She turned to go back into the house. I jumped forward and grabbed her arm, surprising us both. I wasn’t normally big on physical contact.
“Wait, please. Just one moment.”
She paused, keeping her stiff back toward us.
&n
bsp; “Jaden is with me. When we die here, we get sent back to… Milwaukee. We can make it back to Earth in spirit, but not body. Like a ghost, I guess. Kind of.” I wasn’t really clear on this either. “Anyway, he came all this way to talk to you.”
Rebecca spun to face me, making me jump back. She pushed her way into the yard and closed both the screen door and real door behind her. “You had better not be lying to me.”
“Wow,” Jaden said from behind. “You are really good at this.” I glanced over my shoulder his way.
“Shut up. You told me you’d answer the questions.”
“What?” Rebecca asked from behind.
“Not you!” I said. Man, this was getting too complicated.
“Like I said,” Jaden crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Really, so good at this.”
“Hush. Now what do you want me to tell her?” I asked him.
“Nothing until she knows it’s me. Ask her what will convince her.”
I turned to Rebecca. “How can we prove to you that it’s him?”
She thought for a second. “Ask him about Lucy’s birth.”
“I don’t have to ask him,” I said. “He can hear you, you just can’t hear him.”
I waited until Jaden told me his answer, then passed it on. “His dad didn’t trust hospitals so you had her at home. He also didn’t trust anyone else to watch Jaden, so he made him stay. It was torture listening to you scream. Thankfully his father, Thomas, had loosened up a bit before Jaime got here.”
“Jaden?” Rebecca whispered. Her eyes filled with tears. Aw man, this was getting way too sappy for me. I looked over at Jaden. His face was sad, his hand lifted like he wanted to touch her face. Okay, this was so not good for my resolve to take Jaden in and give him to Starren. A person should be able to be with their family, period.
How could anyone do this to a person, fae or not? I reached forward and touched his arm. He jumped like I’d hit him with 1000 volts.
“Please tell her they aren’t safe here,” he said. “We need to move them.”
“Mrs. Martan, Jaden believes you are in danger here. He’d like you to move.”
“Move soon,” Jaden interrupted.
“A.S.A.P.” I added.
“Where?” Rebecca started to look scared instead of mad and incredulous. Progress, I guess. “Where can we go that they won’t find us? We just moved here from California, after both Thomas and Jaden… so close, I was worried and wanted to get away. Why do they want us anyway? And who is doing this to our family?”
“We don’t know why they’re after you exactly.” Not a lie, Jaden had a good idea, just no proof. None that he’d provided anyway. “They took Jaden out because of his fae power. They take all of us back to Faerie for training if we grow up here. Once killed here on Earth, we can only return as a spirit.” Or that was as close to truth as I could figure out anyway.
Rebecca looked at me skeptically. “If they take all of you, then why are you perfectly visible?”
“It didn’t work for me.” I didn’t go into detail. Jaden might not be able to lie, but his mom sure was human enough and humans were expert liars. Sure, I was trying to help them, but that hadn’t stopped people from stabbing me in the back before. She didn’t need to know about my ability. “Do you have somewhere you can go? Someone you can live with where you won’t be found?”
“No, no one.”
The gate around the side squeaked. I pulled my sword and whirled in that direction. Jaden jumped between his mom and the sound. Not sure what he thought he could do, but I wasn’t sure about anything that had happened today.
Cray’s head popped around the wall. “Is it safe?” he whispered loudly.
“Cray?” Obviously, but I was surprised, so give me a break. “How did you get away from Starren?”
“Do you trust this guy?” Jaden asked, like he hadn’t met him in the alley earlier. I guess it was a little different now that we were on his home turf. “I know he’s the one that’s been tracking me. I’ve seen him in my visions.”
“I just want to help,” Cray said.
“Who are you talking to now?” Rebecca asked.
What? Oh, Cray was invisible to her too. Great. Rebecca was looking seriously confused. I didn’t blame her. I was getting there too. I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying for some clarity.
“I was listening,” Cray said, ignoring Rebecca and focusing on me. He spoke so quietly I could barely hear him, there was no way Rebecca could without the enhanced hearing my regenerating gave me. “There is a place, Trisha, a place where they would be safe.” Cray nervously pushed his glasses up his nose, continuing to act like Rebecca wasn’t even here. No doubt he just didn’t know how to deal with her right now. How much interaction had he had with humans? Probably not much, if any. “There are certain spots on Earth where Faerie and your world touch. Fae can’t use their powers there. It is supposed to be a sanctuary, a no fighting zone for the fae. But I don’t know how that works for humans.”
I looked Cray straight in the eye. He held my gaze for a second, then dropped his. How did I know for sure that Starren hadn’t sent him after us by himself? That he hadn’t taken my job as bait? “Tell me again that you just want to help,” I said.
Cray glanced up at my face and then went back to staring at the ground. “I can’t say I only want to help. I’m going against everything I’ve been taught here. Part of me is telling the rest of me I’m doing the wrong thing. But I can tell you that I want this family to be together and I don’t want the Council catching them. That’s the best I can do.”
It was just going to have to be enough. What had happened in Cray’s past that would make him go against the Council and help a family? I’d probably never know. We wouldn’t ever see each other again after today. Hopefully.
“Where is this Sanctuary?”
“What sanctuary?” Rebecca asked. I held up a hand. One crazy conversation at a time.
“In a place they call Mexico. As close as I can figure out.”
“Mexico?” I said.
“What about Mexico?” Rebecca asked.
Okay, this was getting way too confusing.
“They don’t have passports,” Jaden interjected. “Besides, they wouldn’t have any way of taking care of themselves down there, Mom doesn’t even speak Spanish.”
“What are passports?” Cray asked.
“Crossing into Mexico without passports isn’t that bad. They just wouldn’t be able to come back very easily, and they don’t want to do that anyway. Get them on their way and they will be somewhere safe by tonight.” And I’d have Jaden turned in. This whole mess would be over with.
“No way you’re sending my family to Mexico. Do you have any idea how much trouble they could get in?” Jaden said. “Have you been down there? Some of those places are crazy. Not to mention lack of medical facilities. And that’s a problem because-”
“But think of the trouble if they stay,” I stopped him. “We just need to get them out of here.”
“Is there another place, Cray?” Jaden asked, frowning in my direction. “Mexico won’t work, Jaime needs-”
“What?” Rebecca asked, interrupting Jaden and not knowing it. Poor lady, this whole conversation had to be terribly confusing, even worse than it was for me.
“Cray, I need you to drop the charm and come over here.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “Really, Rebecca isn’t going to do anything, and it will help this conversation a lot.”
Cray sighed and let the charm go. I saw a little shiver of air, like a fire before you can see the flames. Rebecca took a step back toward the house and let out a little squeak.
“Rebecca, this is Cray. Cray, Rebecca. He’s trying to help us.”
Rebecca squinted at him a second and then glanced around. “How many more of you are here right now?”
“None. It’s just Cray, Jaden and me at the moment. Cray found a place in Mexico wh
ere you would be safe, but Jaden would rather keep you out of Mexico.” I turned to Cray. “Know of anywhere else?”
“Hurry it up,” Jaden said, moving over by the gate. “Your friends are persistent. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up here any time. We need a plan.”
Cray closed his eyes for a minute. “There is another place. It’s called The Fort of Wayne, Indiana. You know it?”
“Does it have dialysis?” Jaden asked. “It has to have a dialysis center.”
“What’s that?” Cray asked.
“What’s what?” Rebecca asked. She sounded like she was starting to get frustrated.
“Dialysis is where they take the blood out of your body, clean it and put it back in,” I told Cray.
His face tightened in horror. “Take out your blood?”
“How did we get from talking about Fort Wayne to dialysis?” Rebecca asked.
“Jaden says make sure where we take you because…”
“Jaime,” he interrupted.
“Because Jaime needs it,” I said. The kid? I thought dialysis was for old people. I felt a slight pang of guilt. She’d been through so much for a kid her age.
“Jaden?” Rebecca whispered. Ah no, she was starting to tear up, like she was just now believing that he was here. What did I do with this?
“Does she have carinin?” Cray asked. “This Jaime?”
“Carinin? What’s that?” Rebecca sniffed and used a thumb to swipe away a tear.
Cray scrunched his face up like he was thinking. He gave up. “I’m not sure what you humans call it. It can happen when fae and human have children. One of the reasons we aren’t supposed to intermarry. It is a disease that affects the blood.”
“That might be it,” Rebecca said. “Doctors here didn’t really seem to know what it was.” Her face lit up. “Is there a cure?”
Cray looked like a deer in the headlights all of the sudden. He probably didn’t want to disappoint her. Not when she’d been crying a second ago. “Not that I know of.”
Rebecca sighed and her shoulders slumped, but she didn’t look surprised. “I didn’t really expect you to have a good answer. It doesn’t sound like the fae have to worry about doctors very often.”
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