City In Embers

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “It’s you! I found you,” a voice squeaked into my ear, and little hands touched both sides of my face.

  “Sprig?” I took in a gulp of air.

  “Of course.” He patted my cheek. “Seriously, tell me, do you know other sprite-monkeys? Is it why you get confused so easily?”

  I put a hand to my chest, trying to calm my nerves. “No. Only you.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be perplexed each time.”

  “Sorry. Still getting used to the idea of a talking monkey,” I said in a shaky breath, my shoulders finally relaxing. “How did you find me?” Then my eyes darted to his wrist. The bracelet was no longer there. “How did you get away?”

  Sprig jumped off my shoulder onto the counter. “Yeah, thanks for leaving me, by the way.”

  “I am sorry. I didn’t really have a choice at the time.”

  Sprig sat on his hind legs, crossing his arms. “Yeah, you’re still with the psycho prick. I can smell his blood all through the place. Did you finally shoot him?”

  “Not on this occasion, but it’s only a matter of time.” I smirked. “And again, I’m not staying with him by choice. It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” Sprig winked. “I’ve seen the size of his hands and feet.”

  “Ugh. Don’t gross me out.” I flinched at the imagery. “How did you find me?”

  “I told you. I have a debt to repay. I can always find you. It took me a while to get away from those trackers and to get some gullible knobhead to take the bracelet off without me having to open my mouth. Not an easy feat, may I say. I’m hungry.” Sprig’s attention went off on another tangent. I was thinking my little narcoleptic had an ADD problem as well. He jumped from shelf to shelf searching for food. He took something from a Tupperware box. “What is this?” He sniffed it.

  “A bay leaf. Don’t,” Sprig shoved it in his mouth, “... eat it,” I finished.

  He munched on the leaf and shrugged, stuffing more into his mouth.

  “If you get sick, don’t blame me.”

  “I never get sick,” he huffed. “Except the time they gave me Cheetos. I ate the whole bag, then threw up.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “What’s the plan?” He hopped to another shelf and sprinkled paprika in his mouth. “Ahhh!” He batted at his tongue. “I thought it was cinnamon.”

  “Follow me.” I motioned to the dining room area. He tailed after me and hopped onto the table. I grabbed my bag and retrieved a granola bar. “We’ll share.”

  Sprig’s eyes widened in awe. “Is it one of those honey-filled delights?”

  “Uh?” I read the description. “It has honey in it.”

  He licked his thin, little lips, prancing in place. “Honey, honey, honey,” he chanted.

  I split the bar and gave him half. He pinched it from my finger and sniffed it. “Oh yeah.” He took a bite and fell back on the table, wiggling in utter bliss, like it was catnip for monkeys.

  Honey. Right. I had forgotten. When I first started at DMG, I had read the best way to collect a sprite was by laying a trap of honey, any variety. It was their Achilles’ heel. All fae liked sweet items, but honey was a sprite’s first love.

  “I’m gonna take a guess here... you like honey.”

  “Sent by the gods,” he mumbled between bites. His lids closed, and in an instant a soft snore came from him. He was sound asleep with a piece of the bar still in his clutch and in mid-chew.

  I snickered and shoved the other half in my mouth. I settled back into the corner, eyeing both my companions. How much my life changed in a week. How much I had lost. Loneliness took hold, cracking at my heart. I dug back into my bag, grasping my beat-up cell phone. The screen was cracked and the battery was dying. Soon it would be useless, but I needed to see them again.

  I clenched my teeth, the ache in my heart unbearable. Still I had to look. My need to not feel utterly alone eclipsed the pain I knew I would experience.

  The first picture was of Lexie. It was after her doctor’s appointment, the one where they told me her blood work wasn’t looking good. I decided to take her to her favorite doughnut place as a treat. She was stuffing a doughnut in her face and flipping me off. The next one was the same morning, but it was simply a picture of her giggling. I didn’t remember what made her laugh. It didn’t matter. I was now glad I never told her what the doctors feared—she would be completely paralyzed.

  The next one was of Daniel and me. It was of the two of us at Kate’s birthday. Teeth sawed into my bottom lip as I held the picture to my heart before looking at it. Daniel’s face smiled at me. This was the night I remembered feeling something change between us. All the hope I had for us when I took this picture. The innocence of thinking we had forever ahead of us. You always think there will be a tomorrow. More time. Then the tomorrow is taken from you, ripping hope and your future from you. I placed the cell on the table, my head falling back against the booth. I had eaten a dozen espresso beans, but nothing could stop the ache from dragging me into a sleep. I needed an escape from the unrelenting loss.

  “I know him.” My lids opened to the picture of Daniel shoved in my face. Sprig’s fingers wrapped around the edges of my phone, bringing it so close my eyes crossed.

  I pushed it away from my face. “What?”

  “I know him.” Sprig brought the snapshot near again.

  I snatched it from his hands and placed it on the table. Dawn light filtered through the blinds of the café. “What do you mean you know him?”

  “He came to the lab a few times.”

  I straightened. “Daniel worked at DMG, but I doubt you’d know him. He was a hunter. He didn’t go in the labs. None of us did.”

  Sprig shook his head, his finger tapping on the screen. The battery blinked red. “No. He came a few times. He talked to me.”

  “Talked to you?” My eyebrows lowered in a crease. “I think you are confusing him with a scientist. Daniel never went down there. We weren’t allowed.” I hadn’t even known the level Sprig was on existed. Daniel made it clear he knew nothing about the lower levels. “I don’t know what they do there. I don’t want to know.” I remembered thinking his statement was strange. It almost sounded anti-DMG. But if he did know about the lower levels, why would he lie to me?

  “Are you sure?” I held up the picture of Daniel and me. “He was the one you saw?” It held for another moment before the battery died, the screen going black.

  He nodded. “Yeah, he was wearing the same sweater. And he said his name was Holt.”

  A small gasp came up. Why would Daniel be going there? Why wouldn’t he tell me? When I met Sprig, I realized the DMG scientists were going much further than testing and taking samples. They were taking parts of animals and fae and joining them to make a Frankenstein-like monster to experiment with and torture. If I were honest with myself, would I have found it ghastly even a week ago? I would have been against it, but more for the animals’ sake, not the faes’.

  “He asked me all these questions about what was being done to me.” Sprig’s attentiveness was drifting as he dug in my bag, finding another candy bar. “Can I have this?”

  “Sprig, what did Daniel ask you? What did he want?” Sprig wrinkled the wrapper till I took it away from him. “Sprig?”

  “Uh, I don’t remember. About the experiments. If I knew of others...” Sprig tried to grab the candy back. “I don’t remember anything more. He wrote it all down, so why don’t you go bother him?” He jumped for the package I kept out of his reach.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Sprig paused.

  “You said he wrote everything down.”

  “Yeah, he had a folder full of notes. And he told me not to tell anyone he’d been there.”

  I lowered the bar and let Sprig take it. I knew I wouldn’t get much more from him, but something told me not to forget this information. Daniel knew something and had kept it from me. He was also hiding it from the DMG. Why? I needed to discover wh
at was going on, and Daniel was the only one who could provide the information. Well, Daniel’s apartment hopefully would.

  By the time Ryker woke up, I was climbing the walls. It might have been the burning need to go to Daniel’s or the twenty-seven chocolate-covered espresso beans I had while waiting for Ryker. Who knew? Guess it would remain a mystery.

  He scarcely sat before I bounced to him. “We’re going to Daniel’s. Okay? Okay. Let’s go!” I clapped my hands.

  Ryker’s gaze narrowed on me.

  “Come on, get up.” I bobbed on one leg, then shifted to the other.

  His head moved around the room, taking in his surroundings.

  “Ryker, we have to go.” I continued to bobble.

  His hand came up and covered my mouth. “Shut up.”

  I blinked rapidly. Then I licked his hand.

  “Ugh.” He drew it away, drying his palm on his pants. “What the hell are you on right now?” he grumbled, swinging his legs to the floor. He rubbed at the top of his head.

  “Someone’s grumpy.”

  “Maybe because I got shot more than twenty times, and I’m confronted by a strung-out cheerleader.”

  “I’m not strung out,” I babbled quickly, which caused an eyebrow to quirk. “I’m not.”

  “If she is, she didn’t share.” Sprig hopped from the table where he had been sleeping. “All I saw her eat was a ton of these things.” Sprig held up an espresso bean.

  “Fuck.” Ryker put his arms on the table and sat back with annoyance. “How the hell did you find us?”

  “I told you. I owe her.” Sprig looked at Ryker then at me. “Both of you really have crappy memories.” Funny coming from Sprig.

  “He doesn’t have the tracker on him anymore. I checked.” My sentence coming faster than my lips could form the words.

  “You are cut off.” Ryker pointed at me, making my relentless bounce deflate a bit.

  “No! Why?” Caffeine. He couldn’t take my caffeine away from me.

  Ryker motioned to me. “How many did you eat?”

  “Twenty... or maybe it was closer to thirty.”

  Ryker laid his head back on the seat.

  “Maybe he should have some?” Sprig fake whispered to me, and I nodded.

  “So what is this about going to your boyfriend’s house?”

  In one sentence, my buzz fizzled.

  Boyfriend. Daniel.

  As Ryker ate one of the breakfast bars, I filled him in on the conversation Sprig and I had. How he knew Daniel.

  “Why would I care?” He tossed the last chunk in his mouth. His shirt was filled with bullet holes and caked with dried blood. Through the tears in his shirt, I saw his skin was red and angry, but the fissures were healing. Fae were incredible at mending quickly.

  I sat with one leg folded in front of me on the bench, facing him. Sunlight came through the window and warmed the spot where I rested. “I know you hate me. Believe me, the feeling is mutual, but we are stuck together.” I waited for him to respond in some way. He was staring at the ceiling, then looked at me, like telling me to continue. “We’re both going to have to do things we don’t want. I have to deal with this Garrett thing, and you have to deal with the Daniel thing. There is something going on. It’s important. I can feel it in my gut.”

  He was about to respond when I held up my hand.

  “I don’t care if you have no interest in my life. I don’t need you to, but I’m going. You can either stay here or go with me and protect your resources.” I touched my stomach, where I sensed his powers occupied. I knew there was no chance in hell he would let me out of his sight, so I figured it was better to coerce him with something he did care about. During the years I became very good at finding a person’s weakness and using it against them.

  Ryker’s lips thinned, his jaw locking. He knew what I was doing, but it didn’t make it any less true.

  “What else are we going to do today? It’s not like we had plans.”

  It took him a while before he let his shoulders fall. “Fine. But only because you will go no matter what I say and probably get killed, tripping over your feet or something.”

  “Yay,” I responded with a sarcastic cheer and glanced at Sprig, who was emptying all the salt shakers and making piles with them.

  “Yay,” Sprig mimicked, then paused. “What are we excited about again?” ADD at its finest.

  “Oh, and I was never a fucking cheerleader.”

  THIRTEEN

  I had only been in Daniel’s apartment a handful of times. He took me there for the first time after a year of knowing each other. It followed a collecting mission that didn’t go our way. The goblin had several buddies we hadn’t expected. They were usually solitary creatures, but this one had comrades who attacked us from behind. One bit my arm, forcing me drop my weapon. After three more showed up, Daniel knew it was time to escape and cut our losses. When hurt, we usually went back to the DMG. Rule three in our handbook: If injured by a fae, you cannot go to the hospital. We were to go back to HQ and get fixed by their medical team.

  The rule never bothered me. I hated the idea of going to a hospital of any sort. But I wasn’t stupid. I understood the government secrecy in what we were doing. Questions would be raised, especially about what caused our wounds. Too many inquiries. The section of the government I worked for was unknown to even some of the highest officials. We were so secret the President of the United States didn’t even know of our existence, like an X-Files group. Imagine the mass hysteria that would happen if the public learned about us or about the fae living among us, the ones they believed were only in fairytales. Except, I had yet to meet one fae who came from one of those fables. They were frightening, cruel, narcissistic beings. Most, like my forced partner in crime right now, hated humans. They either wanted to rid Earth of us or use us as slaves and energy.

  My gaze fell on Ryker. His chiseled face, hidden under the beard and patronizing expression, articulated this sentiment through his unsettling white-blue eyes. His tolerance of me was only because his magic was stored deep inside me. My tolerance of him was because I had no one else, and I couldn’t get away from him.

  Ryker and I rounded the last stretch of stairs. My breath labored heavily in my chest, whereas he seemed barely affected by the twenty-four floors we climbed. My legs quivered, wanting to collapse. I sucked in more air, trying to slow the fluttering of my lungs. Ryker only smirked at me and went through the door into the hallway.

  The corridor was dark and quiet. The only light came from the window along the hall. The plush carpet deadened any noise our shoes caused walking.

  “Which one?” Ryker kept his voice low, his bright eyes glowing in the dark. Disturbing.

  “There.” I pointed to the farthest. “Apartment 2404.” We crept to the door, and Ryker reached for the knob. My heart suddenly gave a jolt, and I stepped back.

  “What?” Ryker looked around in alarm.

  My eyes filled with tears looking at the door Daniel used every day—the place he called home—where I had dreamed of moving in with him. This desire would never have come true because of Lexie, but it still hadn’t stopped me fantasizing about it. Visions of my future with Daniel had filled a lot of my thoughts when the world got too intense and I wanted to flee all my pain and responsibility.

  “Are you crying?” Ryker snapped.

  “No,” I choked. It was true, not a tear had fallen from my eyes, but inside I wanted to curl in a ball and cry till all my agony was washed away.

  “Whatever you are doing, stop.” His lids narrowed. “You wanted to come here. I couldn’t give a shit about this or what he knew about this fucked-up, twisted group of yours.”

  Fury surged through my chest. My foot took the step before I even thought, closing the gap between us. His back hit the door at my sudden proximity. His nose flared, his focus hard on me. Ignoring his icy I-will-kill-you stare, I pressed my finger in his chest. “I understand that you are a selfish asshole. Not a shocker coming fr
om a fae, but...” I leaned in, pressing him farther back. “If you insult Daniel or disrespect him in front of me again, I will kill you. And don’t think I haven’t done it to a fae bigger and tougher than you.” This was a lie. He was probably one of the biggest and toughest fae I had run across yet. I had encountered things with wings, large daggered teeth, nails like knives, but there was something about him that made me feel even those monsters would fear him. There was something volatile and charged within him, like if he let himself off the leash, he would obliterate everything around him.

  My five-five frame only reached the middle of his chest; I felt dwarfed compared to him. I still thumped my finger on his chest like he should fear me. It was how you dealt with things where I came from. Size had little to do with power or control.

  He didn’t look like he followed the same rules. He flexed the muscles of his jaw. His hand snatched the top of my jacket and swung me around, slamming me back into the door. His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath on my neck.

  “You threaten me again, human, and you will see exactly what this selfish asshole is capable of.” He pressed me so hard against the door it whined under the abuse.

  We both stayed there, our breaths laboring under anger and hatred. Deep down, mine was also laced with fear. He would keep me alive, but I had learned in my short life things could be a lot worse than death. Dying was often the easy way out.

  “Get. Off. Me,” I snarled, slamming my palms into his chest, the heel of my boot kicking out for contact. His eyes glowed brighter in the dark hallway as he gripped me tighter, picking me up and re-slamming me into the wood door. Air tunneled from my windpipe, freeing itself back into the world. My lungs snatched greedily back for the escapees. I reacted to the threat. His hand wrapped around my throat, but my teeth bit his arm and burrowed deep into his skin. My feet hit the floor. My throat felt the cool silk of air trail back into my lungs.

  “Fuck!” He jerked his hand away. His blood dripped from my lip.

  Daniel had spent three years weaning me from my gutter habits, sculpting me from street rat to a woman. Granted, a woman who could throw a guy on his back or kill someone with a butter knife. Still, I had changed, or so I thought. A week with Ryker and all those habits I thought I broke were resurfacing, meshing with my new behaviors.