But then, almost as soon as it began, it was over. The train disappeared into the darkness, bathing me in silence once more.
“Slowly, I sat up,” I tell them. “I was shaking and terrified and burning from head to toe, but I was still alive. A single candle remained lit beside me, and I remember being so grateful for it—that tiny flicker of light. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. The soft sounds of my broken sobs. The scratch and squeak of rodents scurrying back onto the tracks.”
“Fuck,” Auggie says. “You must’ve been so scared.”
“I was. But I was alive, and somehow, I realized the worst of it was over. The ravens were alive, too, right by my side. And they stayed by my side as I dragged myself up onto the platform. I had no idea where I was or how to get out—it was almost pitch black in there, save for the candle I brought with me. But the birds seemed to know where they were going, so I followed them. Half my clothes were gone, but I found my backpack and jacket on the platform—the boys must’ve tossed them aside when they dragged me down there. I put on the jacket, followed the birds to a concrete stairwell at the other end of the station, and made my way out. I had to walk home—they stole my wallet and MetroCard—but the ravens stayed with me all the way back to Brooklyn, flying just overhead. We’ve been friends ever since.”
“Did you go to the police?” Auggie asks.
“No point. The police would’ve asked too many questions, and those boys?” I shake my head, the old rage simmering. “Shadow magic society members are untouchable. Ratting them out would’ve been signing my own death warrant.”
“What about your father?”
“Nope. He never even came home that night—probably passed out in some casino. I did what I could to clean up, found some old healing balm and bandages in the medicine cabinet. I didn’t bother going back to that school—I couldn’t face those boys again. When the school finally caught up with my dad, he told them I’d transferred and he forgot to put in the paperwork. Next thing I knew, I was enrolled at a new school. And then another one after that, and another one. We never talked about why—he never even asked me why I stopped going to classes. Never asked about bullying even though all the signs were there in blazing neon lights.”
I close my eyes to keep the new flood of memories at bay as I tell them the rest. How I hated school. All of them. Because even though the kids’ names changed, their hearts never did.
No matter where I went, I was always the weird girl who talked to birds at recess. The witch with no magic who couldn’t cast a single spell. The girl whose mage father gambled away their money and flushed his reputation down the toilet.
The bullying just got worse and worse, because older kids were more clever than Jake and his crew—they knew how to hurt me without leaving permanent marks. How to say just the right things to keep me living in constant fear of retaliation… or worse.
“My father knew I was in trouble,” I continue, “but he never brought it up. Never cared enough for a single conversation—not the first time I came home from school crying, and not the last. That night on the tracks?Goddess, I was so young. I hadn’t even turned thirteen yet. Alonzo was my first kiss.”
“Fuck,” Jude breathes, the first sound he’s uttered since I started us trekking down this dark path.
I glance up at him again, and this time, he doesn’t look away. He’s watching me closely, his cobalt blue eyes rimmed in red, burning right through me.
He’s not shouting. Not smashing things. Not vowing vengeance.
Yet I’ve never seen him so completely undone.
Not even when he tortured and killed Randall, the fake-waiter mage who tried to kidnap me from Carmine’s.
Now, towering over me beside the bed, his eyes blazing with that unspoken fury, his every cell is practically humming with the need to commit violence. I canfeelit.
I wait for him to unleash his special brand of hell. To smash through the window, fly out into the night, and hunt down those monsters where they sleep.
But he just swallows hard. Closes his eyes. Takes a few deep, slow breaths. I can practically see that violence rippling through him from horns to wings to tail, and then… it’s just gone.
When he looks at me again, there’s only sadness in his eyes. Compassion. “Everything’s going to be okay, little scarecrow,” he whispers. “I promise.”
I didn’t even realize how badly I needed to hear it. Coming from him, it means everything to me.
And when my brutal, overprotective, crazy gargoyle offers a gentle smile and holds out his hand, he damn near melts my heart.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get cleaned up. You too, Augs. No one likes a crusty—”
“Always right there with the on-point visuals,” he says. “Good looking out, Jude.”
An unexpected laugh bubbles out of me, and I drop the sweatshirt and go to Jude, letting him wrap me up in his arms, no longer worried about the scars or the stories or the old heartbreak. Right now, all that matters is this. Us.
Jude carries me into Auggie’s bathroom, his movements so smooth and graceful I feel like we’re floating.
Auggie turns on the shower—a massive black marble and frosted glass affair with dual shower heads and plenty of space for everyone, gargoyle wings included. As soon as the water’s hot, the three of us step inside.
Wordlessly, Auggie removes one of the handheld shower heads, and Jude grabs the soap, and with an almost reverent touch, the gargoyles who so thoroughly ravished me an hour ago finally wash me clean.
Everything inside me still aches with the burn of all the naughty, delicious things the three of us did tonight—first times for me in so many ways—yet my heart feels light and happy.
