She shakes her head. Her hair flows out behind her, catching the wind. Her eyes harden. “You aren’t a warrior. You’re just a girl, a human girl.”
Someone sobs. It’s me. “Please,” I beg.
She doesn’t move. The wind stops. Everything is clear, unobstructed by flying snow crystals. I can see all of Thruth; every hair, every feather. Still, I beg and refuse to accept it.
“Please . . . I’m half pixie. I’m not a human.” I frantically push the poker her way. “I’m turning blue. That’s pixie. Take me. If you have to take him, take me too!”
“No, your parent is pixie. You are still human, susceptible to pixie magic, destined perhaps to be a pixie, but you are a girl—just a girl.” Her shoulders move a tiny bit and she steps forward. “You have not yet been a warrior. You have never killed.”
Something steels inside of me. “Do. Not. Come. Closer.” I flip the poker around and jab it toward her. “Or you’ll be my first.”
Her lips twitch almost like she’s about to smile. She doesn’t think I’m a threat at all. She sniffs the air. “Little one, there are pixies approaching.”
She gestures behind me.
I do not turn. I won’t fall for that. “You’re not going to distract me.”
She sighs. “Your warrior’s time has come. I need to hurry before we both lose him.”
Her posture changes. I steel myself for her and I jab the poker. She brushes past me as if I’m a puppy. Her arm knocks me to the side.
“No!” I scream the word like a curse, like a prayer, and twist myself toward her. Lunging, I grab at her ankle just as she pulls Nick into her arms. My nails break her skin. She bleeds red. I use my hurt hand to try to get a better grip. “You can’t take him.”
Her wings tense and tighten above us. They catch the wind and she lifts. She lifts straight up. She lifts straight up, pulling me with her.
“Let go,” she says.
“No!” My feet leave the ground. “No!”
We are moving up. One foot. Another.
Her voice is frustrated. “Let go, girl! Humans cannot enter Valhalla.”
“You can’t take him.” My fingers slip. My hurt arm dangles uselessly. Damn. Damn. “I need him.”
We move higher. We are six feet up now. I don’t care. I am not afraid of heights; I am only afraid of losing Nick.
“Let him go,” I plead. “I can take care of him. Please . . .”
She shakes her leg. “You are worse than a dog, begging. Where is your honor?”
“He is mine!” I yell. My fingers quiver from the stress of holding my weight. “I love him. Please.”
“I am sorry,” she whispers. She shakes her leg again. “We need the wolf for the battle. He is no use to anyone dead and rotting in the earth. Now get off me.”
She kicks at me with her free foot. Her heel smashes into my fingers. They spasm. It’s just for a second that I lose my grip but it’s enough: I fall. My feet hit first. The shock of gravity and contact thuds all the way to the top of my head, but I almost don’t topple over. My knees bend. I stand my ground, then a second later I plop backward on top of the poker. The hard cold line of it is just to the left of my spine. I look up.
They are gone.
I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t keep him.
“No.” I don’t yell the word. I whisper it. I whisper it over and over again until it becomes sort of crazy chant. “No. No. Nono. Nononononono . . .”
Everything inside of me empties like the sky. It’s just this one massive hole that grows out of my stomach and keeps getting bigger and bigger, erasing all of me. Nick. Nick is gone.
Pixie Tip
Pixies don’t care about your loss. They will not send you flowers or hold your hand. Forget about sympathy cards too. They’d rather bite you.
He’s gone. His body bleeding and broken, his beautiful body, is somewhere I can’t reach. His deep, growly voice will no longer speak. I’ll never feel his lips press against mine. His fingers will never twine themselves into my hair. I’ll never be able to tease him about Snausages or fire hydrants.
I spend a while on the ground, just staring into the white sky; staring, staring, and seeing nothing.
Something moves out of the woods. My hand reaches underneath my back, finds the iron shaft of the poker. It’s cold from the snow. My fingers wrap around it, moved by an instinct that has nothing to do with my heart.
“She’s wounded,” something says.
I turn my head to the left but stay lying down. It’s a female pixie. Her glamour is gone. She is all silver eyes, blue skin, and teeth. Her designer dress is tattered. She has no coat and no shoes. She’s bleeding from the leg and arm.
Another one comes from the right. I have to turn my head to see him, too. He’s taller, still capable of his glamour. He’s wearing workout clothes, wind pants, a green and white hoodie. He has deep circles beneath his eyes. They both look . . . hungry.
“Wounded makes the kill easier,” he says, “and we like easy right now.”
I calculate my options. They think I’m wounded and I’m not. If I sit up they’ll see the poker. I’ll lose my only advantage, which is surprise. They slink toward me. I know how fast they can be, but they are slow. They act like cats, tormenting their prey.
“She lost her wolf boy,” the woman says in a fake compassionate voice. Ice drips from her words. “Poor defenseless thing.”
The hole in me gets bigger but the edges of it ripple with something dark and fierce. I think it’s hate. It’s their fault. I lost Nick because of them, because of pixies. The hate inside me is cold, but it pushes aside the sorrow just a tiny bit. It gives me purpose.
“It must be hard to lose something so smelly and furry and warm,” the guy says. He leaps forward and lands by my head. His hand reaches out and wipes at my cheeks. His touch is hard. “Oh, she’s crying . . . so sweet. Don’t worry. The pain won’t last too long. And anyway, we’ll give you a whole new pain to think about.”
A crow shrieks in a treetop. The male opens his mouth. His glamour is suddenly gone and his teeth are like nails, pointed and deadly.
“Oh, she’s shuddering, poor baby,” he mocks.
Nick is the only one allowed to call me baby.
I think. The woman is almost to us, slinking up but limping too. I’ll have to take the man first.