Captivate (19 page)

“I’m not like you,” I growl.

“No. You’re not. You cloak your evil, your violence, in the mask of good. I am just evil.” She leaps.

I shift the poker so that the barb faces out and thrust it as hard as I can. It hits her in the chest. There’s this sick sucking sound as it goes through skin. Her mouth forms an O.

Her face smiles and then grimaces. Her hands reach for my neck. Long claws scrape toward me. I yank the poker out and step back. She falls.

We all fall today.

She doesn’t breathe. I have killed something. I have killed. Moving in slow motion, I check out the other pixie—the man. He rolls over. His eyes aren’t quite focused yet, but he’ll be fine if I just leave him, just walk away. Instead, I raise the poker.

“This is for Nick.” I jab it in, rip it out. Do it again. “And this is for me.”

Pixies have this fear of metal. Metallophobia.

There is blood on my hands, blood on the wrap around my wrist, blood on my jeans.

There is probably blood on my face. I don’t care. I leave the blood smears there to rot and crust and cake on. I climb back on the snowmobile. I drive to the road, get to Nick’s
MINI
. His key fob. It is always in his pocket.

“God!” I sob the word into my hands and it’s not a swear, it’s a plea, a real plea and then I lose it. I just lose it. I shut off the sled and sob and sob and sob on the silly snowmobile. I don’t know how much time passes. I don’t know anything. I just know that Nick is gone like my dad.

I’m alone.

The world is still. There’s no sound of cars or wind or animals. Even the trees are still and lonely. I’m murmuring words softly to myself—or to this self that is me but not me, me without Nick.

Without Nick.

Without.

Nick.

I’m murmuring words to myself, to God, to Nick, but I don’t think anyone hears.

“I can’t do this,” I whisper. I wipe at me face with my good hand, try to get rid of the tears. “I can’t—I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can.”

My head lifts up and I move my body just enough to see him. He stands there, snow billowing down all around him. His leather jacket isn’t ripped or torn. His jeans aren’t dirty. There are no wounds. He wasn’t at the house at all. Flakes land in his hair and stick, morphing the blond to white. He tilts his head as we stare at each other, then he reaches out his hand. “Zara.”

“I’m not coming to you.”

He keeps his hand raised. “I didn’t do this, Zara. You did. All this power trapped and contained, ready to be exploited. It had to explode.”

He’s right. Of course he’s right but I can’t bring myself to say anything to him. What’s the point, really? I’m not even making my silence into something. I’m done looking for meaning, done worrying about what’s going to happen to me, because the worst has happened already. People keep dying on me. First me stepdad, now…...

The air stills. Far away in the distance something screams. I breathe in. Cold air pushes its way up to wipe at my face. The tears are icy against my cheeks. I breathe out.

Astley watches all this. His eyes glint with the reflection of snow. His nostrils flare.

“I can smell another king on you—not your father.” He sounds like some sort of emotion. Worried? Yeah, I think that’s it.

“He was there.” I sway. “He hurt my father. He k-k-killed Nick. And that stupid Valkyrie took him.”

I start to lose my balance. The world dizzies around me. Astley moves forward so fast that I barely notice and he catches me against him. The leather crinkles smooth against my face. It has no texture. It’s just sleek and smells like dead cows.

“You are not well,” he says.

“How can I be well?” I hiccup. I struggle against him. “I can stand up by myself, though.”

He ignores me and sweeps me into his arms. “You should stop lying to yourself.”

I struggle for a second and then give up. The snowflakes curl their paths to the ground, waiting for something to come, for explanations, for meanings. They land, one after another, piling up, covering things. They don’t give me answers. Nobody just gives me answers. I always have to reach for them. “What do you mean, lying to myself?”

He sniffs the air. He cocks his head and listens to the wind and the woods the same way Nick used to do. Astley’s eyes shift.

“What is it?” I ask. “Do you smell something?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead his arms tighten around me.

“Tell me. What is it?”

“Death,” he says more softly. He jostles me against his chest. His fingers adjust to where they hold the side of my knee. His voice is heavy with sadness. “Oh, Zara. I can smell his death. You’ve had a shock, a tragedy. Come on. Let’s go somewhere safe.”

“I don’t answer. I can’t answer. Having someone know about Nick makes it even more real and I don’t want it to be more real. My throat closes up. He drops my knees and presses me against him, both arms around my waist, and we lift into the air. His words are soft in my ear. “Don’t be scared.”

The world beneath us blurs. Trees meld into each other, just a mass of white. We travel over the woods—so fast. The wind whips against my cheek. My eyes water from the cold force of it.

Finally I find my voice. “This isn’t my first time flying.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah. When he kidnapped me. He smelled like mushrooms when it happened. You do too. Why is that?”

“It’s the earth calling us back. Won’t be long,” he says. “Close your eyes if you need to.”

I don’t. I want to see. In the distance, over on Route 3, I think, there are the flashing lights of rescue vehicles. Gram’s there. That must be the accident. There’s a big bus tilted on its side, but before I can focus we’re past it.

Images of Nick and the other pixie force their way into my head. Blood. Teeth flashing.

Skin ripping. The pixie’s evil low voice and his smile. Shuddering, I ask Astley, “Are you stronger than the other one?”

His arms tighten. “I hope so. Someday I’ll need to be. I can’t believe he found the house first. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I got too—distracted.”

I swallow hard. A sob threatens to reach my throat. I push it back and say, “I think it’s my fault too.”

He doesn’t answer for a minute and then says, “You know, that is what I thought too, when I first met you and when I found out about the—situation—but now….You didn’t have many choices, did you? We haven’t handled things well. Your father should have been dealt with by his own kind long ago.”

I don’t know how to answer. Even though the cold stings I tilt up my head and scan the sky looking for Nick as we start to get lower. We’re by my house. The house where Nick and I slept and kissed and made breakfast. It wasn’t long ago. It feels like forever.

Astley’s hands shift. “Hold on, we are landing. I am not the best at landings.”

He thuds to a landing and flops on his butt. I land half on top of him. He blushes and then smiles.

“Oh.” I roll off of him. “You really aren’t.”

“We all have our weaknesses,” he explains, hopping up to his feet. I stare at the house.

It looks so calm and normal. It looks like nothing has happened. It looks good and fine and safe, but nothing is good and fine and safe.

I walk slowly up the porch stairs. Astley follows me to the door. He keeps his arm out around me, but not touching, ready to catch me if I fall, I guess. I fumble with the doorknob.

“Here, let me.” He inserts my key and turns it for me. I step inside. He inclines his head.

“I can’t let you in.” My words come out slowly.

He closes his eyes for the briefest of seconds. “You don’t trust me.”

I don’t answer. I am too tired, too sad to answer. The sun pokes out from behind a cloud. The light sparkles off the snow. I shield my eyes with my hand. It’s too bright.

Nothing should be bright. I start to step inside.

Astley’s hand grabs my arm. “I can’t just leave you like this. You’re barely capable of communicating.”

“You have to.”

For a second neither of us moves. For a second the world seems to stop dead still. His hand slides up my arm and he holds me by my shoulders. I don’t have the energy to shrug him off. “Do not let anyone in here. It’s dangerous now.”

I almost laugh, that’s such an understatement. Behind him, the MINI’s tire tracks are gone, covered up by snow. He lets go of my shoulders and pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. He writes a number on it and puts it in my hand. He closes my fingers around it.

“My cell. Call it if you need me,” he says.

“I won’t need you,” I tell him, looking at the paper—a receipt from Holiday Inn—and stepping inside, “but thanks.”

“Zara—”His voice stops me. I turn around. “You might.”

I close the door behind me but don’t lock it because there’s no point. The only pixie who can get in here is the one that’s already been invited and that’s my father. It’s a weird pixie rule, one of many. All of the pixies must be rampaging since they are finally free.

They are probably searching for food, for revenge. The desire must be pounding through their weakened bodies. I know how that feels. It pounds through their weakened bodies.

I know how that feels. It pounds through mine, too. Vengeance: that’s the kind of feeling that belongs in a safe, shut off from the rest of the world, away from mothers cuddling babies, away from children on swings, away from humanity.

I fall on the couch, press my face against the red fabric, and breathe deeply, trying to catch the smell of Nick somewhere, something left over from last night, but I can’t smell anything. My nose isn’t that good. I smoosh a pillow into my face, but still nothing.

There is no Nick: not on the cough I’m sitting on, not in his
MINI
still parked on the side of the road, not working at the hospital, not hunting in the woods, not anywhere at all.

He’s not here, even though I want to tangle my fingers into his dark hair, breathe into the depths of him, let him breathe into the depths of me, even though I want him here with me right now, all the time, forever. Even though he’s no here.

I sit up and text Issie. You Must Call. Pixies Escaped.

I can’t tell her about Nick. Not in a text. I just can’t. I send an identical text to Betty.

My cell phone somehow falls out of my fingers and lands on the couch. I leave it there.

I wait.

Nothing happens.

I have no idea how much time passes. There is nothing to look forward to. Pixies killed Nick. There is no flower beds and white picket fences for us. I will never kiss him again.

I will never hug him again. I will never smell him again. It’s the pixies’ fault. It’s my fault too.

Somehow, my body lifts up off the couch where we slept. Somehow, my feet walk toward the kitchen and to the basement door. Fingers wrap around the knob and turn. I open it, go down the stairs. My feet make hallow noises as they hit the wood. We have a weapons locker down here. It is filled with things forged with iron. I’ve never been the best fighter. Nick says it’s because I lack the urge to kill. My hands haul open the cover of the metal locker. My fingers grab a sword. I sheathe it and fix it to my belt with the big peace sign buckle. It is heavy against my leg.

I move through the house, silent as the dead. There is no power in my choice. My story has lost its male protagonist, its romantic lead. I am just a shell. So my death won’t be much of a loss and I will take down as many of those bastards as I possibly can, so there will be less to hurt Gram, and Issie, and my mom, and Devyn. That is my plan. I will avenge him and die doing it.

I step outside and head to the woods.

Pretending that they don’t exist doesn’t work.

The storm clouds have gone. Bright blue sky mocks down at me as I cross our lawn.

I’ve still got my boots on somehow. I hadn’t even noticed. There’s blood crusted on one. I hadn’t noticed that either. It doesn’t matter. I pull my feet through the snow and ignore the blood, ignore the sky, and enter the trees. The snow is a little less deep here because of the canopy of pine needles above me. They catch some of the heaviness in their branches. It weighs them down. We are all weighted down.

I walk through the woods, listen to the winter sounds of crows cawing out the news to each other, harsh verbalizations of bird truths. Chipmunks squeal nervously when I pass.

Pixies don’t always leave a trail. I don’t know exactly how that happens. I don’t care.

The hows don’t matter anymore, do they?

It takes ten minutes of walking before one calls my name.

“Zara…”

It’s a woman’s voice, low and raspy, like one of the jazz singers that Betty listens to on her iPod at night. I stop walking but don’t grab my sword. Fear makes a tiny prickle along the back of my neck. This is what I wanted, though—what I want. I want a fight.

“Zara, come to me….” This time it’s a male voice, high and clear, coming from the left, I think. They are trying to get me lost. Idiots.

“Zara…”

I shake my head. Haven’t they noticed the sword hanging from my belt? Are they so cockey that they don’t care? Am I that little of a threat? I follow the voices. They come from all around me now, above me, behind me, in front.

“Zara…”

“Princess…..”

“Zara….”

The crows, the squirrels, the chipmunks have gone silent. My breath floats out of me, forms a cloud in the air. It’s gotten colder. I don’t feel it, though. I don’t feel anything.

I take another step forward and there she is—a pixie. I recognize her as one of my father’s. Her hair is wild red, out of control. Her mouth is a snarling trap. She’s wearing a bathrobe over kitty pajamas, which is ridiculous but true.

“Princess.” She smiles.

To my right, two more pixies appear, tall men, skinny with need. To my left, a branch snaps. Three more pixies appear: a woman, two men. More breathe behind me. One is in the limbs of a pine tree waiting to pounce. I say nothing, merely pull out my sword.

The red-haired pixie laughs, someone behind me says, “Should we kill her now or make her watch us kill her friends?”