“You just said that if I were human I could still start the apocalypse. But now you’re saying that if I’m human the prophecy won’t come true.” Damn. She is so convoluted.
“The prophecy isn’t about starting the apocalypse. It’s about stopping it. If you are human you can no longer stop it.” She backs up, away from me and closer to Astley, and pokes at him with her foot. Anger and despair flood into me as she says, “It’s too bad he’s unconscious. I’d like him to witness what I’m going to do to you. But at least the human will see. She’ll be a witness to tell my son how horrible it was, how painful, how you screamed and begged for mercy. You will do that for me, won’t you, Zara? You will scream? Or maybe just beg. I do have sensitive ears.”
Swallowing hard, I wait as she approaches me. One step. Another step. Another. I look over at Astley and relief spreads into me. I don’t want him to see this, I realize. I don’t want any more hurt for him. He’s endured so much. Just having a mother like this …
Her face hovers in front of me.
“Are you ready to be human?” she whispers.
The smell of lilacs engulfs me, overwhelming my senses. I don’t answer, just close my eyes as her lips move closer. I turn my head, clench my own lips, though it won’t matter. She snaps her fingers and the two goons stride away from the door and toward me. Large, strong hands move my head so I’m facing her again. She giggles and I can tell from the sound that she’s just a couple inches from me. I try to think of some last-minute way to get away, some compelling argument to keep her from doing this, but sometimes you can’t argue with crazy, sometimes you can’t dissuade evil. Sometimes you just have to clench your lips, close your eyes, and pray. I focus on my power, the branches that Astley and I have twisted together. I try to take all the pixie energy in me and shape it into wings that take flight to Astley. I can almost imagine it, but then her lips touch mine.
Soft and minty smelling, they push against mine for a second before the sensation changes. Pain sizzles through my face and brain and then my body. Screaming, I jerk back against the cold wall, jerk sideways against the hands of the men, try to flee the kiss, but there’s no escape, no escape at all. My hand yanks at the man closest to me, grabs fabric, rips at it, frantically trying to find something. I hear more scuttling of mice, the ticking of a clock, and Isla’s giggle. A goon guy laughs. My heart slows. One beat. Another. I’ve failed. I’ve failed us all. Something wet touches my face. It’s tears. My tears. I refuse to die like this. But no, it’s not dying … I refuse to change like this.
My hand loses its hold on the fabric even as she keeps kissing me. Something skitters across the floor and hits my foot. Did Issie kick me a weapon? Blindly, I toe it up onto my boot and then kick whatever it is up into my hand, a maneuver I would never have been able to do as a human because I am not much of a soccer player. But for the moment I am still pixie and it works. Something cold and hard meets my fingers, which clutch at the metal of it. The back of my head knows what it is—a knife. It’s a knife that must have been on the floor. Issie was going for that, not Astley. I clench it, solidify my grasp around it while the world spins. Opening my eyes, I see Isla’s face, her beautiful, evil face that’s kissing mine and that’s when I do it—I plunge the knife into her chest. I plunge the knife and try to yell, but there’s nothing left of me—no pixie left, maybe no human either.
And then my head implodes and I start to lose consciousness. The last thing I hear is Isla’s scream, which far outlasts my own.
BEDFORD COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT RELEASE
On 12–15 at approximately 1755 hours, RCC Dispatch received a call from a woman in Trenton reporting a man was whispering her name while she was in the parking lot at the Bedford Marketplace.
When I wake up, I’m no longer hanging on the wall, but curled on the floor. Blood, probably my blood or Isla’s, is splattered around me. Moaning, I try to sit up but fail. I must be human. I can’t smell anything and I’m so terribly cold and alone feeling. It’s like all my connections to the other pixies, to Astley, is just gone. Rolling onto my stomach, I do my best not to cry from the pain. Isla’s men aren’t here. Issie is still bound up by the door making “free me” noises and nodding her head toward the side of the room. That’s when I realize that there’s a blood trail leading to some stacked white towels. Isla’s body is on the floor. She isn’t moving.
From where he’s still chained up on the floor, Astley stares at me with horrified eyes. I’ve killed his mother. I’ve orphaned him. I know she was evil, I know, but she was still his mom and I—I—
“I’m so sorry,” my voice croaks out.
His lips shake. “I thought you had died, Zara. I thought …”
“Not yet,” I say, staring at the iron around his wrists. The binds are so narrow, but so strong. It must be poisoning his system by now. That makes him the priority to free. “Let me get you loose.”
But I can’t walk. I have to crawl over there. It’s not even really a crawl—more a drag punctuated by little moaning noises. Astley’s eyes narrow as he watches me. I don’t have to be a pixie to see how angry he is, how hard it is for him to witness how pathetic I am now. When I finally get close enough, Issie scooches over and I manage to free her hands. She rips the tape off her mouth but doesn’t say anything, which makes me realize just how bad it is. When Issie is horrified she loses her voice.
She has lost her voice.
Even with Issie’s help, it takes the last of my strength to get Astley free. The moment I do, he pulls me into his lap, pressing me against his chest, rocking me slightly. Issie huddles close too and grabs my hand, squeezing it tight.
“You killed her,” Astley says.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted to kill her,” he whispers desperately. “I wanted to kill her for what she did to you, for what she has done to all of us.”
Isla lies there, unmoving, a beautiful, bloody shell of a woman. Her hair, as pale as a cloud, floats around her head, only the ends sullied by blood. And my own soul? My own body? It is full of webs and dusk, aches that seem to breathe too big for me to contain them any longer. How am I going to keep everyone safe if I’m human? How am I going to help Astley and our pixies? How can I do anything?