Captivate

  “You’re blushing,” he says.

  “You just reached in my pocket. It’s kind of intimate.”

  He smiles a wicked smile and hands me the phone. “There is candy in here as well.”

  “Skittles,” I explain. “I like them.”

  We’re still all tangled up. I check the monitor. I have five missed messages, all from Issie’s phone. They all say the same thing. R U Ok? Where R U? When I ask him to, he texts back that I am fine. His fingers seem so mammoth on the phone’s tiny keyboard. It buzzes again right away. Small Injuries. Where R U?

  That one I am not going to answer because then I’d have to deal with a rescue. Still, I look around me, take in the Dumpster, the big blank two-story wall, the snow, the heating unit. Astley leans back on his heels and waits.

  I wait too. I’m not sure what to do. I check out the scene a little more. He’s staying at the Holiday Inn, which is kind of funny. You never expect pixies to do normal things, but I guess they do . . . or at least some of them. Megan and Ian went to high school. I’m sure some must have jobs, or else how do they get clothes? I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know about them.

  “You’re staying here?” I ask as we disentangle ourselves from behind the Dumpster.

  “I admit it is not the snazziest of hotels, but there are not a lot of choices in your town,” he says, snapping my phone closed. “I can fly us somewhere better if you would like.”

  “No.” I shake my head. I brush snow off my arms, and that just makes my wrist bleed more. “I’m good.”

  “You are far from good.” His hand clamps around my wrist, pressing against the wound, trying to stop the blood. “You are shaking. You have lost blood. It is dangerous to even attempt to kiss you now.”

  My heart stops. “You have to. We have to hurry.”

  “There are no certainties here, Zara,” he says as he ushers me toward the hotel lobby door, past all the cars in the parking lot that are covered with snow. I’m a little slow because of the whole one naked foot on the snow thing. He notices. “You want me to carry you?”

  “No!” Flying was enough contact.

  “You are going to get frostbite on your toes.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He stops and starts yanking off his shoes. “Take these.”

  My mouth drops open. He’s squatting down and pushing my naked foot into his leather shoe.

  “You are freezing,” he scolds.

  “I’m fine. Your shoes are too big anyway.”

  He tugs off my slipper and puts my foot in the other shoe like I’m a baby. “Then shuffle.”

  I protest, because truthfully I feel badly about it, even though I know that pixies can handle the cold really well. I shuffle forward. With his feet all shoeless and vulnerable, he walks next to me past a big old Chevy Suburban and some other cars. Someone’s key fob clicks a car unlocked. The little beeping noises echo in the parking lot. He holds the door open for me.

  As we enter the lobby, the woman at the front desk looks at us and staggers backward. She puts a shaking hand over her mouth. Her eyes are scared deer-in-the-headlights big and kind of match her over-the-top hair. Her other hand reaches out and points at us. Her bracelets jangle against each other because her hands are quaking so much.

  “You’re—y-y-you’re—,” she stutters. She shifts positions and knocks something heavy to the floor with her hips.

  Astley leans into me and whispers, “I forgot to reassert my glamour and you are blue.”

  “Plus, I’m bleeding and you’re barefoot. It looks weird,” I agree as we shuffle past the rose-covered hotel lounge couches. “Poor lady.”

  The woman’s hand, the one that’s been pointing at us, drops to her side. She makes a tiny whimpering noise.

  “Hey!” I scan the name tag as I approach the desk in my bizarro weird shuffly step. “Deidre. It’s okay. We just came back from the freaking wildest party ever. It was so insane. Check out my skin. To die for, right? I hope the freaking dye washes off.”

  “Oh . . . ,” she sputters, trying to recover. “Wow. Wow. Those teeth . . .”

  “I know. His outfit is way better than mine. Totally unfair.” I nod and use my arm to nudge Astley past the desk. Then I throw over my shoulder a little bad-girl-to-bad-girl banter. “He is so going to freaking pay for that.”

  “That’s right, honey,” she shouts to me. “Make him pay real good.”

  We hurry down the carpeted hall and a couple of steps to where the rooms start on both sides. Astley looks at me with a completely amused expression. “Why are you saying all those freakings?”

  I let out my breath. I’d been holding it, I guess. “That’s what adults expect teens to sound like. The whole dumbing-down thing.”

  He smiles. There’s a lot of teeth in there.

  “Your teeth are scary,” I say. “I do not want teeth like that.”

  “So . . . you are saying you do not want to do this?” He stops me with a little extra pressure on my wrist. We are in the hallway by rooms 125 and 127, according to the brass number plates on the doors. “This is your choice, Zara.”

  My legs don’t feel steady at all. I silently start reciting phobias, trying to get a handle on things, on my fear, but it’s not doing any good. I lean against the wall. “Give me a second.”

  He blinks and turns so I can see his face better, then seems to change his mind. His voice is calm but his eyes are super focused and hard looking. “It is an enormous decision.”

  Swallowing hard, I get my cell phone back and call my grandmother. The phone barely rings before she picks it up. Her voice is like a pitchfork jabbing through the air. “Zara! Where the hell are you? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay. Are you?”

  “Fine. Fine. I can take more than that crap they dished out. But where are you?”

  “I’m with Astley.”

  “She’s with Astley,” she says. It’s muffled. She must have turned away from the phone. “He’s the king? You are with the king? Has he kidnapped you?”

  “He saved me,” I whisper.

  “Zara White, you are far too smart a girl to believe that a pixie king would ever save you. You are not, I repeat, not to let him kiss you,” she orders. “I will go to Valhalla to get Nick. I understand what you’re thinking but this is all a manipulation. You are not strong enough to do this. Think of the long-term repercussions.”

  I interrupt. “I love you, Gram. You know that, right?”

  “Zara!”

  “I love Issie and Dev and Mrs. Nix too, and Mom, okay?” My heart lumps into my chest. It’s like a hand stuck in a snowbank—raw cold pain. “I love you!”

  I click the phone off before I can understand what she’s yelling into it.

  His voice comes from behind me. “You okay?”

  Am I okay? Blood from my wrist seeps through his fingers and drips on the floor. I have no choice but to be okay: I have to be the one to do this because I am the one responsible. I went inside the house. Nick followed me there and then he died. And if I don’t get him back, then everything inside of me will be dumped into that cold snowbank and nothing could ever pluck me out. Yeah, I am okay. I am peachy. I push the thoughts aside, stare at the ground as we shuffle walk down the hallway a little more and say, “I feel bad about the blood I’m dripping. It’s on the carpet.”

  He laughs. “You are kidding, right? You are about to turn and you are worried about bloodstains?” He cocks his head and studies me, which makes me feel super self-conscious, and he says, “Aren’t you worried about being my queen?”

  I pull in a deep breath. “Look. I am scared to freaking death about all of this, okay? I am terrified about what it means to be a pixie, about being your queen and the long-term repercussions of what I’m doing. I am scared about Valhalla, that I might fail to get Nick, that he won’t love me once I’ve turned anyway. I am scared about all the pixies running loose. I am scared that you’re lying to me. I am so freaking scared. But I just
have to do this. I have to do it one step at a time and if I think too much, then I won’t be able to do anything. The fear will paralyze me, you know?”

  He chuckles and pulls open a stairway door. “You said ‘freaking’ twice.”

  “I’m upset.”

  “Most people swear when they are upset.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  He takes my elbow. “I know.”

  He tilts his head and stares at me. I stare at him too, take in the silver eyes, the blue skin, the thick hair, the scary-sharp teeth. He brings my wrist up between us and holds the door open with his foot. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Do you think I’ll survive?” I whisper.

  “The kiss?” he whispers back.

  I don’t pull my eyes from his gaze. “Yeah. The kiss. All of it.”

  “I shall make sure you survive, Zara. I promise.” His pupils don’t flicker. There are no obvious movements that show he’s lying. “I need you to be fine. If you are to be my queen, then I shall need you to survive, to be strong, to help me fight.”

  “For the good guys, right?” I say all jokey loud.

  “Right.”

  From behind us a woman’s voice shouts, “There they are!”

  We both whirl around. Deidre, the woman from the front desk, is standing with a tall, thin hotel security guard in a gray uniform and she’s pointing at us, which is ridiculous because we are the only other people in the hallway.

  “Pointing is rude,” I whisper to Astley. “We should run.”

  He shakes his head. “Hold steady. Maybe I can handle this.”

  The security guard thunders down the hall toward us, his cheeks flapping like dog jowls, and I gasp/groan, “Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?”

  Astley grabs my hand and takes a step in front of me. “Sir? May I help you?”

  The security guard’s pupils flare. “You hold it right there.”

  “Hold what?” Astley asks, and I swear I think he really means it.

  “It’s an expression,” I hiss. “It means ‘stay still.’ ”

  “Don’t get sarcastic with me, punk.” The security guard stands up straighter. He surveys us. “What kind of freak are you, dressed like that?” He gestures for me to step forward. “Are you okay, miss? Has he hurt you?”

  The hall seems suddenly miniscule and filled with the security guard’s cologne. It’s claustrophobic. Claustrophobia is the fear of— “Miss?” his voice barks out. “Are you listening? I need you to step forward.”

  “She’s in shock,” Deidre says. For a second I wonder if there’s anyone out front. I glance around while Astley starts talking again.

  “Really, sir. We’re quite fine. We were at a masquerade party. My girlfriend became a bit carried away and—” “Kid! I told you to let go of the girl.” Security Guy turns to Deidre. “Go call the police. I’ll hold him here.”

  My fingers tighten around Astley. He squeezes back. “Sir, I can assure you—”

  “Go now!” The guard’s mouth opens wide as he shouts at Deidre. She rushes off. He steps toward us and whips out his radio.

  “Glamour him; he’s going for backup,” I hiss at Astley.

  “I’m trying,” he hisses back. “I’m not the best at that kind of glamour.”

  The guard stops right before he raises his radio to his mouth and stares at us hard. Well, stares at Astley, really. “You match the description of those freaks who went after the Sumner bus. You one of them? Don’t answer. You go up against the wall.”

  Astley starts to move forward but I yank him back.

  “Run!” I yell and throw the Skittles in my pocket at the guard’s face.

  Astley actually listens. He turns and I yank him toward the exit sign behind us as the security guard keys up his radio, frantically calls for backup, and begins pursuit.

  Definition

  Pixie kiss: the pivotal act of changing from human to pixie. It is often deadly, rarely sexy.

  We rush up a flight of stairs and into another hall with the boring hotel carpet and beige wallpaper. We race past door after door until we stop outside room 259. He slides the key card in and yanks me through the door, slamming it shut behind me. We flatten ourselves against the wallpapered wall, motionless. I hold my breath. Thirty seconds later the sound of running feet fills the hallway.

  “They didn’t see which room we went into,” he says. “We should be safe.”

  I swallow hard, take in the two double beds with matching brownish comforter, identical twin pillows on each, the short pile beige carpeting. There’s a brass light. There are curtains, an airconditioning unit. It looks so normal. It’s just a hotel room. It’s just any ordinary hotel room, but it’s where I am going to lose my humanity and become . . . become something else.

  “What if I am?” I blurt.

  He grabs a white towel out of the bathroom and wraps it around my wrist. “What if you are what?”

  “Like my father?”

  “He is not the worst of us. Not by a long stretch.” He ties the towel ends together.

  “I know.” I remember the king that almost killed Nick today. There was nothing human in him at all. “What if I become like that?”

  He touches my chin. “You will not, Zara.”

  “You sure?”

  “I shall not allow it.”

  He won’t allow it.

  Eremophobia, fear of who you are.

  Ereuthrophobia, fear of blushing.

  Ergophobia, fear of work.

  Eremophobia, fear of who you are.

  “What are you chanting?” he asks. He sits me on the floor. He stretches his legs out so they touch the bed duvet thing that drapes between the mattress and the box spring.

  “Phobias. I do it when I’m scared.” I cross my legs and then jerk away because my knee is touching his leg. Nick would hate this. A lump forms in my throat.

  “I’m sorry you’re scared.”

  “Yeah. Well, it’d be weird if I wasn’t, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would.”

  Felinophobia, fear of cats.

  Francophobia, fear of France.

  Frigophobia, fear of the cold, or of things that are cold.

  Eremophobia, fear of who you are.

  What is the name of the phobia for being afraid of becoming a monster? What is the name of losing who you are forever? Of your body changing so completely that you no longer recognize your former self? Because that is the phobia that is tweezing through me, plucking out all rational thought, all hope. Who am I going to be if I do this? Will I be cruel? Stronger? Will I still be me? If my body changes will I still be Zara White?

  “I’ve been writing a book called How to Survive a Pixie Attack,” I say. I lean my head backward to rest against the wall. “Funny, huh?”

  “Funny why?” His voice is hard and clear despite how close we are, despite the bitterness that’s in my own voice.

  “Because it turns out I’ll be telling people how to survive me.”

  When he doesn’t respond I lift up my head so I can stare at his face. He’s flushed.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “You are so scared that you are shaking.”

  “I think we should just do it,” I blurt. “Just kiss me before it’s too late to do any good.”

  “You sure?”

  I think about it, about what will happen to me. My humanity gone. My teeth no longer the same. My skin no longer the same. My blood no longer the same.

  Genuphobia, fear of knees.

  Gephyrophobia or gephydrophobia or gephysrophobia, fear of crossing bridges.

  Eremophobia, fear of who you are.

  “You’ll help me?” I ask frantically. “When I come back? You’ll help me so I’m not a monster like the ones who . . . like the ones that . . . I love Nick,” I insist. My heart flutters hopelessly in my chest. Tears threaten my eyes.

  “Of course you do,” he says softly, not quite a whisper really.

  I say it again. “I’m doin
g this because I love Nick.”

  “I know.”

  I bare my neck. “Okay, do it.”

  He laughs. He actually laughs. “That is not how it works. We are not vampires.”

  “So, where do you kiss me? This jerk pixie tried once. I can’t remember what happened really well, though.”

  “It is your lips. Not your neck.”

  I remember it now. Ian’s face coming closer and closer. The evil in him was like this gaseous substance in the air. He’d broken my arm. He wanted to break me. I push the memory out of my head and ask, “Will it hurt?”

  “Probably. You are meant—”

  Someone pounds on the door. “Security.”

  Astley springs up, muttering a curse. “We have to hide.”

  He motions for me to roll under the bed. He does too. His eyes are wide and haunted. Above us dust bunnies mingle with metal springs.

  The pounding comes again. “Security.”

  Astley holds a finger to his lips and then grabs my hand. We are terribly close under here and I am super allergic to dust. My nose twitches. His eyes widen. A key card slides through the lock mechanism.

  “Glamour us,” I whisper frantically, “like when we’re flying, so he doesn’t see.”

  He cringes as if he can’t believe he didn’t think of it himself and then squeezes his eyes shut for a second. I cross my fingers that it’ll work.

  Heavy shoes thud into the room. A security radio crackles. The closet door slides open. The foot thuds become harder as the guard steps onto the bathroom’s linoleum floor. My nose explodes. I can’t help it. I start to sneeze. Astley grabs my nose hard in his hands. My ears pop. Pain ripples through my eyeballs, but there is no sound as the sneeze shudders out of me.

  Still, fingers appear at the end of the bed and the dust ruffle lifts. Two brown eyes and a thin nose appear. If he reaches in he could touch our feet. I try to send the security guard telepathic messages: Do not reach in. Do not reach in.