Resistance (45 page)

The cheery look in her eyes melts away in the moment
of silence that follows. She looks grim and tired, and all the life
in her eyes is taken over by tension. “I think we need to keep a
closer eye on Eirnin.”

I frown at her. “Why is that?”

“Did you see his face?” she says. “When he concluded
my father wants him and him alone? All the blame for the attack,
for Hugh, his parents…it landed on his shoulders in that moment. He
looked like he was fully prepared to surrender himself to the
Court.”

So it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. “We won’t
let him do anything like that, Lu. He’s not that stupid.”

“It’s not just that,” she says, and tugs on the ends
of her hair. “If what they think is correct and my parents want him
in their possession, they’re not going to come and collect him
themselves.”

“That’s why we’re leaving,” I tell her calmly. “We’re
going to find these journals and get ahead of them before anyone
gets hurt.”

She nods but still looks like she may be sick. She
has a tint of green to her cheeks and one of her hands is by her
mouth; the already short nails being gnawed off. “What are you
thinking?”

She looks at me and her hand snaps away from her
teeth. She’s quiet for a long moment before quietly saying, “My
father… He has people trained for stuff like this. They could come
in his room and drag him away without a sound. We’ll wake up and
he’ll be gone.”

I admit that makes me stop and think for a moment.
Sometimes I forget about how strictly the Courts train their guards
and servants, some of whom are put in training as young as six
months old. I shake off the worry and ask, “Okay, even if Sean and
Hugh are after Eirnin, would it be alright for them to work without
an order?”

“Well, no,” she says. “Most likely they’d have to go
back to the Court, get Father’s permission and then make the return
trip before they were permitted to touch him.”

“Then let’s just presume that’s what they’re up to,”
I tell her; trying not to show that I’m just as anxious as she is.
I’m considering telling Fi we should leave tonight when Lu shakes
her head. “I’m sure it will be fine. We should go to bed before Eir
rams Fi’s head into a wall.”

“You mean, before Fi rips out a chunk of his hair?” I
correct her.

She glares at me. “Either or.”

I smirk at her and she shakes her head. “Okay,
smartass. Lead the way.”

We step out of the office and, not surprisingly, Lu
follows me down the stairs to the bedrooms. She holds a finger to
her lips for me not to comment and knocks on Eir’s door. “Don’t do
anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I have no intentions of the evening getting that out
of hand, Hellboy, but thank you.” She beams at me after a grumbled,
“Yeah, what?” comes through the door and she slips in Eir’s room. I
wait until the door clicks behind her before stepping into Fi’s
room. I thought she might have fallen back asleep and don’t bother
knocking, but the abrupt squeak that comes from the back of the
room tells me otherwise.

By the time my eyes adjust to the almost-darkness I
see that she’s collapsed against the wall with her hand over her
mouth and the other hooked around her waist, and she’s hiccupping
and choking into her palm. “Fi?” I say. I close the door behind me
and take a few steps forward. “What’s—”

I don’t get the chance to finish. As soon as I’m a
few feet away from her she pushes off the wall and hurls herself
against my chest. Her hands fist at my shirt as she tries to
smother her frantic sobs in my chest. Her whole body is trembling
with panic and I clutch her against me, genuinely worried she’ll
hit the ground without the extra support. “Love, what happened?” I
ask quietly after she catches her breath.

“Th-the window was open,” she starts before shaking
her head. “I-I just need a minute to c-collect myself.” She is more
upset than I’ve ever seen her, and there is no way in hell I’m
letting her try and put me off. She’s going to tell me what
happened.

“Fi…” I shake my head. “Come on. No.” I move my hands
to her shoulders and push her back just far enough so I can see her
tear-stained face; catching her eye and making sure she’s looking
when I say, “Talk to me.”

She is still shaking and hiccuping but she nods. She
opens her mouth to start, but when a cry falls out I pull her back
against my chest and she starts bawling again. “He’s supposed to be
dead
!” she cries. “I
really
thought he was dead. I
felt
so much better
when I thought he was
dead
.”

My shoulders tense and I clear my throat. “Hugh?” I
ask. I am getting more and more convinced that I want to smother
this man. Fi doesn’t get like this over just anything. “He’s not
going to get anywhere near you.”

That only seems to make it worse. She starts shaking
her head and tries to push away from me, to no avail. “Y-you don’t
underst-stand, Flint.” She’s quiet for a second and then a slightly
hysterical laugh bubbles out of her. “I was an idiot and let him
get too close — much closer than he should have.”

“You’re not an idiot, Fianna,” I tell her firmly,
shaking my head. “Far from it. I don’t know what he did, but none
of it was your fault.” Seeing her like this is killing me. Fi is
normally so put together, and while I’m all for her being able to
actually feel things and share them with me, this scares me. If
anything is clear from her state of mind right now, it’s that she
doesn’t feel safe even here in her bedroom. I can’t let myself
think about why, and the need to protect her from this asshole and
anything or anyone else that could hurt her overwhelms me for a
moment.

She chokes on a sob and hides her face behind her
hands; resting most of her weight against me again. “You don’t
know. I never should have spoken to him. I was a fool, and that is
my fault.” She pulls in ragged gasp after ragged gasp; broken wails
the only sound coming out of her. “Once he was here and had people
thinking we were together he…h-he did what he wanted.”

She must feel me go rigid under her hands because she
pulls in a huge breath of air and manages to say, “Look, I’m fine.
I’m sorry I freaked out, I’m just tired—”

“Hold on,” I stop her, and shake my head. I’m seeing
everything in a red tint and my mind ricochets off several horrible
definitions as to what that one sentence could mean. My tongue
feels too large in my mouth and I’d like to throw my fist into the
wall behind her, but somehow I get the words out of my mouth. “He
never… Did he
hurt
you?”

She closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to meet mine
and more tears fall down her face. I slowly reach my hand up and
wipe away what I can, my chest tight. I hate that she’s crying. It
physically hurts me to know she’s in so much pain. And the fact
that she’s hiding her eyes from me only makes it worse. “He wasn’t
a very gentle person to anyone,” she says slowly; pulling her lower
lip between her teeth. “He didn’t particularly care for me, and… I…
I had to protect Eir. If I did what he wanted, he left Eir
alone.”

She sounds like she’s defending herself. Rage has a
choke hold from my throat to my chest, and I quickly move my hands
away from her; feeling them heat up and not wanting to scare her.
“I’ll kill him. I will fucking
kill him
,” falls out of my
mouth before I can stop it, and I don’t even realize I’ve said it
aloud until she replies.

“No
!” she says; her eyes huge and wet and
staring directly at me. Her hands come up and rest on either side
of my face, her fingers trace over my tight jaw and she shakes her
head. “You are not killing anyone because of me! I’m here, I’m
alive, I’m
fine
.”

You are not fine,
I want to reply.
You’re
standing here howling in fear because your window was open. You’re
terrified to even consider the fact this prick is still breathing.
How can that be fine? By any means, how is this fine?

I don’t say that, though. I look at Fi’s face —
tear-stained and exhausted, she is still the most beautiful thing
I’ve ever seen. It hits me that she has no idea how much she means
to me. She doesn’t know that she pieced a broken man back together
little bits at a time. With her heart, her bravery and her strength
she completely enchanted me. I find that I can’t upset her even
more than she already is. So I don’t tell her I want to throttle
the man solely so she feels safer, or that I want to stab him in
the face for scarring her like he has. I grit out, “No promises”
and sigh. I need to calm down before I make her more stressed than
she already is.

She tries to smile at me but it looks more like a
grimace. She shakes her head and slumps against me in exhaustion.
“Please, can you just…hold me for a while? And then can we talk
about anything else in the whole world?” she asks. “Otherwise I
won’t sleep tonight. I don’t want to think about him anymore.”

“Of course, love,” I tell her quietly and press a
small kiss to her forehead. She closes her eyes and lets me lead
her over to the bed, and after I lay down she collapses right on
top of me. She slides her arms around me and burrows into my chest
while she sniffles and tries to get her breathing under control. I
hold her close, wanting nothing more than to make the rest of the
world go away for her for a little while.

Chapter 30—Fi

September 2102

I honestly cannot recall ever being so emotionally
wrung out in all of my life. This feeling of having torn out most
of the secrets inside me and laying them out for Flint’s inspection
makes me anxious. So many thoughts are ricocheting through my brain
that I have to close my eyes to try and focus on just one. I decide
to give up on thinking for the day when I feel his warm hand start
rubbing small circles on my back. Once I focus on his hands on my
back rather than the insanity in my head, it doesn’t take long for
me to feel like I can breathe again.

I’m so relaxed my eyes are drifting closed when Flint
asks, “So what would you like to talk about, love? Baby chickens?
Maybe making a jungle gym in the basement?”

I can’t hold back an outburst of giggles. “Baby
chickens? Have I
ever
seemed inclined to talk about baby
chickens before?”

He shakes his head and shrugs. “Hey, I can't read
your mind. For all I know, one of your life-long dreams is to have
a legion of baby chickens.”

I can’t stop giggling now, which I’m sure was his
goal. “I can promise you that one of my life long dreams is
not
to have a legion of baby chickens.”

“So you have something
against
baby chickens?
I’ll make a note of this.” He smirks and looks as though he’s
trying not to laugh.

I smack his shoulder lightly, still giggling. “I did
not
say that, ass.”

“It was implied.”

I’m giggling even more now. “Was
not
.” I poke
him in the gut. “Do
you
have any strong feelings on barnyard
animals I should know about?”

He laughs. “I'm a fox, love. I try to avoid barnyards
and the animals in them as much as possible.” He shakes his head.
“Farmers and their damn guns…"

“Hmm, I didn't think of that.” I sigh; shuddering
with unease just thinking about guns and how close I had to be to
them today. “I loathe guns.”

“Oh?” He blinks at me, smirking. “Prefer the poetry
of a knife?”

“Actually I'd prefer not to use any of it. Do you
have
any
idea how those leather sheathes chafe in the
heat?”

He grins a bit. “No, I can't say that I do.” He is
looking at me way too intently suddenly and I feel all the blood
rush to my face.

“Well I’ll have you know, it isn't pleasant; it
hurts
.” He chuckles and I pause to catch my breath; feeling
the heat spread from my cheeks down my neck. He makes me nervous
with his incessant gaze on my face. “
What
are you looking
at?”

“You, obviously,” he says, and I feel butterflies
take flight inside me.

My face flames with embarrassment. “I am
not
that interesting to look at, Flint.”

He lifts a brow at me, still smiling. “Uh huh. Says
who?”

I raise my chin and try to will the heat to leave my
face. “Says me.”

He smirks at me in that very irritating, but somehow
still endearing way of his. “Well I think you're gorgeous. The most
interesting thing I've ever been privileged enough to look at.” He
looks directly into my eyes and I feel the red on my face deepen as
the butterflies swoop around and around in my belly. “Your argument
is invalid.”

I hide my face in his chest and mutter, “Well you’re
very sweet, but I think your eyesight may be failing.”

He’s silent for a minute and I hear him scoff. “For
the love of…” he huffs, and then I feel his strong fingers tilting
my chin up until his amber eyes are hooked on mine. “Has anyone
ever told you that you're stubborn as hell?”