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Oh, no, no.
I most definitely don’t.
“Let me take you away from this place,” Rys murmurs enticingly. His voice is low, yet it seems to echo in the darkness. “No more bars on your windows. No more looking over your shoulder. You’ll be free with me.”
He’s got to be kidding.
If I give myself over to the Light Fae, I’ll be more trapped than if I stayed committed to the asylum for the rest of my life. At least, at Black Pine, I’d have one.
I swallow roughly, bracing my back against the slimy sewer wall, ready for him to lash out, then say bluntly, “Hard pass. I’d rather live down here in this sewer forever than go anywhere with you.”
2
He blinks. For a split second, shadows play across the sculpted features of his face, as if he isn’t sure how to react to my answer.
I hold my breath again.
Like the slipper he tossed into the sewer to signal his arrival, I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn’t like being told no. He’s not really going to let me off the hook so easily for our little chat in the mausoleum… right?
I… I might be wrong.
With a wounded expression that is as posed as it is manipulative—and, damn it, it actually works—Rys shifts so that his full splendor is on display in front of me. He holds out his hand imploringly. “What do I have to do to prove that my feelings are real?”
“You are not real,” I counter.
It’s a reflex—and, after everything that’s happened to me lately, a half-hearted one. The more I insist that the fae are not real, the more I’m beginning to question what real even is.
Once upon a time a Shadow Man who kept me company at night was real. Art therapy and morning med lines at the nursing station used to be real. Right now, real means hiding out in a smelly sewer and having a conversation with a mystical stalker who murdered my best friend.
What will be real tomorrow?
I’m not sure. With Rys’s next comment, it seems as if I’m going to find out.
“It’s very nearly the time of the shadows,” he announces with a sultry pout. “I must leave you soon, but I won’t be gone for long, my love. As soon as the sun rises again, I’ll return for you.”
“Don’t. And I told you. I’m not your love, asshole.”
Rys throws back his head. The laughter he lets loose is even more joyous than before. “Asshole,” he repeats. He makes the curse sound like poetry. “It’s perfect.”
Oh, yeah? I have half a mind to call him some other choice names—but I don’t. I know how capricious the fae can be, Rys more than most. Sure, he finds my attitude funny… now. How quick before he turns on me?
Better not push my luck.
I can’t explain why I’m almost… almost disappointed at his announcement that he has to leave. Some part of me doesn’t want him to go; the part that doesn’t want to let him touch me, but isn’t succumbing to another panic attack at the thought of it.
Climbing into the sewer to escape the cop changed things. On the outside, I can’t take care of myself. I want to—but how? I don’t have anything except for the clothes on my back. I’m still super stinking pissed at Nine, and Rys is a monster with an angel’s face, but at least they both have a reason to keep me safe from the Fae Queen.
And, okay, I’m not so sure what those reasons are… doesn’t matter. I’ll take what I can get.
Truth is, down here in the sewer, I can admit that I never should’ve forced Nine to leave me alone in the cemetery. I’ve been by myself for so long that it was nice to have company. Nice to have someone who seemed to care about me.
Even if Nine didn’t actually mean it, it was still nice to pretend.
It’s tougher with Rys. There’s something about him. I guess you could say he’s almost intoxicating. Actually, that’s about right. It’s how I feel around him: I’m drunk, just one sip past the last of my good decisions. I slap my cheeks and swallow heavily. I’ve got to sober up before I make a big mistake.
Like taking his hand and begging him to take me from this place like he offered.
No. No. That’s his glamour talking.
