Resistance (6 page)

“I don’t see that happening, sis, sorry.”

I laugh with him, and not for the first time wish we
had more days like this one. Far too many days pass with tension
and silence between us, when we barely even see one another. I
can’t help but wish my parents were here so things could go back to
normal between my brother and me. He seems to have tuned into my
mood and catches my momentary wistfulness. “Don’t go getting
melancholy on me now, Fi. I promise you we are going to see Mom and
Dad again. I don’t know when, but they are alive and we will find
them.” I want so badly for him to be right about this, but the
facts are stacked against any kind of happy outcome for my parents.
He’s so earnest I cannot find it in my heart to deny him hope. I
try to smile and nod at him but his face falls, and from the hurt
look he gives me I can see he knows what I’m feeling once again.
I’m not surprised when he leaves the house without speaking. The
back door slams behind him; the reverberations shuddering through
me as that familiar loneliness creeps back in his wake.

A few hours later I’m still sitting at the kitchen
table with my face propped on my hand, nursing my fourth cup of
coffee and wallowing in self-pity, when my cousin Sean pops his
head in the back door and calls my name. Seeing me at the table, he
comes in the rest of the way and observes the long braid of my hair
falling over my shoulder and the fact that I’m still wearing my
running clothes. “Eir?” he asks and I nod sullenly. He sighs and
pours himself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot on the counter
before joining me at the table.

“Well there’s no time for moping now, Fianna. I have
news from the market people who arrived last night,” Sean states in
his usual churlish manner. I straighten in my chair, smarting from
his remark about moping. Sean has never been the kind of person who
could abide dealing with people’s feelings; especially those of the
female variety. I believe this is the main reason he hasn’t found
anyone to make a life with yet. He disagrees.

“Well don’t leave me in suspense, Sean. What news?” I
say; trying to keep my tone even and interested when all I want to
do is retreat to my bed and hide under the covers for a few years.
He looks to be weighing his words now, which is very out of
character for him. A spasm of fear streaks through my insides and
sets my pulse racing. “What is it, Sean? What did they say?”

“Calm down, woman. Nothing concrete, really. There
are just a lot of rumors going around out there. The Winter Courts
have been spreading the word that they found an unmarked human
couple and did away with them. They say the humans were looking for
information on closing the gates that they had no right to…” he
trails off uncertainly.

Stay calm, I tell myself. Don’t let anyone see the
pain. You are a Dolan, you are strong. No crying. I take a deep
breath. We’ve known this was most likely their fate for a long
time, but it doesn’t stop the shaking that has started inside me
and is now causing hot coffee to splash over my hand and the table.
I put the mug down and place my hands flat on the surface of the
table. I will not think about them, I tell myself. I will not think
of having to shatter my brother’s hope and belief in happy endings.
I cannot catch my breath. I look into my cousin’s eyes and see
pity, and that is simply more than I can take. I leave him sitting
at the kitchen table where my parents used to spend their mornings,
and I take off out the back door to find somewhere I can breathe
and not see their faces everywhere I turn.

I run aimlessly, losing all track of time, and when I
finally look up I find myself back at the same oak tree where I
spotted the fox that morning. It feels like another lifetime. It’s
late afternoon now, and the cold is much more pronounced now that
I’m still and the sun is disappearing. I stuff my bare hands in the
long sleeves of my shirt and hug myself for warmth. I am cold,
yes—but I’m still not ready to go home and face my brother or
cousin or anyone else, for that matter. Sighing, I settle myself at
the base of the old tree with my back leaning against the rough
trunk and try to find some serenity.

I don’t know how long I sit there staring off into
the gathering dark, getting colder by the second, wishing for some
sort of numbness to take me over from the inside out but eventually
I hear footfalls close by. Glancing up in time to see a familiar
figure lower their much taller frame to the ground beside me, I
feel both better and worse.

“Thought I might find you here, lass,” my uncle says
in his lilting voice, and I close my eyes to hold in the tears.
I’ve never realized before how similar my father’s voice was to his
brother’s. Pulling in a shaky breath, I look into my uncle’s face
and see he’s not faring any better than I am.

“You talked to Sean,” I say, surprised by the lack of
any sort of emotion in my voice when I feel like I’m being ripped
open inside.

My uncle slides his arm around my shoulders, hauls me
into his chest and gives me a squeeze. “I did,” he says simply, and
I hear him try and clear the tears from his throat.

“Eir and I are orphans now, Uncle Sea. How can they
both be gone? I don’t know...” Overcome with grief, I press my face
into his chest and let myself finally cry, knowing that Uncle
Seamus understands better than anyone else how I’m feeling right
now. He squeezes me tighter, presses his face to the top of my head
and I can feel his tears falling in my hair as he gives vent to his
own grief.

“I know lass,” he whispers. “I know.”

How long we sit there weeping together I don’t know,
but silvery light from the moon is shining in the darkness when we
finally leave the sanctuary of the oak tree. My limbs feel leaden
with the effort to keep myself moving forward and I’m grateful for
my uncle’s strong hand on my elbow, leading me on. He hugs me at
the back door and reminds me for probably the tenth time to let him
know if Eir and I need anything at all. I kiss his cheek and nod,
dreading what I must do next.

I feel reasonably composed when I open the door to my
kitchen and find my brother and Sean waiting there for me. One look
at Eir’s face lets me know that my cousin has already shared the
news he relayed to me earlier, which means he has seriously
overstepped his boundaries once again. I feel frustration bubble
up; my emotions already ragged.

“Eir—” I start, ready for him to fight me again, but
he’s out of his chair and at my side before I can say anything
else. His arms go around me and he holds me tighter than he has
since he was a little boy. I hang onto him for dear life; trying to
find my voice again to tell him we’re going to be okay. I can’t lie
to him, though. So we stand there like that for a while, just
holding onto each other while Sean watches silently from the
table.

We finally break apart and I sit heavily at the
kitchen table; bracing my elbows on the table top and dropping my
head into my hands. The magnitude of the responsibility that is now
permanently resting on my shoulders seems to settle on me and I
massage my temples to try and dislodge the pain poking at me from
behind my eyes. I feel Eirnin hovering behind me, worried and
wondering how he can help. I breathe deeply and dry my eyes on my
shirt sleeves before raising my eyes to his anxious blue gaze.

“Do you think you could put the kettle on for me? I
think I’m frozen all the way through to my bones.” Nodding and
seeming glad for the task he puts the kettle on, pulls out the tea
and sugar and then looks over his shoulder at me.

“Have you eaten anything today?”

“Uh, I had a muffin this morning. I’m not really
hungry though, Eir.” He makes clucking noises at me and starts
building a peanut butter and strawberry preserves sandwich. I don’t
bother arguing with him. He looks so proud when he brings over his
masterpiece I can’t help but grin. It’s possibly the most gigantic
sandwich I’ve ever physically seen. He’s cut the homemade bread
into slab-like pieces and slathered them with the homemade peanut
butter and preserves; the filling seeping out from the edges of the
sandwich. I laugh outright and look up to see him grinning from ear
to ear at me. “You’re eating half of this, right?” I ask him. “I’ll
never be able to finish this by myself, Eir.”

“Lightweight,” he mutters; grabbing a knife to slice
the sandwich in half at an angle and then stuffing half into his
mouth. With the sandwich dangling out of his mouth, he carries my
tea to the table and sets it carefully in front of me before
dropping back into the chair he vacated when I came in. I’m
surprised to note he didn’t drip preserves or peanut butter all
over the floor. “Eat!” he orders me with his mouth full, and I nod
and pick up my half sandwich gingerly, hoping to avoid wearing
it.

Once Eirnin is settled in his room for the night,
Sean goes into the pantry and comes back out with a bottle of
whiskey that my father and uncle distilled themselves. Without a
word, he goes to the cabinet and brings out two tumblers; setting
them on the table and settling himself across from me. He fills
both glasses three quarters full, slides one to me and raises his
in the air; waiting for me to mimic him.

“May the strength of three be in your journey,” he
says, his voice low and gruff, and I nod and toss back the mahogany
liquid in my glass without tasting the flavor my father was always
so proud of. I push the memory of his smiling face away and pull
the bottle closer, refilling my glass to the brim this time.

“Go dté tú slán,” I whisper with my glass in the air,
and Sean echoes the sentiment. I drain my glass again. The world is
starting to get a little fuzzy and I find I like that just fine. I
refill my glass again and sip this time without toasting. If I keep
talking I’ll be a soppy mess once more, and I cannot cry in front
of Sean. I owe my mother that much, at least. If there is one thing
that was drilled into my head from the Ahearn side of my family,
it’s that showing emotion makes you weak. My mother’s sister,
Ailene — Sean’s mother — spends her days in a drunken oblivion
since her husband’s death twelve years ago. I’ve never seen her or
my mother shed a single tear, though.

“We can pay them back, Fianna. I have a plan,” I hear
Sean say, and I glance up at him with my brows drawn together in
confusion.

“Whatever are you talking about, Sean? Who are we
paying back?”

“You can’t be drunk already, good heavens.” He lets
out a heavy sigh and shakes his head at me; pulling the whiskey
bottle back across the table. “The Winter Courts. We can pay them
back for killing Patrick and Maeve,” he says, and sounds like he
means it.

“It won’t bring them back, Sean. What would be the
point? And what could we possibly do to them anyway?” I snipe at
him; draining my glass and pulling the bottle away from him again.
He surrenders the whiskey, I fill my glass again and he makes a
disgusted noise at me.

“There is plenty we could do to them, Fianna. Don’t
be so dim! How many brats do they have? Kill one of their daughters
— show them how it feels to have their family torn apart! That will
teach them!” He is close to shouting now, and in an effort to keep
my brother out of this insanity I put my hand out to him; making
shushing noises, meaning to calm him, but instead my fingers
connect with the half empty whiskey bottle and push it off balance.
Sean grabs it before it can hit the table or the floor, and then
sets it just out of my reach to avoid further incidents. “They
should be made to pay for what they’ve done, Fi,” he says, quietly
now.

That’s a statement I find I cannot argue with. I
agree wholeheartedly that someone should most definitely be made to
pay for my parents’ death. I think of my brother, an orphan at the
age of sixteen. He’ll have no one to help him through life now
except me, and at the moment I’m not feeling like much of a prize.
Rage and hurt coalesce into a stone in my chest and as I take
another gulp of my father’s prized whiskey, I hear myself say,
“Tell me about your plan.”

Chapter 4—Flint

April 2102

I have been trying to find a new stalker spot on one
of the giant trees for about two hours when I realize I have slept
everywhere, almost every which way by this point in my lingering.
If I have counted my time correctly, it has been two hundred
sixty-three days since I first arrived; approximately eight months
and twenty days of wondering how to approach the five-feet,
two-inch ball of muscle and rage hidden behind long black hair and
big green eyes called Fianna...

I will admit it is probably a bit paranoid on my part
to genuinely fear for my life when I consider the possibilities of
speaking to her. I’m not meek by any means. I’m at least half a
foot taller than her and possess the ability to send her up in
flames in half a second if I needed to.