Regen

by Cassie Greutman

  “He’d already been at the house with Trish,” Jaden said. “I figured it’d be better if I got him to help us than to let him chase us.”

  “Why were they chasing you?” Rebecca asked Jaden, her face wet. Shoot, I’d thought it was only my mom crying that bothered me.

  “How long were you in Chicago? You were supposed to be in school. And you never told me how you got there in the first place,” Nina said. Shoot. Nailed again.

  “Portals. Fae have portals,” Jaden answered for me.

  “Like zap you back and forth portals?” Nina looked from me to Jaden back to me. “Why didn’t you use them today?”

  “I got kicked off the team I was on because I was secretly helping Jaden,” I said.

  “What? Are they after you now too?” Her voice went to a pitch I’d never heard from her before. But it would be scary, not knowing anything about the fae and wondering if they were after you.

  “Oh, no. They don’t know I was helping Jaden,” I said, trying to ease her fear a little. “I was just so unhelpful they got rid of me.”

  She sighed, looking slightly relieved. Slightly. “How does this team affect us?”

  “It doesn’t.” At least I hoped it didn’t. I didn’t want her knowing what kind of person I was, that I would give Jaden back to the fae. Hopefully she would never see that side of me. Though Jaden’s transfer had just gotten a lot more complicated. Was the airport inside city limits? Someone might notice if he got on the plane and didn’t get off, even if he was hiding in the bathroom when he turned invisible again.

  “Let’s find a hotel then. Rebecca, would you like me to drive?”

  “Yes, if you would.” Rebecca snuggled in closer to her kids. It would have been forever if we had to wait on her.

  “What’s going on with this team?” Nina moved over and buckled her seatbelt without looking, her eyes following my every movement like she could find out the truth by staring at me. I buckled my seatbelt too. It was the first time I’d really cared about wearing it, but I felt a little weird right now. More tired than normal. A little achy. “The team, Trisha,” Nina reminded me.

  Shoot, sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to hide things from her anymore. Family told each other stuff, right? “Fae born on Earth are supposed to go back to Faerie to be trained. I never did, and they caught up with me. They said I could get let off the hook if I helped them with some stuff.”

  We rolled back out onto the highway and cruised back up to speed, hardly able to hear each other with the din going on in the back. “Faerie? What kind of place is that? Anything like all the bedtime stories? It’s a rough place if it is.”

  “I’ve never been. But this is what my mom was hiding me from, and if she didn’t want me going back, I don’t think I want to.” Hopefully the reason she left me at Waterton Heights. But I would probably never know.

  “What happened to your mom?”

  “I don’t know. She dropped me off to keep me safe.”

  Nina cocked her head and thought for a second. “And your dad?”

  “Never met him.”

  She kept checking me, like she thought her questions were going to make me cry or something. Like I would cry in here with all these people. “What did these fae have you doing for them?”

  And here was where I had to be careful. “Hunting fae that sneak over into the human world. They’re usually not very nice creatures.”

  “So not all of them look like people?”

  “No.”

  “Were you in danger?” That worried look, now I felt bad. “Are they dangerous? These other fae?”

  “Not really to me.” I shrugged. “Not many things are dangerous to me.”

  “I guess that’s true.” She looked relieved. I guess a self-healing kid would make any parent happy.

  “How long have you been working for them?”

  “Not long. Just since Wade.” I shifted in my seat, trying to take some pressure off my left thigh. When had it started hurting?

  “Since you disappeared for a few days.”

  I shrugged, not really knowing how to answer that. She didn’t seem to expect an answer anyway.

  “Any chance we could not tell Dan about this?”

  She gave me the look.

  I sighed. “Worth a try.”

  Nina cruised along just under the speed limit. Wise, we didn’t really need to get picked up right now. Not with the party going on in the back. And the van still looked like a wreck, even though it was running, so a cop would probably be more inclined to pull us over anyway. “How long will you have to work for them before you’re free?” Nina was looking at me, worry creasing her forehead. I didn’t deserve that worry, not with what I planned to do.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the family getting noisier and noisier behind us. This discussion sucked. “Not long.”

  * * *

  We got into town. Fast food places and a couple hotels flashed by. This seemed like a decent enough city. Several shopping centers and a random car parts store later Nina finally picked a hotel that she thought looked ‘safe but affordable.’ At least we got two rooms, one per family, which meant I got my own bed. It was six o’clock before we were all settled in. Nina kept hugging me and I didn’t have the heart to make her stop. I really wanted to be in the shower. This dried blood was getting itchy.

  Nina and I gave the Martans some time with Jaden, which gave me a chance to get that shower, then went over and crashed in their room. Nina ordered pizza while Rebecca re-checked the address for the dialysis place.

  Jaime slept in Jaden’s lap until the pizza finally arrived. She hadn’t left him for even a second. She was doing a lot of sleeping. Hopefully stress didn’t make the weird fae disease she had worse.

  Lucy passed out pieces of pizza. Jaden tore into his, smearing sauce all over his face, then sending a grin my way. “Real food.” That was the first time I’d ever seen him really smile. Sure, he’d smiled when his family could finally see him, but more of a teary smile. This was all guy grin. And it made my heart pitter patter. Stupid heart.

  “Who’s going to eat this last piece?” Rebecca held up the last box. “Trisha?”

  I groaned. “No.” Normally I would have no problem, but I could hardly move and I’d only eaten half of what I normally did.

  “She already ate most of the large meat lovers,” Nina said, laughing.

  “I’m going to head down to the lobby and get a paper.” Rebecca said. “It should have available apartments in the area. Maybe we can start looking tomorrow.”

  Lucy flicked on the TV and switched channels until she passed America’s Funniest Home Videos.

  “Wait, Lucy, please, can we watch that?” Jaime asked when she passed it by. Her words came out all slurred. I guess she wasn’t as asleep as I thought she was. Or maybe the magic of AFV had brought her back from Dreamland.

  Lucy sighed but switched the channel back. It went to commercial break a minute later. A knock on the door came before the show was back from commercials. We all froze. Another knock.

  Jaden lifted Jaime off his lap, stood and moved toward the door. He reached for his sword that was leaning on the wall and peeked out the window through the curtain. He sighed and reached for the door handle.

  “Sorry,” Rebecca said, pushing her way in. “Forgot my key.”

  I told my muscles to let go, but they wouldn’t listen. Obviously we needed some kind of signal so no one got their head chopped off when they wanted back in the room. We were all going to be tense for a while.

  “I’m going to call Dan,” Nina said and headed for the door.

  Not good. She might try to get us to head home before I had a chance to find a way to get Jaden to Starren. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Every few minutes Jaime would reach over and pat his knee.

  The show came on and Jaime started giggling as some guy fell off a roof. Idiot. I bet he wished he had my ability about the time
he hit the ground, or at least five seconds after.

  “There are quite a few places in here,” Rebecca said, tapping the paper with the junky pen the hotel had left on the end table. “I hope that’s a good sign, not an indication that no one wants to live in this city. Not that we can ever leave now. We’ll be fine, now that we’re a whole family again.” She smiled in Jaden’s direction even though she was talking to me. Her smile faltered. “Mostly whole.”

  I stood and headed for the door. This was not working out. Jaden was the enemy now. I had to think of him that way or I was never going to be able to give him to Starren. All that pizza sat heavy in my stomach. That was why I was feeling sick right now, it had to be. Jaden had promised to let me turn him over, I just needed to get back to D.C., talk to Cumat and have him get a hold of Starren. This whole mess would be done. I could get back to not playing basketball with the girls. Maybe they would still let me hang out with them even if I didn’t play. I could pretend I was really bad at it, that first day just beginner’s luck.

  The door to my room was propped open by the deadbolt on the inside of the door. I walked in and Nina was sitting there on the phone. She was listening to what someone was saying. Probably still Dan. Yuck, like I wanted to listen to them. I figured she’d be done by now. It was all either going to be a re-hash of yesterday and all that happened or lovey-doveyness. Which was worse?

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. Yes, I think we’ll probably head home then. Okay, love you too.”

  Water suddenly sounded good. I walked over to the sink and waited for Nina to say something. She didn’t. Okay, the suspense was killing me, had she told him about me? “So. What did you tell Dan?”

  Nina flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “That we are helping a family move to Fort Wayne and we’ll be home tomorrow. I left out all the weird stuff, and the scary stuff. We can explain that when we get back.”

  “So the only thing you told him about was the boring car ride?”

  “And the flat tire. There’s nothing he can do to help us now, we’re already here. If he heard about what’s been going on, he’d be here in a couple hours. Probably grab one of his friends that can fly and leave before we were off the phone. I don’t want him to bother with that now that everything is under control. We’ll help Rebecca and the kids find a place tomorrow, then we’re headed home.”

  “Sounds good.” Mostly. Except for what I had to do once we made it home.

  She stood, grabbed her pajamas off the bed and moved over to me. “We are going to have quite the discussion though, someday, when you’re ready. You haven’t answered half the questions I have.” She tapped me on the nose again, like I was some little kid. I glared, but I kind of liked it.

  She turned to head to the shower.

  “Nina.” I stopped her.

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her into a quick hug. “Thanks for putting up with me.”

  She hugged me back, tight, then laughed. “You think you’re the first difficult child I’ve raised?”

  I pulled back, seriously confused. She had other kids? “What?”

  “Your aunt Wren.” She smiled. “You should have seen her when she was your age. You’re an angel compared to her.” She squeezed my arm and stepped into the motel room.

  I leaned back against the rail. Nina had raised Aunt Wren? With all the crazy stuff going on with my own family, I’d never thought to ask her about hers. I’d met Dan’s parents once, when they were visiting from Florida, but hadn’t even noticed Nina’s were never mentioned. Was she an orphan too?

  No wonder she knew how to deal with me. When this was over, I was going to ask her about them. Where they were, what had happened. But one thing at a time.

  Nina had said she had lots of questions for later. Hah. Compared to the amount of questions I needed answered, her list couldn’t hold a candle.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A knock on the door nearly sent me flying out of bed. I pulled my sword, then looked at the clock. 6:30. Even if the person on the other side of the door was someone from our group, I was going to kill him or her. Nina groaned on her bed. Obviously she agreed.

  I kept my sword out, flung the sheets off and stalked over to the door. A peek through the window revealed Jaden, looking way too happy for this early in the morning.

  I took a deep breath, willing my body to relax, and leaned my sword back against the wall. He deserved to stand there a minute, for waking me up. I stretched and everything popped, making me groan. If I was feeling like that, Nina must have been feeling it a hundred times worse. To say the beds we’d tried to sleep in weren’t the most comfortable was a massive understatement. But it hadn’t been the bed that had kept me up all night. Stupid conscience.

  The knocking started up again. Nina moved past me, flicked off the lock and opened the door. Of course she could just pop out of bed. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  Jaden nodded at her, then looked at me. “I was wondering if you were interested in going down to the workout room with me for a bit.”

  Workout room. Was that code for he needed to talk?

  “Aren’t you tired from yesterday?” Nina asked. As soon as she said that, the day hit me like a ton of bricks. Wow, I hadn’t even been this tired when I woke up after being dead for a while.

  “A little,” Jaden answered. “But restless. Would it be okay? Just for a half an hour or so?” Why did he have to look so nice standing there? He was at least a foot taller than Nina, and so… nope. Not going there.

  “How sure are we it’s safe?” Nina asked. Could she stop asking that? I’d answered her fifteen times. And I’d proven that I could take care of myself.

  “I’ll be with her the whole time,” Jaden said.

  Nina lifted an eyebrow. I guess him being with me didn’t mean a ton to her, since she didn’t know him. But compared to Wade, he already was a winner.

  “Don’t be gone long.”

  I barely caught it, I was already out the door. What was I so grumpy about? I’d gotten everything I wanted, even better than I’d hoped. Jaden fell into step beside me, his hands in his pockets. That was why. Like it or not, I was going to miss him. That revelation clammed me up. Now I didn’t know what to say to the guy. And he wasn’t being real talkative either.

  The elevator door dinged and we stepped on, riding it down to the basement. Thankfully the sad little workout room was empty, otherwise one of us wouldn’t be able to do anything considering the fact that there were only two machines. And that would have been awkward.

  I hopped on the treadmill and Jaden went for the bike.

  “Kind of weird, thinking that after today we might not see each other again,” I finally said, the silence being more awkward than small talk. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a bad thing if there had been someone else already working out.

  “Oh, we will.” Jaden just kept pedaling.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  That was helpful, thank you, Jaden, for making me feel better. A minute later he stopped and looked straight at me. “We’ll see each other again because I’m going to make sure we do. You’re an unusual girl, Trisha Penchant, and I’d like to get to know you better, outside of emergency circumstances. Someday I’ll find a way back here.”

  My face heated up. I looked away from him, praying he hadn’t noticed. I had way too much stuff to try to figure out right now, I didn’t need to add one more complication. Plus, maybe he was just saying that to make me feel guilty. Trying to convince me not to turn him in. Yeah, I was going to go with that. I slowed down on the machine a bit. Why was this making me tired?

  “You might have to come here to visit though, after I get back. Unless I leave the city and sneak on a plane somewhere else, people might get excited if I disappear into thin air, literally.”

  I rolled my eyes. Why did guys always have the dumbest jokes? “Good lu
ck getting Dan and Nina to say yes to that.” Which was a relief, right? It didn’t really matter anyway. I was going to turn him in. And even if he was trying to be optimistic about it, we both knew he wouldn’t be coming back. The Council was not very forgiving, and it wouldn’t be happy about him disobeying them. They would not be training someone who obviously didn’t bow to their authority. But what did that mean? What would they do to him?

  He was smiling at me, even though I was about to ruin everything. But it didn’t matter. I was turning him in. Wasn’t I? I had to. Didn’t I? What would happen to him? I looked into his intense brown eyes and nearly melted.

  “I bet Nina would come with you. To visit, I mean. She seems to be getting along with my mom really well.” He kept going with the make believe that we both knew would never happen. But he was right. She probably would, if something weird happened and he did make it back. Awkward. There was a whole lot of awkward in the last few minutes. “Trish…” Jaden’s voice trailed off.

  “Hmm?” This was the first time he’d ever not come right out and said something.

  “What do you think about staying here? In Sanctuary?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I hadn’t thought about it at all. I have Dan and Nina.”

  “Nina seems like a great person, but you’d be much safer here. And around other fae. I think you should at least consider it. Mom would let you stay with them. I already talked to her.”

  “I think you’re forgetting about our deal. I’ll be perfectly safe as soon as I turn you in.”

  Jaden’s face dropped and he got quiet. We moved in silence for a minute.

  “No. I didn’t forget. You never really told me what your deal covered. I’m glad things will be better for you. Really. But this time with my family has just been so amazing. I guess I… never mind. I’ll do whatever you ask. You’re the only reason my family got here alive.”

  Manipulating me. That’s what he was doing. I’d held up my end, he was going to hold up his. I glanced at him for second, my heart pattering at the sight of him staring off into space. I was going to. I had to. I reached forward and hit the power button, letting the belt coast to a stop before stepping off. “You know I don’t want to, right?” It was stupid to let him know how I was feeling, but it poured out without me having a second to consider the consequences.