Supernaturally (19 page)

What He Said

M
y
queen claimed it was our responsibility to accept that we’d created our own prison in the Faerie Realms. The Dark Queen, however, had other ideas. After numerous mistakes, each more disastrous than the last, most of the fey felt making an Empty One, someone who could create and control gates, was impossible. We would be relegated to the Faerie Realms and this sad dirt heap forever. Some asked my queen to help, but she refused, her irrational affection for human life influencing her. I always felt that surely she could at least do better than vampires.”

“Vampires?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Vampires were one of the Dark Queen’s early mistakes. She thought if she could kill the humans first and re-create them with her magic, they would become Empty Ones and take in souls. Instead they took life but no soul. Very distasteful, really.”

“Wait—you guys
made
vampires?” It was their fault Arianna was cursed like that?

“Please don’t interrupt, my love. Our magic became further and further diluted as this world tainted us, which was why we weren’t watching for the Dark Queen to succeed. When my queen heard of Vivian, a true Empty One, she knew she had to make one, too, or risk the Dark Queen opening a gate and shutting the rest of us here forever. And so, unbeknownst to any others, she selected a faerie from her court”—he looked derisively over at Lin, engrossed in the race—“and assigned him to create an Empty One.”

“Create?” I whispered. I didn’t want to know.

“It’s not easy for faeries to spend extended amounts of time in this mortal realm. Eventually it wears us down, pulls at the threads connecting us to eternity. We become thin shadows of what we are meant to be.” Lin’s fuzzy glamour made sense now—even his faerie features seemed strained. “But in order to do what he needed, he was forced to stay here. Finding a willing mortal woman was no challenge, of course.”

“My mom?” I had a mom. A human mom.

“No one had thought to try it that way, human relationships being such silly, messy things. Still, Melinthros had been sufficiently desensitized and was able to make you.”

“So I’m—I’m half faerie?” My stomach churned. I was going to be sick. Even the way Reth said it—
make
me.

“Of course not. It doesn’t work like that. You cannot become part of eternity with such a definite starting point.”

“What are you saying, then?”

“By having a mortal mother and a faerie father, you’re not half faerie. You’re just not quite mortal. Less than mortal, in a sense. Nothing faerie transfers over.”

The cold, empty feeling I’d been running from for so long welled up, threatening to overwhelm me with everything I lacked. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t paranormal. I wasn’t even normal. I was neither. Nothing.

“It’s necessary, of course. Human souls, fragile as they are, are incredibly complex, ever-shifting. Impossible to add to or take away from. A real human would never be able to function as a conduit or draw any more energy into herself. You are unique in all the realms in that you can shift energy. As to why you can create gates I’ve never been clear, although my queen seems to think it revolves around some bizarre human sense of home combined with the extra energy and the souls’ pull to leave this world.”

He stopped, as though expecting me to say something. What could I possibly say? What could I say to anyone, ever again?

“Of course, there was the matter of Lin losing you, and you have our sincerest apologies for that. As a matter of fact, no one knew you existed at all, save the queen, and she was unaware that Lin had lost you, as she never visits the mortal realm. Imagine her surprise when I described your unique abilities and she realized that you were the Empty One and that Lin was not preparing you for us. Unfortunately I wasn’t the only one to recognize you, which led the Unseelie Court to complicate things by sending Vivian after you.

“My queen gave me Melinthros’s name and assigned me to determine what, exactly, had happened and how to turn you into what we needed you to be. I had always avoided becoming embroiled in court politics before. Wisely, I might add. It’s been exhausting. It was my idea to give you extra soul, but that turned out to be a disaster.” He brushed his fingers against my scar.

I shook my head, too much information clogging my thoughts. “I really don’t belong anywhere, do I?”

“Nonsense.” He stroked my wrist. “I said you were a mistake from the beginning, but you’re a very endearing mistake, and with the right amount of adjustments you will fit quite nicely in my Realms. And if you serve the queen’s purposes, more the better. You weren’t made for this Earth, Evelyn. You do not deserve to be fragile, corruptible, dying. You should be eternal.” He leaned in close, a smile equal parts tender and possessive lighting his perfect face. “Eternal with me.”

I had to have a place here, a home. I had to have something. “What about my mom?”

Reth’s smile dropped and he turned to the other faerie. “Have you found the girl’s mother?”

Lin muttered something unintelligible.

“What did he say?”

“He doesn’t know where she is.”

“No,” I whispered.

“I am sorry. Loving the fey isn’t healthy for mortals. It becomes an addiction, and if the object of their obsession is removed, they waste away. It’s discouraged in my court, unless you bring the mortal to the Realms where they can be satiated living among faeries.”

I stood, grief threatening to overwhelm me. I couldn’t deal with this. It was too big. Like the draw of the Dark Queen, this feeling would swallow me whole, consume me. I needed to replace it. Jack’s words rang in my head—it was always better to be angry than sad.

“You.” I stalked over, standing directly in front of the faerie who had created me. He didn’t look up. “Melinthros, you will look at me.”

His head snapped up, blurry eyes glaring at mine.

“Tell me what happened to my mother.”

He spoke as though the words were being forced from him, which they were, thanks to my command. “She took care of the baby until she was no longer necessary.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me where she is!” I screamed.

“I can’t.”

My hands flexed at my sides. He had to tell me. I’d make him tell me.

“Evelyn.” Reth’s voice was as soft as his touch on my arm. “I tried myself to find her a year ago. I am sorry.”

Reth’s golden eyes brought me back to reality. A reality in which I was more alone than I had ever been. As bad as it was finding out I was the same thing as Vivian when she went on her killing spree, that was nothing compared to what I felt now. At least then I’d only been forced to admit I wasn’t completely normal. I’d assumed that meant
more
than human. Not less.

“Come with me. There is nothing for you here, my lovely Neamh.”

The last word reached out to me, raced through my body like electricity. I knew that word. I
was
that word. He really had known my name all along. But I was no faerie, and my name had no claim on my will. No one had claim to me.

“I’m not yours,” I hissed.

The door burst open. Jack stood there, breathing heavily, holding a golden goblet in one hand. “Your drink.”

“Jack.” I walked toward him, reeling, needing to be anywhere else. Needing to be anyone else. “Please take me home.”

“You aren’t safe from the Dark Queen here, and you will never be whole. Let me take you home,” Reth said, his voice slicing through the chill in me. He didn’t mean my apartment.

I turned to him. He knew me. He knew what I was, who I was. This was his fault—his and every other faerie’s. They destroyed everything they touched. Two could play at that game, though.

“Melinthros,” I said, the image of the car wreck fresh in my mind, “you will return to the Faerie Realms and
you will never come back
.” His bloodshot eyes bugged out of his head and he clutched at a can of Coke. Shaking, he walked mechanically to the wall and created a door, disappearing out of this world forever. Good riddance. I hoped his withdrawal lasted an eternity. He deserved far, far worse. Maybe someday when I thought of a punishment bad enough, I’d find him again.

I took Jack’s hand and stepped out the booth door before pausing. “If I ever see you again, Reth,” I said, “I will kill you.”

The Truth Will Set You Free—or Break Your Heart

I
pulled
Jack behind me, tripping down the stairs and barely able to see through my tears. I needed to get away from here, now.

“What happened?” he asked, frowning as he tried to open a door in the wall. “Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head, unable and unwilling to talk about it. People passed us on their way to the bathroom, but I didn’t care about hiding the door to protect their precious little worldviews. Why should they get to lead happy, innocent, clueless lives? The world was a monstrous place. A monstrous place I had no place in.

Finally light traced a door into the wall. “Home?” he asked.

I squeezed his hand, closing my eyes against the claustrophobic dark of the Paths and not opening them until we walked through to my tiny room.

“Evie!” Lend jumped up from my bed, his face creased with worry. “Where have you been? Arianna called about the letter, said you didn’t come home last night, and when I came, I found this”—he held up my iron necklace that I had left lying in the middle of the floor—“and I thought, I was so scared that Reth had—”

He stopped, looking from me to Jack, who was still holding my hand.

“You were with him?” Lend’s face shifted and he swore softly. “I thought you were hurt or kidnapped. I’ve been calling everyone my dad knows, sick with worry. And you’ve been with him the whole time. Why? What were you doing that was so important you couldn’t even call? And why didn’t you come to me first when you found out about Georgetown?”

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “I couldn’t, I—”

“You could tell him but not me? You promised me, you swore you were done hiding things. You lied.” He looked so hurt. I hadn’t thought my heart could break any more, but seeing his eyes killed me.

“I couldn’t face you! Lend, that was our life—that was everything! And I failed. I didn’t get in. I’m not good enough.”

He took me by the shoulders, steering me away from Jack. “Evie, there are other options. This sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. This doesn’t change anything about us. I don’t know why you think it would! We’ve still got the same future.”

“No, we don’t! We’ve never had the same future. I’ve tried my hardest to fix it, but we never will. I’m not—I’m not even human. And you aren’t either, so we should quit pretending like this will ever work out.”

His face fell. “We’ve always known we weren’t normal. Why does it suddenly matter? So we’re paranormal, big deal.”

“You don’t get it!”

“And he does?” Lend pointed angrily at Jack.

“No! I’m not paranormal, I’m
nothing
! Just another faerie experiment gone horribly wrong. And we don’t have a future together because mine is going to dead-end into oblivion and yours is going to go on forever!”

He froze, his expression shocked. “What are you talking about?”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand to look into his face, not now, not ever again. I couldn’t have him, and it destroyed whatever was left of my heart. I was stupid to ever think we could be together. So stupid. “You’re immortal,” I whispered. “Your soul is bright and shining and perfect and eternal. You aren’t going to die.
Ever
.”

Lend dropped his hands off my shoulders. I wouldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t see the look on his beautiful face. “How long have you known?”

“Since prom night. When I was filled with the souls, I could see straight through to yours, and—It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to lose you.” I laughed bitterly, opening my eyes to stare at the floor. “But that was inevitable, wasn’t it?”

“Evie, I—What am I supposed to say to this?”

“You’ll figure it out. You’ve got an eternity to.”

His voice was angry, desperate. “But we can still—”

“No!” I finally looked up into his water eyes, those eyes I once hoped held my entire future. His heartbreak mirrored mine. But unlike me, he’d get over it. “We can’t. I’m not going to be like your dad, left behind, clinging forever to the one perfect love that could never work! I won’t be that person. I love you too much to make you try to stay with me when I know you’ll want to move on. You’ll
have
to move on and become whatever it is you’re supposed to be. I’m not going to stay here and wait for it to happen.”

I turned to Jack, who opened a door in the wall and held out his hand. I took it, unable to resist a final look at Lend.

He took a step back, not meeting my eyes as he silently shook his head.

“It’s for the best,” I whispered, wishing, desperately hoping that he would disagree with me, stop me, do anything.

He just stood there.

And so I walked into the darkness with Jack.

Sleeping Beauty

W
here
to?” Jack asked.

I realized I wasn’t crying anymore. There was no point. I was a broken, useless shell of a girl. My entire existence was a mistake. I had no home, no family, no future. All I felt was numb. After all, why mourn the loss of things I never should have had to begin with?

I shook my head, my voice hollow. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you, uh, want to talk about it?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” No one would ever understand because no one was the same as me.

No, that was wrong. Vivian. She and I were the same. I was hit with a sudden, aching need to see her. Really see her. I wondered if she knew about us, about what our fathers were. But she would have told me if she did. Now more than ever I could understand her, forgive her for what she’d done. At least I’d been able to grow up with the illusion of normalcy. She’d never had a life free from the faeries.

“Could you find someone? I don’t know where she is, but IPCA has her somewhere.”

Jack smiled at me in the darkness. “If IPCA has her, I can find her.”

He veered to the side and opened a door into a white hallway I knew all too well. We hurried toward Raquel’s office. “Wait here.” Jack turned the corner out of sight.

I heard him knock. “Jack? What is it?” Raquel asked.

“Evie’s missing!”

“What? What do you mean, missing?”

“I went to visit her, but her vampire and that dumb boy she likes were panicking. They don’t know where she is.”

“Reth.” Raquel’s voice cut through the air, so menacing even I was a little scared. “Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll take care of this. I should never have let her out into the world unprotected, but I’ll get her back.”

The sound of her pumps stomping down the hall was followed by Jack peeping around the corner, grinning. “All clear, then.”

“You could have picked something nicer to tell her. I don’t want her to worry.”

“Oh, relax. Want to snoop in her office with me, or do you want to hide in the hall like a good little girl?”

I glared at him, pushing past. He opened her door and walked in like he owned the place, sitting down at her desk and propping his feet on it as he opened one of the drawers.

“Who are we looking for?”

“Vivian? She’d be . . . I don’t know. Somewhere safe, where faeries couldn’t get to her? And with medical stuff. And she’s a Level Seven paranormal, if that helps.” No doubt the IPCA researchers would be thrilled with the information I could give them about myself now. They’d never been able to figure me out before. Lucky them; ignorance was bliss. Or at least less painful.

He hummed cheerily as he flipped through the folders. I fidgeted, sure that at any moment Raquel would come back and I’d be busted. I couldn’t face her right now. She’d try to rationalize this, comfort me. There was no way to make this better. There never would be.

“Here we go. The iron wing.”

“The iron wing?”

“There’s a whole section of Containment where the walls are plated with iron. Makes it impossible to open a faerie door there.”

Interesting. That might have been nice to know while I was here. Yet another example of information IPCA hadn’t trusted me with. I’d never been one of them, never really been a member. Of anything.

We took a roundabout route to Containment, then went through a supply door I’d never bothered to open. It led to a long, narrow hallway. I thanked whatever luck I had left (at this point it didn’t seem like much) that we didn’t run into anyone. Jack stopped in front of a plain door, a small, temporary plaque next to it labeled “Seven, Medical.” Couldn’t they have used her name, at least?

I pushed the door open and there, in a bed in the middle of the perfectly white room, lay the person who was the closest I would ever have to family. I walked slowly up, taking in the myriad of IVs, machines, and monitors she was hooked up to. And instead of the comfort I’d been looking for, I was overwhelmed with guilt.

“What happened to her?” Jack asked, leaning against the wall by the door.

“I did,” I whispered. Why hadn’t I tried harder to get through to her? I could have stopped her, could have convinced her to stop killing the paranormals. Instead I’d ripped the souls away from her, leaving her with barely enough to hang on.

But if I hadn’t taken the souls, Lish still would have been trapped, never set free. I hated this. Why couldn’t I ever love someone and not have to worry about all the other ways they made me feel?

I took Vivian’s icy hand in my own, careful not to disturb the IV. “Hey, Viv.” I tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear, but her eyes stayed closed, the only evidence of life the rhythmic beeping of one of the monitors. Her breathing barely even disturbed the blankets.

“So.” I choked back tears, trying to keep my voice even. “Turns out you were right all along. We really don’t belong anywhere, do we? I tried to. I tried so hard, but—” The sobs came then, and I leaned my head over onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I cried, my words muffled by her still body. “I’m so sorry.”

After a few minutes I felt a hand on my back. I stood up, wiping at my face. Great, now I’d gone and gotten her shirt wet, after everything else.

“It’s not your fault,” Jack said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.

“Tell that to her.”

“Evie. You didn’t do any of this. The faeries did. It’s their fault. All of it.”

I closed my eyes. He was just trying to make me feel better. I’d done this to her.

But then again, he had a point. If the faeries hadn’t raised her the way they did, tried to pit her against me, we wouldn’t have had that confrontation. They were the ones who broke her, twisted her until she thought nothing of stealing the life energy of every paranormal she could find.

Bleep, they were the ones who made us in the first place.

It was their fault I was this thing, this cold, empty husk that didn’t belong anywhere. It was their fault that Vivian was lying there, that she’d never wake up again. It was even their fault that Arianna was doomed to an eternal life she never wanted. All the people who had been killed or turned by vampires across the centuries. All the kids like Jack who’d gone missing, forced to live among the faeries as pets—or worse. My mother, missing or dead, but gone, never to be mine.

All their fault.

“I hate them,” I whispered.

“Of course you do.” Jack put his arm around my shoulder. “Come on, we should go before Raquel figures out you’re with me.”

I nodded and squeezed Vivian’s hand one last time.

We walked back out through the hall, passing the open cells I’d ignored before, most of which were empty. I jumped, startled, at a voice.

“
Liebchen
.” Standing behind an electric-field guarded doorway was Uber-vamp. He smiled, one corner of his mouth turned up, his eyes languorously half closed. He didn’t stand as straight as before, and even his glamour had a sick, unhealthy pallor to it now. “You look unhappy. Come in to me, let me take you from this world, my little monster.”

I stared blankly at him. So this was where Raquel put him to make sure he wouldn’t get out again. Jack rolled his eyes and flipped the vampire off, taking my hand in his and pulling me down the hall. I watched the vampire as long as I could, chilled by the look in his eyes, the memory of how it had felt to drain some of him.

His words rang in my ears.
Little monster
. It was true.

Jack found the nearest hallway that wasn’t lined with iron and made a door. I didn’t look back as we walked through. I was never going to the Center again. I suppressed a shudder at the Paths’ darkness and closed my eyes.

“You really hate it here, don’t you?” he asked.

“This is how I imagine hell. No fire and brimstone, just black and empty and alone forever.”

He laughed. “Hell, huh? Well, hopefully we’ll be able to disprove that theory soon. Besides, if it were hell, would I be here with you?”

“I don’t know, if hell called for an eternity of annoyance instead of torment, maybe.”

“I like you more every day. But neither of us qualifies for hell. We’re
victims
.” He smiled, the last word laced with venom. “And if we’re occasionally wicked, well, certainly we’d be justified.”

I wondered if he was trying to comfort me about Vivian, but he stared into the distance as though anticipating future wickedness. What did he want me to light on fire this time? I didn’t think I was up for more destruction.

He opened a door into his Faerie Realms room. I collapsed onto a deep green velvet couch. “Can I please go to sleep and never wake up?”

“I believe your sister has that covered.” I glared at him, and he held up his hands. “Sorry. Touchy subject. How about I go get you something to eat?”

I wasn’t hungry, but I needed a while to be by myself and disconnect. Jack was so kinetic, always talking, always in motion. He exhausted me even when I didn’t feel like this. Still, he felt like my only friend left in the world, and I was grateful to him. We understood each other. “Real food, please. This is the last place I want to be tied to for the rest of my pathetic life.”

“Your wish is my command.” He disappeared through the wall and I lay back, closing my eyes and willing myself not to think of anything, ever again. If I could only sleep, sleep and not have to think about the future without Lend, the emptiness inside me, that would be enough.

I was nearly out when a pair of hands with razor nails grabbed my shoulders and threw me across the room.

My arm hit the corner of a side table with a sickening crack, and I stayed on the floor, dazed. I could feel blood seeping from the fingernail cuts in my shoulders. What was happening?

“Get up,” Fehl’s horrible voice rasped at me. “I want to see how badly I can hurt you without killing you.” I looked into her feverish eyes as she smiled at me. “How many of your limbs can you live without?”

She wrapped her hand in my hair, pulling me off the ground. I cried out, my arm burning with agony from the movement. I clutched at it, and Fehl’s face lit up with cruel delight. She grabbed right where it was broken, and I screamed, lights swimming in my vision. I couldn’t handle this much pain; I was going to pass out. I
wanted
to pass out.

“Evie!” Jack shouted. “Don’t let her do this! Fight back!”

Fehl’s face was right in front of mine, her breath hot and feral. Rage flared past the pain, rage at this faerie and all she had done to me, to Vivian. What her kind had done to the world. I shoved my good hand against her chest. It was time to finish what Viv started.

I opened the floodgates, and Fehl’s eyes widened in shock and fear. A thrill went through me, seeing her face. She deserved to look like that.

Her soul connected with mine in a rush of energy and familiarity, my sparks and currents flooding up to meet it, welcoming it, wanting me to draw it in. Her soul was a dark thing, a wild and rushing thing, the wind howling eternally through a black canyon. I could taste its darkness, what it would feel like to own it.

And in that moment I knew I didn’t want any part of Fehl inside me.

I shoved her away and she shuddered, crouching on the ground and wrapping her arms around herself.

“What are you doing?” Jack cried.

I trembled, drained from the effort it had taken to close the connection before I took any of Fehl’s soul. Exhausted beyond belief, my arm in so much pain I could barely see straight, I shook my head. “I don’t want anything to do with her. Denfehlath,” I said, and her head snapped to attention. “Go away and never come near me or Jack again.”

She jerked up, her movements stiff and forced like a living marionette, and disappeared through a door in the wall.

I sank to the floor, shivering.

“Why didn’t you kill her?” Jack looked at me, incredulous and angry. “After everything she’s done?”

“You don’t understand. I was going to take her soul. But I don’t want any part of her in me, Jack. A faerie soul would be worse than nothing at all.”

He looked as though he was about to burst, then let out a deep breath. “Fine, then.” Sitting on the floor next to me, he took my good hand in his. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Not after what we’re going to do.”

“What are we going to do?”

A beatific smile spread across his face, transforming his impish face into an angelic one. “We’re going to save the world, Evie. We’re going to make sure that faeries don’t hurt anyone, ever again.”