“But I made the decision for us to be proactive.”
“We all did. We have to do it this way and you know it, or else we’re just sitting ducks wondering when they’ll attack. Amelie’s recon shows another hundred pixies have arrived. We have no time left, Zara. People are dying. You’re such a martyr sometimes. I swear that—” He starts to say something else but there’s a knock on the door. “Astley.”
He gets up and opens it. Astley’s on the porch with his retinue. They look serious and snowy but well dressed. Everyone except Astley wears parkas like they are about to spend time on some Aspen ski vacation. Astley wears his old leather jacket, no hat, no gloves. His eyes meet mine and my heart beats a little faster as he says, “May I come in?”
His voice is mellow and calm.
“Of course.” Nick opens the door wider. It’s a big step for the two of them to be talking and civilized. If they can work together it gives me hope—and hope is kind of rare right now.
I can’t help smiling as Astley steps inside and Nick closes the door, blocking out the cold. Astley smiles too. The others stay out on the porch. Frank and his minions are stalking Astley and me constantly. He can’t go anywhere without Becca and Amelie and three other bodyguard pixies, and it makes it hard to talk to him, hard to tell him what I’m feeling.
“I’m going to head upstairs,” Nick says, grabbing his laptop.
Astley waits until Nick’s retreated up the stairs and then he nods at Betty. “Is she—?”
She snores.
“Can’t you tell?”
His smile doesn’t show teeth, just pressed lips together. I bring him into the kitchen so we won’t wake her up. He leans against the counter, right by the fridge. I lean against the island, opposite him. There’s a tiny bit of gold dust on the floor. For a second we just look at each other.
“I miss being connected,” he says.
“Me too.”
An awkward silence descends upon us. He runs a hand through his hair. “I cannot change you back, Zara. The Council believes it will kill you. I cannot take that risk.”
I know it’s all melodramatic, but I close my eyes. I can’t stand looking at him right now—looking and not being able to tell what he’s feeling. I turn toward the island, put my elbows on the wood top of it, and hold my head. He comes up behind me and after a moment, puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Zara—” His voice is a hoarse whisper full of emotion.
“I just need a second. Sorry.” I swallow hard and stand up. He spins me around so we stand facing each other and my eyes are open again, open and staring up at him.
“Our branches are still entwined,” he says.
“You saw them?” I ask the simplest question instead of the hardest. I can’t believe he even risked going to them. If Frank followed him—
“No. I had their guardian check.” His hands move from my shoulders and down my arms, almost to my elbows and then back again. I am glad that he doesn’t turn me blue anymore. He used to before I changed. It was some sort of weird reaction of my half-pixie blood and it happened whenever he was near. He may not do that, but he does still make me woozy—lightheaded almost, when he touches me.
I ask the hard question. “What does it mean? That they are still entwined?”
He tilts his head just the tiniest of bits. “That we are still entwined? That our souls are connected or our fates? I do not know.”
My head moves forward so the top of it touches his chest. “Do you think we’re still connected?”
He inches away. His fingers graze my chin and make me lift my head back up so our eyes can meet. His are blue today. The pupils are large and dark. His voice is deep. “I do think so.”
I nod. His fingers move from my chin to my neck, just gently placed against my skin, and I say, “I can never thank you for all you’ve done for me. For getting Nick back. For helping us. For just—for being here.”
He blinks. I don’t know what he’s about to say or do. When I was pixie I could tell, but not anymore. Now I’m just human. I try to will him to kiss me, say it in my head, Kiss me… . Kiss me …
My psychic powers obviously suck, because he says, “And I thank you.”
“For what?” For not kissing him? For not making this more awkward? For staring at his lips like they are this really important book I need to read for AP Language and Comp?
He barely moves except for those lips. The clock on the microwave clicks ahead another minute, but we stand still here in the kitchen. Nick still stays upstairs, hopefully not listening with his wolf ears. Betty is still sleeping. Everything is that one word—still. We are still.
“Thank you,” he says, “for being brave after being thrust into a leadership role. For trying so hard to do the right thing for my people and for yours.”
“And for loving you?” I ask.
That was awkward.
His breath pulls in. “You love me?”
I can’t say it again, but I can nod. His fingers spread out, press against my hair and skin. He closes his eyes for one full second.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I whisper.
But he does.
“I love you, Zara. I love you and I cannot bear to lose you to this—this—” He searches for a word. “This war. You are human now and so vulnerable.”
“So are you,” I interrupt.
“I am a pixie king.”
“And you can die. We are—”
His head moves even closer to mine. “Do you remember kissing me?”
“When you turned me? Of course.” I shudder.
“No, in the parking lot of that grocery store—Hannaford’s?” He whispers these words into my ear and I remember. I remember feeling guilty about Nick. I remember feeling that it was right. I remember pushing all those feelings away. But now … now I wrap my fingers around his waist, touching the leather band of his jacket, the edge of it, and pull him closer. He lifts me up onto the counter. My feet dangle free.
I whisper back, “I remember.”
And then I kiss him, because sometimes you have to take a risk, because sometimes you just can’t wait anymore. Our lips meet and call out, pushing toward each other. The world turns silver like his real eyes. My body seems pointless. It is just souls meeting, gesturing against each other, needing and hoping.
“You won’t turn me?” I ask, pulling away.
“We cannot risk losing you.” His words whisper against the skin near my lips, heating it. “I cannot risk losing you.”
My hands find his hair. My fingers sink into the softness of it and then our mouths meet again. In the back of my head, I hear something. A door?
Astley pulls away, turns his head to look. Issie, Devyn, and Cassidy all stand in the living room. Betty still sleeps behind them. Cassidy’s mouth is open in a big O shape, but Issie’s the one who speaks.
She punches Devyn in the arm. “We never kiss like that.”
“Sure we do,” he says, all defensive, rubbing his arm.
“We kiss like old people,” Issie retorts, crossing her arms over her jacket. “Like old people on TV, actually.”
Cassidy laughs as Devyn starts making excuses.
I decide to save him, so I wink at Astley, jump off the counter, and say, “Time to plan more?”
Astley nods. “Time to plan.”
FBI INTERNAL MEMO EXCERPT
A local fund-raiser tonight should corral the population into one small area for many hours. Due to the high probability of an event occurring when people are returning to their motor vehicles, I have placed both my people and the Bedford Police Department on high alert. Curfews are in place, but I don’t feel that’s a sufficient measure to keep the town citizens safe.
Originally, they were going to cancel the Winter Showcase, which is a fund-raiser for show choir and jazz band, but Betty convinced the acting principal, Mrs. Fuze, to let it go on. Our last principal is missing. A lot of people are missing. Mrs. Fuze understands this. When Issie and I h
ead down the maroon-painted aisle to take our seats in the front row of the theater, Mrs. Fuze gives us the tiniest of nods. Her hands twitch at her sides. She’s a wreck.
People have packed the Grand Auditorium. The showcase is always here. It’s a tradition. The smallish theater holds maybe five hundred people in between its art deco walls. The columns are painted with maroon and fake-gold triangles. Issie tells me that it makes her think of Klimt, this artist she was into her freshman year. I am proud of her for even trying to make conversation. I’m so nervous, I can barely think. So many things could go wrong. I grab Issie’s hand. “Tell me how Buffy averts the apocalypse.”
“Which time?”
“You pick.”
She looks up at the curtains as if they will give her inspiration. “There’s so many choices.”
There were theater curtains in Cassidy’s vision of me dying. That vision also included burning and violence and me in Astley’s arms. It’s doesn’t have to come true. That’s what Cassidy says. With destiny there are always too many variables involved.
Betty strides down the aisle and folds herself into the chair next to me. She pats my hand. “We will kick their asses. You’ll see.”
Her voice is almost a hiss. She wants so badly to shift. I think she can barely hold it in.
Issie leans over me to talk to her. “Where’s Devyn?”
“Backstage,” Betty says, voice low. “With Cassidy and Nick and Astley and the rest of the musicians and a good amount of the pixies.”
Part of the plan is to lull Frank’s minions into a false sense of security, to make it easy for them to strike. The only known shifter in the audience is Betty. The only known pixies of Astley’s are Becca and Amelie. The rest of them wait backstage in the greenroom and just down the street. Some are hiding in the tiny two-stall bathrooms.
The audience itself is full of armed humans and Frank’s pixies. It’s a standing-room-only event, thanks to us. The weirdest part about it, if anyone was noticing, is that there isn’t one kid under fourteen. There are no toddlers here to watch their big sisters. There are no fussing babies. There are hardly any old people either. But it’s still packed. The show choir members, if they survive, will have a bunch of money to help get them to nationals at Disney World. That’s assuming the world doesn’t end, of course.
Betty’s face hovers in front of mine. She snaps her fingers. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing. Uh … I don’t know.”
With my right hand I check for my weapons. A special knife that Devyn’s parents coated with a fast-acting pixie poison, and some mace that’s not really mace, but something they’ve devised working off our blood. Hours ago, Keith and Cassidy and Jay and some others stashed crossbows and swords under the chairs. Hopefully, none of Frank’s pixies will realize they are there.
It doesn’t feel good enough.
“I just want everything to go right,” I say.
Betty raises an eyebrow and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s annoyed that I’m doubting myself or the fact that I’m so grammatically incorrect.
“I’m glad Mom’s not here,” I say.
She grabs my hand. “Me too.”
The lights flicker and Mrs. Wilson comes out on stage. She’s got two cans of mace tucked underneath her red holiday sweater and one of the pins holding up her thick black hair is coated with pixie poison. I know, because I put it there. She smiles at the audience and opens up her arms in a super-dramatic-theater-person way and says with her strong, soprano voice, “Welcome to the Grand Auditorium and Bedford High School’s award-winning show choir and jazz band’s Winter Showcase.”
She nods at us, encouraging the audience to clap. We do.
Issie leans over and says in my ear, “She’s such a pro. She doesn’t even look nervous.”
“Theater people,” I say.
Issie makes big eyes.
“No. Really. They are so good. They can even act in real life-or-death situations,” I say as Mrs. Wilson does a dramatic bow and exits stage left. The maroon drapes made of heavy velvet open to reveal a set of white Christmas trees and menorahs. Glittery snowflakes dangle from the ceiling. They look like the same ones from the dance.
“It’s pretty,” I murmur. “They make winter look nice.”
Betty snorts.
“They do!” I object. “You’re just cranky because you don’t like show tunes.”
“It’s like being stuck in an episode of Glee,” she retorts as Cassidy takes the stage. The banter is nice but I know we’re just pretending to be calm.
My fists clench as I watch Cass. I’m nervous for her. I’m nervous for us. I have stage-fright empathy and prebattle jitters. Cassidy’s braids are all pulled back into one big ponytail that we wrapped up. She’s wearing a dark black hippie kind of dress. There’s a knife strapped to her thigh. You can’t tell it’s there. She sings a song from Les Miserables about dreaming a dream and then some guy taking away your virginity, leaving you pregnant, and your dreams all dying. Happy stuff. She’s good though, really good. I never knew that she could sing. I take a quick look around the auditorium and see all the people who are being so brave, risking everything. There’s so much I don’t know about each of them. I don’t know if they dream of being social-networking moguls or rock stars. I only know that they are being brave, so incredibly brave tonight.
My phone vibrates. I pull it out and read the screen. It’s Nick: Still alive.
Stay that way, I text back while the foreign-exchange students sing “Silent Night” in all their primary languages. The three of them look pretty in their white dresses. I wish they’d gone back home. It would have been safer for them. Instead, they have mace and knives, swords hiding backstage.
“This is so wrong,” I whisper to Betty.
“The skinny one is off-key, but it’s not that bad,” she retorts.
I elbow her. “You know what I mean.”
“We can’t call it off now.”
“I know. I know.”
We sit through a sexified version of “Winter Wonderland,” Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song,” and a modern dance version of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” which involves a lot of reaching over the head and flopping on the floor. Normally I’d be enjoying this, but not tonight.
My phone buzzes with another text.
We shall overcome this.
It’s from Astley. Nobody else would use the word “shall.” I think about what he texted: We shall overcome this. What? Me being human? The potential apocalypse? The talent show? All of the above?
I text back: I believe in us.
Betty totally snoops over my shoulder and raises an eyebrow. I roll my eyes at her. It was a good response. People applaud the ending of the modern dance. Issie taps the program. Nick and Astley are up next.
Astley’s got a guitar strapped over his shoulder, which until recently I never knew he played. Taped to the back of it is a long, thin, saber-type weapon. Nick is weaponless and without an instrument. They take the stage and Astley smiles almost shyly, nods his head to the crowd. Nick fixes us with a much more confident gaze.
“He’s always a showboat,” Issie says. “The apocalypse obviously doesn’t tone down Mr. Charisma.”
“It’s cute,” I offer.
She nods but her hands twist together, nervous, on her lap. “It is.”
“He doesn’t suck, does he?” I ask.
“Oh, you’ll see.” She gives me a knowing smile. I love Issie, but I hate knowing smiles unless I’m the one doing the knowing.
Nick adjusts the microphone as Astley perches on a stool. Another microphone is in front of him. He doesn’t move it. He scans the crowd and looks at me. His mouth twitches a bit and then he gives me a thumbs-up sign as Nick starts talking.
“So, hey? You all ready to rock the house down?”
Oh my gosh. It’s so corny, but he’s so charismatic that people actually yell, “Yeah!” and stomp on the floor.
“I said, ‘Are
you ready to rock the house down?’” he asks again, and this time Betty howls and even Issie whistles. The noise is deafening.
“Good!” He lets go of the microphone. “Good! Let’s do this.”
The curtain lifts and behind them are Austin on a bass guitar and Jay on drums. There are a lot of weapons hidden in the drums, and Jay’s face itself looks like a weapon—it’s sharp and steely, full of hate.
They are covering a 30 Seconds to Mars song that starts off with this mellow vocal before it goes all crazy-rock loud. Nick’s voice is perfect and resonates throughout the auditorium.
“Holy—” Issie almost swears. “This song?”
“It’s ‘This Is War,’” I whisper back just as Nick segues into the more yelling, growling part. This song is a call to war. It’s about fighting to death, going to the boundaries of the earth. And then about it being a “brave, new world.”
“Ballsy,” Betty yells over the song. “And loud.”
Ballsy and loud and brilliant because Nick and Astley are calling us to them, rallying us to battle without Frank even knowing. The song slows, the lights change to blue spotlights flashing on Nick and Astley as Astley back-kicks the stool and Nick tells us all to raise our hands to the sun, to warm them there, to get ready for a new world.
They are so good at this. I honestly can’t believe how good they are. I’m scared of what’s about to happen, but at the same time I’m just so ridiculously proud of them for working together, for their talent and their courage. They are the best of us. The spotlight stops throbbing and then the rest of the show choir shuffles onto the stage, singing backup into a crescendo, and Nick tells us that the war has been won. The war has been won … I wish.
And then, just as the music slows down but before we have a chance to applaud, Frank appears, like we knew he would. He is the type who loves an entrance. And Astley is at his most vulnerable now, right up on the open stage, bodyguards far away. Same goes for me, but I’m next to Betty.
He flies to the center of the stage between Nick and Astley, arms outstretched. His hands fling out and he grabs each of them by the throat. The music comes to a screeching halt.