Obliteration

by Zoe Parker

  Then again, getting something shoved in your ass versus ending up on a dinner plate, sounds a bit easier to deal with.

  At least all of this has made the humans wary, and on the constant look out for anyone or anything that doesn’t fit in. A benefit to someone wanting to get a good idea of where the real camps are located. There were so many videos posted in the last week that it crashed the tube. Which annoyed me because then I couldn’t watch it. But not all of the human reactions are welcoming, and several innocent creatures and people have been shot or worse—someone got the bright idea to burn a poor woman at the stake—because of ignorance. If the government would tell them the truth this could all be avoided.

  Well, some of it could be avoided. You can’t fix stupid people.

  At the least, they could protect themselves better. Evacuate areas that have been breached and save their families. Common sense has skipped some of them, because they’re holing up in their houses and refusing to budge. Not long after, they’re added to the ever-growing missing person’s list. Don’t get me wrong—I understand wanting to protect your home, but there’s a point where you need to leave. Maybe they should tell them volcanoes are erupting? They can’t shoot lava and even dumb people run from it.

  ‘You have company,’ Phobe cautions.

  I finish washing my hands and avoid looking at the two women entering the restroom. Let them think they’re being sneaky. These two are more than the cockroaches we’ve been killing. The smile breaks free before I can stop it, and I meet the eyes of the tallest one: a blonde banshee. A half-breed at that. Her eyes swirl from the mundane blue of her glamour to a milky white when she meets my gaze in the mirror. Taking my time, I dry my hands and turn around.

  “Hi, fancy meeting you here,” I say and then move. The uppercut takes her at least a foot off the ground before she falls backwards into the wall. Turning, I catch the other one off guard as a knife appears in my hand, which I shove up through the bottom of her jaw into her brain. Giving it a good twist, I yank it out, flinging her blood onto the wall and floor before facing the one I sucker punched.

  She’s on her feet again and muttering under her breath; she’s apparently one of those that has to prep her Magiks. Having to speak the words is a weakness when you’re trapped in the bathroom with someone like me. I punch her again and the look of shock on her face as she drops to her knees, makes me laugh. She hastily crawls backwards on the slick bloody floor, until she bumps up against the wall and realizes she’s trapped in here with me. Alone.

  “They didn’t tell you that I hit that hard, did they?” I ask, smiling and showing her all my teeth. The door opens and an older human woman starts to step inside. She freezes when she sees the dead woman on the floor. Her eyes are wide and frantic when she turns her head to see the second woman, on the floor up against the wall.

  “What in God’s name is going on here?” she asks, her face pale. She raises a shaky hand to cover her mouth when blood oozes over to touch the pristine, white toe of her sneaker.

  “They’re aliens and they were going to eat me,” I say with a fake quake to my voice, carefully watching the way her face changes. It kills me to play the damsel in distress, in any shape or form, but I don’t want to have to knock an old lady unconscious.

  Her face remains pale but her eyes take on a harder glint as she looks down at the banshee. Her right hand slips into her purse and stays there. Ah, she’s one of those; hard nosed and armed. I bet she has an NRA sticker on her car. Her eyes drift again to the dead banshee, who’s now in her true form. Glamour can’t survive death.

  “Do you want me to call… someone?” she asks in a much steadier voice, still taking a step back from the pooling blood, towards the door.

  “Na, their bodies disintegrate.” Technically, the fiends eat them but I’m not sharing that juicy detail. Right on cue, the dead banshee’s body disappears into a patch of darkness that appears on the floor underneath her.

  “Oh my god!” The human woman exclaims as the banshee grabs her ankle.

  “Help me, she’s a monster!” she pleads.

  The old woman kicks out shaking her hand off and says, “You’re the monster! This young lady has a right to defend herself however she sees fit.” She looks at me. “Carry on, I’ll keep an eye out for more of them.” She steps back out the door and lets it close behind her with a bang. Bless her little gun-toting heart.

  I refocus on my prey. “Where were we?”

  Grabbing her by the arm, I drag her over to one of the stalls and pull her upper body against the toilet. Lifting the lid, I grab her by the hair and force her head into the brown water—yeah, someone forgot to flush—and hold her down for a count of three before I pull her head up, allowing her to rest her face against the rim of the bowl. Sputtering and gagging she fights my hold, but I’ve got a good grip and she’s barely able to wiggle her head without losing all of her hair.

  “Why are they sending pussies here instead of fighters?” I ask, pushing down on the lid and squashing her face between it and the rim.

  “I don’t know, you Feyrie pig!” she hisses, wetly.

  “I don’t believe you,” I argue and push harder. Asking again gets nothing more than curses and slurs, so I stand there with my foot pressing down on the lid, ignoring her screams and repeating my questions. When her eyeball pops out with a bit of a sploosh sound, I ease up a little and bend down towards her again. “Want to save the other one?”

  “They’re waiting on the Guide to get here!” she yells, strings of bloody drool leaking from her mouth as her intact eye pleads with me. The other one dangles like a booger against her cheek. Breathing heavily, she further explains, “He’s supposedly bringing some kind of special weapon to use against you!” Drawing in another breath she yells, “But because there’s still a bounty for you, we took our chances!”

  “See? Was that so bad?” I ask, pushing on the lid once again.

  “You said I could live!” she yells and thrashes against my hold.

  “Nope, I just said I’d save your other eye.” Straightening, I boost myself up to stand on the lid with both feet.

  “Mercy!” she chokes out. Looking down at her, I feel nothing. There’s no Magiks pushing me to give her what she asks. Not one ounce of pity stirs. There’s nothing but the smell of corruption surrounding her in its vile taint. This woman has killed and exploited innocence… anyone with a nose can smell it. She doesn’t deserve mercy; greed is dug so deep into her soul she’ll never rid herself of it. All the pain she’s caused was in the pursuit of power she doesn’t deserve to have, and will never truly get.

  “Sorry, I’m all out of that.” Grabbing the tops of the stall, I pull myself up and come down on the lid as hard as I can, over and over, until the only noise in the room is the splat of dead flesh. Hopping down, I don’t look back as her body begins to disappear. They should know better than to ask me for mercy when they have none to give.

  When I wash my hands again and toss some paper towels on the floor to cover the mess; large pools of blood can be a hazard for someone who walks in without knowing. Remembering that they usually have signs for things like this, I spot the door at the back of the bathroom. Grabbing the wet floor sign from the small closet—might have had to break the knob to open it—I write the word ‘bloody’ in blood, above wet and lean back to admire my artistic ability. This will have to do. I place the sign far enough from the door to allow it to open but close enough to stop them from stepping in the congealing puddles. Then yet again wash my hands. I don’t want to foul the taste of sugary treats with her dirty blood.

  Grabbing my snacks, I head back outside.

  The presence of these banshees make it obvious that we’re being followed, and in that stupid car—that goes five miles an hour at max speed, we’re easy targets to follow. I walk past the woman who popped in there mid-torture. She’s talking to a silver haired gentleman, who lifts a hand in greeting; I wave to them and she lifts the hand holding a revolver, in s
alute.

  See? I knew she was one of those.

  Phobe is leaning on the hood of the car, his ankles and arms crossed as he watches me approach. His eyes drop to my hands and then meet mine again.

  “I know how to wash up, okay?” I say, walking around him to climb in the car.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” he mutters then gets in the car.

  “Well, fuck you. You could’ve had a snack if you came in there.” The car starts with a rattle of metal but still starts. I can’t say I’m sorry; this will give me an excuse to buy a new car.

  “I figured you needed to get some aggression out,” he says nonchalantly. My head snaps around, only to discover him staring out the windshield. The smile that I expected to see teasing his lips is absent but I don’t miss the slightly smoldering look in his eyes as he glances at me. Yeah, my Phobe teased me sometimes but this one… I think I’ve rubbed off on him.

  “Did you eavesdrop on what she told me?”

  “You mean before, or after, you turned her face into deli meat?”

  Ignoring his comment, I answer, “They're waiting on that Guide person to get here. I’m assuming so he can kick my ass with his ‘special weapon.”’

  “Did she give you any locations?” Uh, shit.

  “I might have… gotten carried away, but I did find out the ‘signal’ crap.” I deserve a pat on the back for that part. Maybe not so much for killing her before I found out the real locations of the military camps. I suck at multitasking sometimes, especially when I’m focused on getting answers from stubborn Light Fey. Or popping their eyes out.

  “If he has enough power in him, he stands a chance—remember that.”

  “The thing about guys like him is that they've always had power, prestige. They’ve never had to earn anything because it’s always been handed to them. He'll squeak when he gets hit. He’s only going to come at me with Magiks, and I’m going to come at him with a fist. So at the absolute least, I can beat him up a bit before he kills me.”

  “You talk about your death as if its a trivial thing.” We’ve had a similar conversation about me dying. I wonder if he remembers?

  “Isn’t it? I’m fully aware of the role I’m playing. The king—you, btw—is the important part of the equation—not the person who gets him on the throne.”

  The look in his eyes gives me goosebumps.

  “I’ll never sit on their throne, Iza. I’ll never care about them, I’ll never help them. I’m only playing a part in this for one reason,” he says in that serious voice that he reserves for when I’m saying something stupid. However, he’s not saying anything I didn’t expect. I know what I’m supposed to do and my soul tells me who the king is, but I’ve known from the beginning that he wouldn’t want it and more than likely would never take it.

  No matter how much I hope to pass on the mantle and rid myself of all of this, I genuinely don’t believe it will be to him. It’s supposed to be, that fucked up prophecy says so, but my gut tells me it’s wrong. However, I don’t want to keep doing this indefinitely either. I care about the Feyrie, some of them I even love, but that’s not enough to keep me there—day in and day out—surrounded by people who see me as a means to an end. Never as a person. They love me for what I am versus who I am. I don’t hold it against them, but it’s the truth. We all have our parts to play in this facade.

  A lot of things will change when the Light threat has been dealt with—that’s if I can manage to beat the motherfuckers. Ideally, the Feyrie will get their freedom and possibly even a king—and live happy, long lives. Me? More likely than not, I’ll be dead by the time the dirt settles. It's the role of the Shepherd—this time around, anyhow—to sacrifice everything.

  That leaves the Sidhe. More sentient than anyone will ever realize, it made me feel like I was home, and ultimately, it will remain that way. My home. The Sidhe was never meant to be a permanent place for the other Feyrie to live. That place is tied up with me in more ways than even I know and when I’m gone, it will be too.

  There will be no more Shepherds.

  “So you do it for all the free food, huh?” I say, breaking the tense silence that’s fallen around us for the last several minutes.

  “You. I do it for you.” Another piece of the steering wheel breaks off in my hands and I have to use the middle to keep us on the road. That was not what I was expecting him to admit, not even close. Phobe typically takes pithy to a whole other level, but this is… wrenching in its honesty.

  Time for a subject change. “I think that we’ll find the first military base is in the center of all of those bullshit ones they’ve set up as diversions,” I don’t want to keep going down that road, not yet. I can’t, because the ramifications of my stubbornness means that I was an asshole to the only man to ever love me.

  Other than my dad, but he doesn’t count.

  “More than likely, it’s like finding the cream in that cookie you like so much.” His voice is light, almost teasing. The smile hiding underneath the stoic mask on his face comes through loud and clear.

  That fucker is in my head again.

  “How do you know I like the cream the most?” I ask, curious despite myself. It’s a weird fact to know about me, all things considered.

  “You always put the two sides of the cookie back together and return them to the bag.” How the hell does he know I do that? As far as I know, I’ve never been caught.

  “No one has ever found any evidence to support that claim,” I defend my cream stealing ways.

  “Because I eat the cookies,” he says, rather smugly truth be told.

  I catch my bottom lip between my teeth to hold back a smile. Oh, well, imagine that. I continue on in a light hearted tone, “Even after I licked them?”

  Without missing a beat, he says, “Especially because you licked them.” I throw my head back and laugh, a true laugh that echoes in the small car. I can’t believe he’s got jokes! “I like that.”

  “What, slobbery cookies?”

  “No, your laughter.”

  I have no idea what to say to that; my heart is beating like humping boggarts but my tongue is tied up in knots. I choose, for once, to keep silent. That’s how we spend the rest of the drive, silent, but it’s not the uncomfortable kind—it feels more like the companionable kind that everyone talks about but never does.

  I like it.

  4

  Honesty was actually worthwhile and some of the tension has eased because of it. Her thoughts aren’t as sad or as colored by fruitless grief. It’s still there, hanging around like an unwanted guest but not nearly as strong as before. Using these tangled emotions to fuel my words inadvertently did something right for a change.

  I was starting to believe we’d never get past the barrier between us, because I’ve spent months—once I accepted that my place is at her side—trying to figure out how to remain there without her fighting me every step of the way. All it took was some honesty and fighting my natural inclination to be cryptic and remain neutral. How anyone can possibly think to remain neutral around Iza, I’ll never know. I didn’t succeed. The me from before didn’t either. Somehow she’s influenced the old me, the current me and the future me to be more than a lurking psychopath.

  Although, I’m still a psychopath. That’s never in question.

  What does surprise me is her desire to be rid of the burden of the Feyrie; not because she doesn’t care—in fact, she cares too much—but because her heart is no longer truly in it. Some of the most important people in her life betrayed her for shallow, petty things and that’s wounded her gravely.

  She no longer trusts them, or the Magiks that drive her to help them. I’m not sure if she ever will again. This has now become a task that’s she’s determined to see through, her final one for people she feels don’t see her for herself. She’s not fighting with her heart anymore, she’s fighting to save the Feyrie’s.

  She’s wrong and she’s right about how the Feyrie see her. To some she is, in
deed, a tool—to others she represents what they could be. Some genuinely love her, but some love what she represents. Ruthie’s betrayal cut through her tentative belief in the cause she’s willing to die for. That won’t stop her from doing it just the same.

  No one can ever say she isn’t dedicated.

  I didn’t lie when I said I don’t care about the Feyrie, I don’t. I’m not fighting this for them or their archaic, useless crown. There was never an intention of taking that mess of a life on at any point in time, and when Iza’s thoughts turned towards that and I saw them, I was… relieved. She doesn’t expect me to, not even to please her.

  She doesn’t want it either.

  Somewhere in her heart, as bruised and battered as it is, there’s a small sliver of guilt, because she wants away from all of this. I think that’s why she’s fighting so hard to remove the Schoth from existence. It eases the way for her departure.

  Whether it's her walking into the sunset or her death.

  One of those options, I will fully support, the other—I’ll fight every single step of the way. With prejudice. With rage. She can’t die and leave me living a ghost of a life without her. The vehemence of that belief makes me look away from her. This feeling... it’s more than love, more than obsession. It's rooted itself into the very core of my existence and as I look at it from all sides, I realize that I don’t want to pull it out. She makes me feel and experience things in a way that I’ve never done before.

  No wonder the old me feel so hard for her, because in her own fucked up way, she’s irresistible. And also insane, but that’s part of her allure—how else would she survive any version of me? Even now, the softness that most females—of any species—crave, evades me, but the words that I clearly remember speaking to her, I mean just as much now.