by Mary Dublin
Hardly a word was passed between the hunters as the navy blue car crawled through the barely-awake streets. It was half-past ten at night. Jon had been running through the hunt over in his head since nine. The final gunshot remained an echoing crack in his mind's eye. Spencer's end. Sylvia's wide eyed expression stayed just as fresh in his memory, her green eyes vivid as she shouted his name. There had been no doubt about it… she'd been protecting him back there.
And then she'd left.
Did she say anything to you?
Nothing, Cliff had answered. Not a word.
That should have been the end of it. There was nothing more to discuss. And yet, guilt knotted his stomach as they drove on. He couldn't help but feel like he was abandoning Sylvia, leaving her to the dangers of living as a fairy among humans. There was no reason to, of course. It was obvious she didn't want him in her life anymore—she'd said as much herself on more than one occasion. But no matter how he tried, he couldn't get that look on her face out of his head. There was some part of her, perhaps, that still cared despite everything.
Whether it was genuine or not, he couldn't stop himself from wondering, worrying about what Sylvia would be encountering. She had already been seen once. Clever as she was, she was just one person. A particularly small person at that. Eventually, her luck would run out. Without an ally, she would be anyone's for the taking. Even birds and insects could pose a threat to someone her size.
And this time, she would truly be alone.
"Jon?"
He was snapped out of his wandering thoughts by Cliff's stern interjection. They'd stopped at a light, and Cliff was waving to get his attention.
"Huh?
Cliff rolled his eyes. "I said, do you think we oughta go west? Lot more room to stretch our legs out there. Bit more diversity in the hunt, too."
"What, this one wasn't weird enough for you? You want to go hunting for a chupacabra?"
Cliff smirked, but it made him look more tired than ever. He rapped his knuckles impatiently on the steering wheel, glaring at the traffic light.
"Maybe a good old fashioned slice and dice like that is what we need right now. No thinking," Cliff went on. He raised his eyebrows hopefully at Jon, only to find he'd lost his attention yet again.
"West is fine," Jon mumbled. Distracted, his gaze wandered the bouquets of neon lights strobing outside the passenger's window. A bar sat proudly on the corner of the strip mall—Conner's Place. Its wide-open doors combatted with those of the humble First Baptist that sat across the street.
The church across the street from the bar, Sylvia's tiny, angry exclamation came back to him in a rush. Straightening abruptly in his seat, Jon looked between the buildings. It was almost exactly as she had described.
He turned his wide eyes onto the church. There. That's where she'd be. A light glowed from the inside like a divine invitation. They could drive right past and he'd never know what that look on her face had meant, back in the woods. It was now or never. Suddenly, he knew that no matter how many times he tried to convince himself otherwise, he wasn't ready to drive off without knowing. Not without one more try.
"I can't," he breathed. He groped for the lock on his door and thumbed it open.
"Can't what? Shit, Jon, what are you—"
He wrenched open the door of the idling vehicle and vaulted out.
"I'm going to find her," Jon declared, backing away. "She's here, I can feel it!"
"Like hell you are."
Ignoring this, Jon turned to shut the door. Yet, he faltered when Cliff lurched toward him, something desperate in his eyes.
"Let her go, Jon! It's what she wanted."
"You can't know that," Jon stammered. "You can't."
Cliff glanced hurriedly at the light, toward the racing cars on the highway just beyond. "You've tortured yourself long enough. Get in the car. I'm not going to ask again."
The light flipped green, and the cars around them began to ease forward. Impatient drivers swerved around the beaten-up car, throwing curses at them out of open windows.
Jon gave Cliff a look of apology as he slammed the door shut in his face and took off running. Spikes of cool air whisked his hair around his face. His heart raced like it did before a hunt, anxious and unsure.
There was every chance he was chasing a lost cause. Maybe, that longing look on her face had only been an echo of the bond.
But more importantly, Jon thought, what if it wasn't?
Beginning to feel the protest of his injuries from the hunt, Jon slowed his pace to a brisk walk as he passed through the church's small foyer that led into the main chamber. It was utterly silent, but not empty. A man sat in the front pew, staring blankly ahead, and a woman somewhere near the middle had her head lowered.
Neither of them paid him any mind, but that didn't mean he could start calling Sylvia's name out.
He stood at the door, breathing deeply as his eyes darted all around for any sign of her. Naturally, he scanned the ceiling first. There were no rafters to be seen. He searched lower, but even the highest sills of the stained glass windows were too out in the open. Nothing in the church seemed to serve as a good hiding place for a fairy. Even if it was quieter than a bar, he couldn't see how she considered it safe living there.
No… Sylvia was a certified risk-taker, but she was smarter than this. There was no way she would choose to sleep somewhere she could be spotted so easily.
His hope plummeted with finality after one more glance around. She wasn't there. She couldn't be. Either he had the wrong place, or she had deliberately lied to throw him off her trail.
Heaving a sigh, Jon turned back to the foyer, racking his mind for anything that might give him a clue as to where she might have really gone. He was barely a step or two from the exit before he caught sight of another door on the far side of the foyer—much smaller and so unassuming that he hadn't even noticed it while walking in.
Before his thoughts could catch up with his actions, he was in front of the door, pulling it open just enough to peer in. The other side was dark, but it looked to be some kind of small storage room. Light from the foyer outlined crowded rows of shelves and boxes.
His heart raced. This was more like it.
He slipped inside and let the door shut behind him, fumbling blindly until he found the light switch. At first glance, it was an ordinary storage room. But he knew better. There was a chill in the air that hadn't been present anywhere else in the church. His own desperate explanation for that felt much more plausible than this room having a special AC setting.
Pacing between the rows of boxes, Jon wasn't sure where to begin. There were countless spots she could be hiding. However, the deeper he headed into the room, the colder it got. That was a start.
As he neared the dustiest crate at the back, he swore he heard a sound. If he hadn't been listening so keenly, he wouldn't have caught it. The shuffling noise paused when he did. He held his breath as he eased forward again, noticing how the row of crates in the corner didn't quite touch the walls. Plenty of space for a fairy to hide.
Keeping an eye on the floor, he moved with care to lean over the row of crates and search the gap between it and the back well. He gave a disappointed sigh. Nothing. The shadows were empty.
But the noise started again. A skittering noise, like tiny footsteps, more desperate this time, and it was coming from where the farthest crate almost touched the adjacent wall.
The quick reflexes that kept him alive during hunts compelled him to lurch to the side and find the source of the noise just as she burst out into the open, wings halfway spread to carry her off. She must have thought she outmaneuvered him, because when she found a human looming over her, she reared back and looked ready to scream, tiny hands white-knuckling the strap of her satchel.
She was there.
Words caught in his throat. He had cornered her.
In her mounting panic, she finally looked at him long enough to focus on his face. Then she couldn't seem to settle
on an expression, somehow terrified, furious, relieved, and confused all at once.
"You!" She dropped her bag, fists clenched at her sides. He couldn't help but wonder if that satchel and its contents were really all she had to her name. She swiftly drove those thoughts away when her tight voice piped up again. "What are you doing here? Why didn't you say something? You scared me to death!"
Slowly, Jon lowered himself to his knees before her.
"Outside… I saw the church and I thought you might…" He shook his head, smiling despite himself. "I can't believe you're actually here."
Though she glanced around him towards the door, Jon was pleased to see Sylvia stand her ground. She folded her arms across her chest, fixing him with a hard look.
"How did you find me?"
He shrugged, smile widening. "Educated guess."
Sylvia scoffed. Jon was so ready for her to try and run from him, but she stayed where she was. He lowered his gaze to the bag dropped at her feet, and reached lower to pick it up. He weighed it in his palm, amazed by the lightness of it, the intricacies in the fabrication.
"I can't leave you here," he confessed, still running his finger over the threading.
Her eyes widened, and for a moment she wordlessly stared at him. He searched her expression, looking for anything that resembled how she'd been when Spencer attacked him. He only found confusion. Maybe even a little fear beginning to shine in her eyes.
"Why not?" Her voice was soft, tremulous, and Jon swore he saw her lower lip quiver. Then she seemed to gather herself, frowning at his hand and shaking her head resolutely. "Give it back. Please. You shouldn't have come. I'm not your responsibility. I'm… I'm not going to be your burden."
Jon looked at her sharply, though not with anger. "You saved my skin twice… Cliff's, too. How could you possibly think—"
"My bag, Jon," Sylvia interrupted.
He didn't fight her, and lowered the satchel down to her between a finger and thumb. Sylvia tugged it free with a murmur of thanks, keeping her eyes downcast during the entire exchange. He patiently waited, breath held, for her to look his way again, watching as her wings twitched and folded up behind her back. After thinking he had seen the last of her, every tiny move she made was wonderful.
"I can't go with you," she said, lifting her gaze back up. Despite her best efforts to maintain a stony expression, the cracks in her armor were showing. He couldn't be sure what waited underneath, but he swallowed his urge to interrupt and let her finish. "For both of us, you need to move on. All you're doing is making it harder for me."
His heart raced at the possibility under her careful words. Despite the shake of her head and the soft scowl at the corners of her mouth, Jon caught a glimpse of something more. Longing, just the same as back in the forest.
"Am I crazy to think there could still be something between us?" he asked, his voice hushed. "I know what happened… what I did. But I can't stop thinking about you. And I… I kinda thought you might have been thinking about me, too."
Though he tapered off, Sylvia stayed silent. Her expression was tremulous, inscrutable. Jon practically held his breath as she shifted uncomfortably, moving the bag in her arms.
His shoulders slumped a little. "If this is all in my head, please tell me now."
A little shudder passed her lips just as she trained her gaze back down. His heart sank with the same feeling he'd felt since she came back the other night: she couldn't even stand looking at him.
"You know why I stopped living at the bar?" she asked. Jon cocked his head with a confused frown, trying to glimpse her eyes as she went on. "I saw you and Cliff walk in one night. Do you have… any idea how hard it was to sit there and say nothing? Do you know how badly I wanted to get your attention?" She chuckled humorlessly. "The whole time, I came so close to freezing your drinks and waiting until you realized I was there. But I didn't do it, and then you were gone. I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself if I saw you again, so I left. And it didn't do anything to help me forget."
Jon breathed out sharply, processing her words. "Then why…" He trailed off, barely able to keep his hands where they were when he saw her shoulders trembling.
"You were tortured because of me," she blurted, her traitor mark glinting with fallen tears. "You carried that oath, and it was tearing you apart, I know it was! I scratched your face up so badly that I can still see it! And then Aiden got into your head and tortured you, too. Because of me! And that's fairy magic. It can be just as ugly and painful as anything evil out there, and one day you're going to come to your senses about me. I don't want to get hurt when that happens. I mean, look at us. You're a hunter! Why would you keep caring about someone like me?"
"Maybe I'm just a shitty hunter then," Jon offered, a crooked smile forming. "But I can't think of anyone more I'd rather be with right now. You're not like anyone I've ever known."
"Because I'm the size of your hand," Sylvia muttered.
"That's not it," he argued. "Sylvia, look. I'm going to get hurt regardless of whether you're with me or not. A few scratches and bruises… that's part of the job. Blaming yourself for any of the crap with the bond… that doesn't help me."
Finally mustering up the courage to touch her, Jon brushed at her cheek with the tip of his thumb. "Or you," he added softly.
Tiny bits of wetness came off with each feather-light stroke, and he could feel fresh tears dribbling down as she trembled under his touch.
"Jon…" She sighed, and for a moment he thought she would pull away. Instead, she leaned into his touch, almost as if she was starved for it, but she didn't look any happier than before. "I have to tell you. The bond, it didn't fabricate my feelings. It… got worse over time and made me obsessed. Those feelings at first, though… those were real. But I never would have acted on those feelings if not for the bond. You understand? Even with my mind freed, I got a taste of being with you. And I can't just forget how happy I was, and that's why I need to stay away." She fixed her tearful eyes on him. "It made me completely disregard that you have no future with me. That's what you're doing right now, you know that?"
Despite the tears streaming down her cheeks, Jon felt cause for joy. She did care, after all. From the very beginning she had cared for him, and the bond hadn't corrupted that. He leaned down further, shifting the rest of his hand to cup her back.
"You think I care about your size?" he whispered.
"Even if you don't now," she answered in a croak. "You will someday. You'll see that there's no future. And I just… I don't want to go through leaving you again."
With this, her satchel slipped from her hands again and she buried her face into her palms, shaking anew.
"Oh, Sylv…" Jon couldn't stop himself now as he slipped his hand around her waist and gently scooped her up. He sank down on the floor, finding support against the nearest cabinet while he cradled her to his chest. For the first time since she'd returned, she didn't fight him at all.
He dipped his chin down, a smile flickering on his face as he watched Sylvia grab tiny fistfuls of his shirt, holding desperately to him. Jon, in reply, held to her a little tighter and smoothed his thumb over her copper hair. Despite the vast difference in size, all the magic and the pain they'd endured… this was right. He felt it in his bones.
"Look, I don't know if this will last forever, but that doesn't mean we don't have a future," he murmured. "If we can make it work, even for a while… maybe we can both get to a better place."
He felt her little shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh. She peered up at him, half her face buried firmly into his shirt. Maybe it was only wishful thinking, but he thought he saw tentative hope sparking behind her tears.
"I want to be enough for you," she said, her voice so soft that he had to hold his breath to hear her. "What if I'm not?"
"I want you. Isn't that enough?"
"I-I…" Finally, she looked ready to believe him, but she clung to her uncertainties as tightly as she did to his shirt. "I want it to be,"
she admitted "Being all alone is… worse than anything I could have imagined, but—are you sure?"
"I'm sure I don't want you to be living out of a storage closet," Jon remarked, glancing around the dusty room with apprehension.
Looking back to Sylvia, he lifted her close to his face.
"Come with us," he breathed. "Forget this charade you've been putting up, all the reasons you've been telling yourself why it's wrong." He dared to smile, quirking a conspiratorial eyebrow at her. "I think you're running out of excuses to turn me down."
She let out a shaky breath, which Jon realized was a little laugh. Up close, he could see the smile spreading across her face, and he knew then without a doubt that he hadn't been crazy to come looking for her.
With little warning, her wings flared, and Sylvia closed the distance between her and Jon on her own. He almost flinched back in surprise, but he fell still when her tiny lips pressed against his, fervent at first, and then slower. He felt her nose and damp cheek brush against his lower lip as she nuzzled him affectionately.
"I guess I am," she said, a coy lilt to her voice.
Jon leaned into her touch, eyes shut to the rest of the world. He brushed his hand under her dangling legs, steadying her flight as he stole one more kiss. It was strange and wonderful, meshing his lips to such a small target. Nothing he couldn’t get used to, given the chance.
Sylvia giggled when he nudged the tip of his nose against her hair, tickling her skin with his five o'clock shadow.
"You need to shave again," she said, even softer. But she was close enough now that he could hear her with no trouble.
"I'll work on it," Jon promised, and pressed a long kiss to her cheek. Her skin tasted as he remembered, sweetness now mingled with salty tears. He couldn't keep from grinning as she pulled away to catch his eye, still half perched along the top of his hand.