by Frankie Rose
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I was probably holding her too tight, but so what? It wasn’t like I was going to break her arm. Not unless she kept pulling like that.
“I thought you weren’t going to be there next time to pick up the pieces?” Farley growled.
It was almost comical how angry she was, despite the fact that I had just dragged her away from yet another unpleasant encounter with the Reavers’ men.
“I can leave you alone if you like?”
Her voice was a little high-pitched when she said, “Finally! That’s all I’m asking.”
I let go of her arm and carried on walking toward the run-down Ferris wheel on the other side of the fairground. “Bye, then.”
It was an interesting experiment—one I was probably going to cop an earful for later. Agatha would have seen me let her go, but in the end it was better this way. I couldn’t seriously carry her out of the fair kicking and screaming. That would draw way too much attention, and in truth, this had to be her decision. It should have been a decision she didn’t have to make, but…some things were out of my control. It was up to her now.
The move paid off.
“Okay, that’s not fair. You know I’m not going to let those guys snatch me, regardless of who they are. Since you destroyed my truck, you should drive me home and then leave me alone.”
I allowed myself a small smile before taking her by the arm again. “And you think they don’t know where you live?”
She didn’t say anything, just stumbled alongside me in her oversized red jacket, staring at me with those pale silver eyes. The sight of them was rather disconcerting. They were closer to her father’s than she could have known.
“Let’s just give Agatha some time to lead them off. We can discuss where we go from there.” I pulled her towards our destination and felt her pace slow.
“I hope you’re not expecting me to get on that.” She pointed up at the Ferris wheel like it was a giant spaceship, liable to whisk us off to an inhospitable world where the locals had developed a proclivity for eating human flesh.
“What?” I laughed. “Afraid of heights?”
She practically growled like an animal. It was quite a sexy sound, but somehow I didn’t think she knew the effect it had.
“It looks like it’s about to fall down,” she said. “If I’m going to die, then I’d rather it be from something heroic like pushing a small child out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, not because I got smushed by an ancient fair ride.”
I curled my mouth into a practiced smirk. “I think we’ll be pretty safe, but if you’re afraid…”
Of course she was afraid. I could almost see it rolling off her in waves. Fear had its own energy, after all. My smart remark had the desired effect, however, and her body went rigid.
“Fine. Just don’t blame me if the carriage breaks and we plummet to our death.”
“Hmm,” I mused, “I’d probably be okay if that happened. I don’t know about you, though.”
She gasped, but it was too late. We were at the front of the line. The small, jaunty-looking attendant ushered us directly onto the waiting carriage and yanked on the lever, jerking us five feet into the air. She pulled the bar down and gripped onto it so tight her fingers turned white.
“Why is this a good idea, anyway?” she asked. There was a tremulous hitch in her voice that turned into a squeak when we jolted up another five feet. “If they followed us, then all they have to do is wait at the bottom for the ride to finish.”
“They aren’t the only ones with a few tricks up their sleeves. Agatha’s leading them off. This is the perfect place to watch the show. See…” I pointed across the fairground below, which gradually grew further and further away as we approached the very top of the wheel. Agatha was down there, making a point of traveling slowly through the crowd. She paused to wait for the two men, who had given up pretending that Moira Hope was with them and were shoving their way towards the exit.
We sat in tense silence for a full rotation of the wheel, watching the cat and mouse game unfold on the ground below. Eventually, Farley nervously shifted in her seat, and a small flash of something strangely guilt-like flared up inside me.
Okay, so it was a little fun teasing her about the ride; she’d looked positively terrified when she’d been staring at it before. She had even shivered a little as it shunted into life. But this—having people follow her, being told the worst news she was ever likely to receive in her blissfully short life—this was bad for her. She was probably going to remember today as one of the worst days of her life.
The ride smoothed out, and we moved slowly backwards. Farley’s jittering calmed down, although it didn’t disappear entirely. I knew she was looking at me out of the corner of her eye. It took a while before she said anything.
“I can’t see them anymore. Will Agatha be okay?”
“Oh, so you’re worried about her now?”
“Of course I am. She seemed nice. I just had trouble believing some of the things she told me, is all.”
“Right. But now that she’s risked her life to keep you safe, that makes her story more believable?” It was probably unkind to be so sharp with her, but there were certain ways to handle some people. Of all the things I knew about her, I knew the soft approach wasn’t one that worked well with Farley. Her gung-ho harassment of the LA police department was proof of that. And besides, this was who I was. No point in sugar-coating it.
The lights of the fair glittered and sparkled below us like fireflies trapped in a spider’s web. The ride wasn’t really that high, but it still seemed to bother her.
“You’re a bit of a jerk, you know that?” she sniped.
“Yep. Deal with it.”
“Why the hell should I? As soon as this ride’s over, I’m going home.”
I sighed. “And we’re back here again. Haven’t you been listening? They know where you live.”
She gave me a hard glare and pulled the sleeves of her jacket over her hands. They looked cold. “So what do you suggest I do? I s’pose you think it’s best for everyone if I disappear off into the night with you and Agatha, right?”
I let out a hard laugh and pushed the hair back out of my face. The wind blew it right back again, but I knew she’d caught the look I crafted. “I don’t care what you do. You can go home for all it matters to me. I’m not the one who believes in this stupid prophecy anyway.”
I paused, waiting. It wouldn’t be long. Five seconds at most. I’d made it to four when she said, “What prophecy?”
Too easy.
“Oh, Agatha didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head.
No, Agatha hadn’t told her. I knew she hadn’t. She’d thought it would be too much information to take in in one sitting. It probably was, but we were running dangerously low on options. Your dad is an immortal psycho killer who wants to end your life clearly hadn’t done the job.
“There’s this prophecy. It states that one day, a female child will be born of the Reavers. That their world will change forever when that happens.” I turned and gave her an overly enthusiastic fake smile. “That would be you. Consider yourself a game changer.”
Her eyebrows hiked up a couple of degrees. “What? I’m going to change their world? That’s why they want to kill me? They think I’m going to start up some one-woman feminist rights movement or something?”
“Yeah. Or something.” Elaborating on the fine print was definitely a bad idea.
“But what about my mom?”
“What about her?”
A disgusted look washed over Farley’s face. For some reason it felt good that she was angry. It was easier to handle her when she was hostile.
“Why would they want to kill her?”
“I imagine giving birth to you would have been reason enough. But who can say? They’re bat shit crazy.”
“So it’s my fault?”
Hollo
w. Twisted. That’s how her words made me feel inside. “No, of course not.”
“I don’t believe you. If what you say is true, then it definitely is my fault.”
“Whatever. You can beat yourself up over it if you like, but it seems a little stupid to me. You can’t blame yourself for being born.”
“Ugh.” She yanked on the bar, pulling it up over our heads. I hadn’t even realized the ride was over. “I don’t know why I’m listening to anything you say. You flat-out lied to me yesterday. You told me you didn’t know anything about my mother.”
I looked at her—her long, black hair windblown and tangled about her face, her lips a little redder than usual from the cold—and shrugged.
“I lie. All the time.”
There were other words at the back of my throat, words that a normal person would have said, about not wanting to crush her hope, about not wanting to pull her into this life. They remained there, frozen, each one a tiny insect trapped inside amber, testimony to the fact that once upon a time I might have been the kind of person to say words like those. I’d tried to kill off that person. I’d all but succeeded. Now, if only I could kill off the person inside me that even thought them in the first place…
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “It must be cathartic to at least be honest about that.” Everything about her had hardened and gone spiky. The look in her eyes, the angular line of her jaw, the stiffness in her shoulders. She got up and stormed off towards the exit, holding her cell phone to her ear.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling a taxi.”
This wasn’t going as planned. I trudged through the mud and fell into step alongside her. “Okay, so I’m a jerk, but you’re really stubborn. You have to come with us.”
She ignored me and bit down on her lip, marching towards the car park. The wind whipped up around us, flinging her hair up around her face. The long, black tendrils looked like dark ink drops spiraling in water.
“I don’t have to do anything. Yes, hello? Can I get a cab to—”
I reached out and snatched her cell phone out of her hand then snapped it shut. It probably wasn’t the best idea. The look on her face implied she was on the verge of exploding, but she’d left me no other choice. “You do. Have to, I mean,” I said.
She glowered at me, her face turning redder by the second. She flared her nostrils and hissed, “Why?”
“Because.” I tried to keep the pleading edge out of my voice but a hint of it leaked through anyway. Damn it. I scowled. “Because you’ll die if you don’t.”
CHAPTER SIX
Into The Dark