Chapter 18
Another day. Another butt-kicking.
I’d woken up to my mother singing in the kitchen, prepping plates of Nutella on toast and tall glasses of fresh pineapple juice with hints of kale, ginger and cilantro. I’d asked her if the juice was a fae thing, and she nodded her head, saying our constitutions healed better that way. The more fruits and vegetables we ate, the more optimally our fae cells could repair themselves. The better we would feel, and the better our fae abilities could operate.
Still. Bacon. Am I right?
Now, here I was, getting my butt kicked. Again.
Mom lunged out at me with a cross body punch, coming at me as she advanced a front kick.
“Honestly, Mom?” I spun out of reach with some defensive Capoeira, cartwheeling gracefully into a macaco, which is basically a back flip performed low to the ground. “Krav Maga should be illegal this early in the morning.”
“What’s the matter? You went to bed early enough. Up all night dreaming about your beau?” She teased, feinting left and then catching me lightly in the shoulder with a right hook as I came out of my flip.
I dove behind her and kicked her gently on the butt.
“No. Dinner last night was lousy. I had another crappy vision, and Rowan’s dad was a total creep.”
Mom whirled around and put her hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“Alright, time out!” She tossed me a towel and I tossed myself gratefully down on the couch while she stood there stretching. “So, what happened? Start at the beginning.”
I thought back over the evening and blushed, realizing I couldn’t actually tell her all about the beginning without mentioning how Mr. Carey walked in on Rowan and I making out. I decided I would just gloss over that part.
“Well, Rowan and I were studying, and then we had dinner with his family. His dad kind of grilled me about school, which was weird, but then I think it was going pretty well. Until, of course, I started having another vision. They all noticed me spacing out, and I felt pretty out of it afterwards, but at least I didn’t pass out.” I rolled my eyes to emphasize how ridiculous I thought the whole situation was.
“What did you see?” My mom switched legs, lunging to the left now.
“Rain, lots of rain, and a mudslide. But the worst part was that awful man was back, and he was just laughing and laughing at me, or at the disaster. I don’t know. It was horrible, mom.” I grimaced. “Then he started saying I needed to join him, or he’d bury me, that I’d die. Then I came to.”
“I’m so sorry, Siri, we will work more on the meditation techniques today, okay? You don’t need to be seeing these sorts of things. I’ll let Jade know about what the man said, too. Do you think you could write out everything that happened for me, so I can send her a detailed report? It sounds like maybe the Dark are reaching out to all the faelings.”
“Faelings?
“Young fae.”
“Oh.” I raised my arms up over my head and cracked my neck a few times. “Oh! And you want to know the best part? The part that just cinched my date as a disaster last night? Afterwards, when I came to, Mr. Carey was asking me to ‘join them’ for movie night, but I was still half in my vision and could only stare at him like a total freakazoid. And then I practically ran out of there before I could embarrass myself any further by puking or passing out or something.” I buried my face in my hands and groaned.
My mom didn’t say anything. I peeked up at her through my fingers and saw that she had gone pale, and looked totally wigged out.
“What now?”
“Did you say Carey? As in Rowan’s last name is Carey?”
“Well, yeah. So what?”
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but my mom went even paler. “Oh no. Oh god. Siri, I think I’ve made a huge mistake coming here. I had no idea they were here.” She straightened and started muttering to herself. “How could Frank not know? Siri put on your shoes, we have to go out, right away.”
She threw my sneakers at me and I managed to catch them just before they hit my face. Mystified, I leaned down to lace them as she raced to the kitchen and came back with her purse and keys. She tried to dial a number on her phone, cursing to herself when the call didn’t go through. “Come on, we’ll just go over there and wait for him if he’s not home.”
“Wait for who?” I demanded.
“For Frank. I’ll explain more on the—”
All of a sudden, our apartment door splintered inwards and crashed into the wall, hanging off its hinges. A burly man barged through the opening, heading straight for my mom, followed by two more men and a familiar looking woman. The three men rushed my mother and subdued her quickly, fighting as one team. Shocked, I could only stand there, gaping at the female intruder.
“Coach Thorn?” I stammered. My mother struggled against the two men holding her as the third moved quickly to pull my arms behind me.
“Hello again, Siri. What a lovely daughter you have, Fredrika. Sullivan was so happy to hear that you had moved to our little outpost here in Vermont.”
She sneered at my mother and my mom went wild, fighting against the two men holding her with everything she had. It made no difference, though. Clearly they were just as well trained as she was. Which of course meant I was screwed, too. I tested the waters with my own captor, confirming that he had me properly secured. Unfortunately, he did.
“I will never help you,” my mother insisted.
“Oh. But we don’t really need you anymore, Freddie. Not now that we have your sweet, sweet Siri.” She trailed a fingernail down my cheek and I kicked out at her, just brushing her leg with my toe before Goon Number Three pulled me back out of reach.
“Screw you,” I growled.
At that moment I saw a streak of dark fur blaze across the floor through the open door, and a burst of angry chattering erupted behind me. The squirrel ran up my captor’s leg and back, and proceeded to furiously claw and bite at the man’s neck. Surprised, he released his hold on me and the squirrel jumped into my arms.
“Siri, run!” my mother ordered me.
I hesitated, not wanting to leave her.
“GO!” she screamed, “now!”
She was my mom. She’d raised me well. So I listened and I ran, throwing all my weight into my right shoulder as rammed into the coach and flew out the door. Hopefully that would give my mom a chance to break away.
I reached the street, pausing for a moment behind their SUV, hoping she was free, too.
“Go, Siri, don’t stop, run!” she yelled as Goon Three and Thorn stumbled out onto the porch.
And I ran.