by Mary Dublin
To her dismay, he continued to charge forward, ignoring her outright. His steps became more audible as he diverted from the marked trail onto wild bouquets of ferns and broken leaves. Clutching tight to the joint of his ring finger, Sylvia fought for balance. She craned her neck back far as it could go, only able to see little more than the underside of his jaw. He had his eyes set forward, determined.
"I can't hold off anymore," he muttered.
"What?"
Without warning, the hand that cradled her so gently to his chest closed around her. Her arms were bound to her sides, her wings plastered to her back with a pressure that was too snug to be considered comfortable. She was too stunned to notice Jon had finally stopped moving.
"J-Jon?" She squirmed against his hold automatically, but stopped as she searched for a logical explanation. Maybe he had seen or heard something that she missed and was aiming to hide her.
That wouldn't explain his grim statement.
The imprisoning hand yanked her away from his chest so abruptly that her head lurched forward. She blinked hard and titled her gaze up, her lungs straining within the sparse breathing room it could claim. Chills crawled up her spine at the memory of the only other time she had been trapped so roughly. At least her wings had been free when she was first caught at the Dottage house.
"Jon," she tried again, weaker. He wasn't looking at her, but the clench of his jaw was enough to signal that he was in pain. "What's wrong? It's… y-you're hurting me."
When Jon lowered his gaze to her, it was like a hole had been burnt through her chest. That hollow stare was a mere shadow of the brown eyes she had come to love so dearly, devoid of compassion for her pain. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on his brow.
"I've waited long enough," Jon said.
Sylvia's terrified heart battled with the beating pulse of the fingers coiled tight around her chest. She'd never been so acutely aware of just how strong he was. Even just the force of his heartbeat could have her outmatched. She choked back a whimper as he bent down steeply and held his hand out over the ground. He dropped her, dropped her like she was some wrinkled old wrapper he'd found in his pocket. The quiet landing of the fairy hitting the broken leaves deafened the trees that watched.
She groaned, spitting out dirt and sluggishly making her way onto her hands and knees. The air swirled with a fiercer breeze as the grey, brewing clouds loomed closer overhead. The chill stung prominently on her bare skin, and she found herself missing the warmth of his hand even then. She didn't even question the impulse to return to him, stumbling dizzily toward the massive hand that had confined her just seconds before.
But Jon was too quick, too big for her stumbling strides. He pulled away before she could get a good grip on his forefinger, leaving her stranded as he rose to his full height. Sylvia craned her neck, squinting through the dirt-strewn breeze. His hands were on the move again, reaching for the handgun in the waistband of his jeans.
"Fairies really are something special," he rumbled, pulling the weapon out into the light. "It's almost a shame they're so stupid."
Her wings twitched, but they refused to unfurl, recovering from Jon's rough grasp. Even if she could fly, there was no telling if it would be toward or away from the hunter looming over her. She took a shaky step back, if only to search for his eyes high above the bone-chilling sight of the gun.
She had to bring him back.
"J-Jon, I don't know what—" Her stammers were barely audible to her own ears, so she raised her voice. "What are you doing? This isn't you!"
"What isn't?" he fired back. "Hunting?"
Jon glanced away then, and Sylvia could have sworn she saw something glisten on his face. It was hard to tell—his face was so far above her at this point. In any case, the gun stayed trained on her, that fatal tunnel of black trained expertly on her middle. Jon's hand trembled, his expression crumpling even as he tensed his finger on the trigger.
"You… you're going to be my best kill yet."
All of the air in Sylvia's lungs exited in one painful cry. The giant towering before her was a predator. Not a friend, and certainly not anything more. Soon to be her murderer if she didn't do something about it.
A snarl drew her lips back, and she lifted her hands, ignoring the spike of pain at the back of her head. "I don't think so!"
She slashed down through the air with curled fingers, crying out an incantation. She aimed one shot for his gun-wielding hand and the other for his eyes, but he was too tall to reach all the way. A set of claw marks gashed down the back of his hand and his right cheek, followed by a deafening shout of pain. Knowing that she could still very well be dead despite her attempts to fight back, Sylvia turned on her heel to escape, nearly knocked off her feet when the gun thudded on the ground behind her.
It didn't matter.
What started as a minor headache when she raised her hands exploded into a world of agony within in her skull. She screamed and sank to her hands and knees, clutching the side of her head as if to keep it from coming apart. Tears dripped onto the dirt. The peak of the pain only lasted for a second, but even as it faded she could do little more than lay on her side and writhe while her senses returned.
Another tremendous weight rattled the forest floor. Her eyes flickered open weakly: Jon had fallen to his knees—too close for comfort. She wanted to feel a surge of satisfaction at the shock and pain twisting his expression, but he seemed to hardly notice the blood running down his hand, dribbling down the side of his face. He clutched his left wrist with his right hand, holding it steady while a red light blossomed in the palm of his hand.
Sylvia stared, frowning dizzily. She knew what that light meant. She just couldn't quite name it right now. She'd be lucky to remember her own name with the way her head was still ringing.
Whatever it was, it was a brief display. The light vanished quick as it had come. Bit by bit, Jon crashed to his side on the ground like a vast burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He lay there on his side, sucking in ragged breaths.
Sylvia squeezed shut her eyes and curled her knees to her chest, her last resort to hide herself away. Fresh tears came with the knowledge that he wasn't leaving. She was going to die.
A distant impact rang out, one that Sylvia vaguely registered as the sound of a car door slamming.
Great. More humans.
"Sylv?" Jon had the nerve to call over to her. That imploring tone was a lie, she had to remember that. Everything about him was a lie. "Sylv, say something. Please."
Her traitor mark scraped the dirt when she pulled her forehead from her knees. It was a mistake. The moment her eyes met his, the ache in her chest threatened to match the one in her head. She didn't have a thing to say to him. Her lips formed a breathy "no" in reply while tears continued to blur her view of his massive fallen form.
The ground shook again, but it wasn't Jon's doing. She blinked and tried to look past him, trembling at the mere thought of being in the presence of another murderous human.
Unfolding herself, she sat up with a grunt. Wherever the pain had come from, it lessened gradually, sending a jolt of hope through her. Jon wasn't in the best state at the moment. All she had to do was get out of his reach. She still could barely get her wings to flutter, but that didn't stop her from moving for the underbrush, even if she had to shuffle there inch by agonizing inch.
"Jon!"
Sylvia winced, involuntarily throwing a harsh glance over her shoulder as the quaking turned into singular footsteps. Cliff. She had no doubt in her mind that he would side with Jon. More likely, she thought as she limped with increased determination, he had been in on it the whole time. Her inside squirmed at the mental image of the pair of them sharing knee-buckling laughter over her demise behind her back.
The Council was right. Hunters are monsters.
Sylvia's breath turned into sharp pants as she heard Cliff reach Jon's side and stop short. She could see tree roots breaking up the leaf-scattered soil near the shadow of a scra
ggly bush. Roots meant safety, shelter. She urged her legs to go faster, gritting her teeth as she tried and failed to spread her wings properly.
"Holy shit," Cliff's voice rang out behind her back—close enough to send a shiver up her spine. "Jon, what happened to you? Where's—"
Silence fell over the woods, interrupted only by the sound of Sylvia's desperate race toward the bushes. A vicious chill washed over her without warning. Cursing internally, she swung a fleeting look over her shoulder to confirm that sinking feeling. Those massive green eyes were locked on her, steely as a falcon's.
He unfolded as she watched, moving for her without hesitation. The sight was dizzying enough to make her stumble against an acorn husk. It had been so much easier to forgive his incredible size when he had been on her side. Now, she could only dread the fate she had made for herself—cornered by two gigantic humans.
"Hey, wait!" Cliff bellowed.
The ground started to quake again, more violently than ever before—I'm not going to make it.
The despairing thought was punctuated by a swoosh of displaced air behind her, followed by a set of massive fingers blocking her path and curling to block her from behind as well. She stopped in her tracks and made a desperate attempt to duck away from the incoming grasp, but it was far too late to escape. The moment the fingers came into contact and trapped her against the warm wall of Cliff's palm, she flew into a panic.
She found the remnants of her voice and screamed. "No! No!"
Her attempts to bat away his fingers were laughable at best and did nothing to prevent her feet from being swept off the ground. All the same, she writhed with everything she had, attempting to free her arms. They wouldn't budge from her sides. Short of breath, she let her struggles die down. Even if she managed to squeeze some magic out, she'd pass out in the process and be even more at the hunters' mercy.
"Y-You…" Her whisper trailed off.
A voice at the back of her mind told her to shut her mouth if she wanted any hope for survival, but as her ascent in Cliff's fist came to a stop and she was greeted by a more intimidating view of his glare, something in her snapped.
He was the reason she was facing this hell in the first place, and he had the audacity to act like she'd done something wrong by defending herself. She had been stupid enough to forgive him for shooting her, and now she would suffer more than ever for fighting back.
"Monsters! Both of you!" She fought anew, desperately twisting within Cliff's grasp. "No, worse! You're hunters! You had to play with me first, didn't you, you sick bastards? You had to take away who I was piece by piece until I was yours! You had to make me care about you, so you'd have something to laugh about after you break me in half! At least a monster would be up front about wanting me dead!"
By the end, her voice was laced with sobs. She knew that every word she hurled could easily equal another broken bone for her, but words were all she had, so she didn't take them back. With the last of her nerve, she leveled her glare with Cliff's gaze as she ceased her fruitless squirms again and trembled pitifully in his grasp.
"What… what the hell are you talking about?" His voice was hoarse.
"You know what," Sylvia gritted out, despite her inward resolve never to speak another word to them. "Your sick game with me."
"Excuse me?"
Cliff's glare took on a measure of alarm. Sylvia jerked her face away from his, not giving herself the chance to consider his sincerity. Why was he bothering to act so confused? She grunted, jostled again as he rose swiftly to his full height and backtracked to where Jon was just beginning to pick himself off the ground. Cliff produced a half-yellowed handkerchief from his jeans pocket and handed it off to him. With muttered gratitude, Jon seized it and dabbed delicately at the bloody streaks on his cheek.
"What happened?" Cliff asked urgently.
"She scratched me. Some sort of spell." Jon stared unwaveringly at Sylvia while wrapping the kerchief over his bleeding hand. "I think Melanie was right."
She glowered up at him, heart hammering fearfully against Cliff's coiled fingers. Though the gun was no longer in his hand, that haunting image wouldn't leave her mind's eye.
"Melanie?"
Jon jutted his chin toward Sylvia. "Her mother."
Cliff shifted his stance. Sylvia wished he would stop moving—or better yet, let her go altogether. "Why didn't I know about this? You making it a regular thing to meet up with a fairy who wants to burn us alive?"
Jon scowled. "I didn't go looking for her, she found me. When we were dropping Hazel back off at the village. She said something was wrong with Sylvia. A-a bond of some sort. It was up to me to do something about it and I… Cliff, I had to."
Cliff's fingers tightened around Sylvia, pulling her against his stomach. His voice went hushed. "What did you do?"
"He was going to shoot me!" Sylvia blurted, unable to continue listening to the lies of the conversation overhead. "He said he couldn't wait any longer. You should have heard him, he was so ready. I was going to be his best kill, he said. This whole time, I've just been another hunt!"
"Sylv, no," Jon insisted, convincingly anguished. "Please, just listen to me! Your mother—"
"Shut up!" Surprised that he didn't continue talking over her, she made herself look at him. He was so different, so much harder to force herself focus on. "All you've done is lie, since the very beginning! You expect me to believe that my mother would want for you to do this to me?"
Doubt picked at the back of her mind. Where had he come up with a bond? No… she couldn't keep falling for it. He was prepared with an answer for everything, she told herself. He was a hunter, a monster who would do anything under the sun to get his kill and relish it as much as possible.
Maybe Cliff didn't know after all. Maybe Jon wanted her all to himself.
"Cliff," she pleaded, voice cracking as she strained against his fingers. "You have to let me go, please. H-he's going to kill me."
The blonde hunter lowered his chin, his anguished gaze meeting hers. "I'm not going to let that happen."
"No, you don't understand!" Jon waved his hands. "I didn't hurt her, and I still wouldn't. I just had to make her think…" He sucked in a breath, tense shoulders wilting as he glanced down in her direction. "It was the only way to break the bond."
"You realize how messed up that sounds, don't you?" Cliff balked.
"Not as messed up as the idea of her slaving away over healing me the rest of her life!" Jon fired back. "She was going to kill herself, trying to save me, over and over again."
Cliff had nothing to say to that, and Sylvia felt him look down upon her warily. There was a note of truth in Jon's heated argument that had her head spinning. For the first time since he'd pulled the gun on her, she dared to stare back without trembling as Jon came closer. He crouched down to her level, his bloodied face mere inches away from hers.
"You feel different now, don't you?" There was a little hiccup of fear in his voice. "It's gone now."
The events of the past few minutes filtered through her mind. No one was actively trying to kill her at the moment. Jon hadn't even seemed angry when she fought back. He had looked relieved. She let out a shuddering sigh, terrified of falling for another trick.
"I… I feel different because you pointed a gun at me," she huffed, but she even she couldn't convince herself that was completely true.
Even with the weapon fixed on her, she thought there had been something salvageable. A bond. Her eyes widened.
"No, that wasn't it," she said. "After I cut you, my head hurt and… and you…" There had been a red burst of light on Jon's hand, and a look on his face like a burden had been lifted. "Was that—what did you do? Did you make an oath?" Her squirms began again—not to escape, but to have at least some mobility to express her frustration. She tilted her head back to look at Cliff. "Can I have my arms back, at least?"
With a little grunt of concession, Cliff loosened up. The confining fist became more of an alcove, giving her enough r
oom to pull her arms free and sling them over the top of his thumb. With some effort, her wings came free, too. They wilted a little, feeling both relief and the dewy residue from Cliff's clammy grip.
Panting slightly, she craned her neck toward Jon. "Did you swear to her?"
He hesitated, then nodded. "The oath was your mother's idea. I'm sure you can understand why she didn't trust me to follow through." He swiped at the cuts on his face with his shirt sleeve, snagging a dribble of crusting blood on his chin.
"But it's… it's over then," Cliff said, visibly trying to make sense of all this. "You did the dirty work, you're both off the hook."
Jon kept his eyes on Sylvia, remaining down at her level. He shook his head ever so slightly while reaching out his bandaged hand toward her wary form.
"I still have to take her back," Jon murmured.
Although Sylvia begrudgingly believed he was telling the truth, she couldn't stop the sight of the gun in his hand from flashing in her mind. Breath catching in her throat, she lurched back against Cliff, not caring if the action pinned her sore wings. She glanced at Jon's scratched face, then at his reaching hand, which halted upon her reaction.
"Back to the village?" She clenched her jaw, realizing her mother would want to see if she was free of the bond.
And then… what?
This couldn't be happening. Her world couldn't be falling apart again when it had only just begun to repair itself. But she had to make herself accept that world had been fake. Everything Jon had done the past couple days had aimed toward fulfilling his oath. He had been tortured up until the moment he followed through, and she couldn't even begin to decipher what the bond had or hadn't made her do.
Maybe none of it had been real. Not a single moment.
"Fine," she said softly, easing up from her tense position and flexing her wings.
"Car's just up the way," Cliff announced. "We'll drive you back. Both of us."