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"You're not sending them home. I've read everything there is on gates and portals, and there's a much better destination for them. "
"Which is?"
"Hell, of course. " I blanched, and he squeezed my hand. "Think about it, Evie. Why should they get what they want, after all they've done? They created vampires. They destroyed Vivian. They ruined your life, and they stole mine. 'Too bad for heaven and too good for hell' no longer applies-if any creatures alive deserve eternal torment, they do. They've earned it. They made you, forced you into this life, just so you could open a gate for them. So go ahead-open a gate!"
"I don't know. " It was one thing to get rid of them, but to doom all of them to this hell Jack thought I could find?
"Of course you know! You have to know! Do you have any idea what it was like, growing up with them? Desperate for love, for attention, for anything? Adored, then discarded on a whim? The things they did to me . . . the things I was willing to do for them. And still I was nothing-not even a pet. You can't tell me they don't deserve this! You saw the Dark Queen, what she does! Do you think those humans deserve the hell they're living in? And you won't help me fix this?"
The looks on those people's faces flashed in front of my eyes, haunting me, eating at me. They'd been stripped of everything-even their free will-by the faeries. And wasn't that what faeries always did? Took away choices, forced us to play their sick little games?
"And what about Reth?" Jack's voice was softer now, insistent. "After everything he did to you, the way he tried to make you his? Can you really see your scar and not want him gone forever?"
I nodded slowly, looking down at my wrist. Faeries were evil. The nauseating pain in my broken arm was further testament to that. I was done thinking of them as amoral. They might not have the same ideas about life as humans, but they were in the human world. We weren't the ones screwing with their laws, their lives, their rights. And if they were gone, I'd finally be safe. No more worrying about what they had planned, what they were trying to do, how they would attack me next. Jack was right.
Come to think of it, though, I couldn't remember telling Jack about my scar. Or any details about Reth. Or that faeries had made vampires. And I was sure now that I'd never mentioned gates.
"How do you know about all this?" I asked.
"I already told you-I've spent a lot of time studying. IPCA records, faerie lore. "
"Wait, you were studying me?"
"It's like the Paths. I learned how to use them because it meant freedom. And I learned about you because you meant-mean-the same thing. Freedom from faeries, forever. "
His hand on mine was tight, desperate. How long had he been leading me here? He might be right, I didn't know, I couldn't know anymore, but I couldn't do this right now. "I need-I need to think. " I was in too much pain to figure this out on the spot.
"No. We need to do this now. Don't let the faeries hurt anyone else. Look for the gate. Feel for it. It'll come to you, I know it will. "
A growing sense of the possibilities around me had been nagging since Jack suggested opening a portal. I knew that with a little nudging I could find a gate.
Gates.
Hundreds and thousands, infinite possibilities, and they were all around me. It felt like the Dark Queen's pull, inevitable, heavy, drowning. I could open any of these gates and lose myself forever.
Or lose an entire race forever.
Whereas that night with Vivian only the right gate had called to me, now it seemed that the wrong gates were clamoring, pulling at my senses, begging to be opened. Maybe the gates I found were a reflection of the turmoil in me. Maybe the flux of the Paths, their very nature, supported gates to . . . darkness.
"Think about Arianna," Jack whispered. "Think about Vivian. Think about your mother. What that faerie did to her, using her, abandoning her, then forgetting about you. She's lost forever because of them, and you never even knew her. "
I closed my eyes. How did Jack know about that? Did it matter? The faeries deserved this; they needed to be stopped. And I'd be helping, protecting so many innocent people. The chaos tugging at my fingertips scared me, though. What if I didn't
have the energy to close what I opened? I might not know anything about gates, but I knew I was messing with forces much bigger and stronger than me. I didn't want to leave something like that open.
"I don't know if I can do it. "
Jack sighed, annoyed. "Fine, you need more power? How about that crazy vampire? He should do it, right?"
"What, we're going to use him like some sort of living battery?"
"Doesn't he deserve it?"
I rubbed my forehead, trying to think. Sure, the vampire had killed poor, defenseless troll children and tried to kill me, but . . . Well, but what? Why shouldn't I? It wasn't like I hadn't already taken some. And besides, all my life I'd been used-by IPCA, by the faeries. Surely the vampire's life would be better put to use in ridding the world of the faerie menace. He certainly hadn't earned his immortal soul. He'd done nothing with it, no good at all. Like the faeries, he was a monster. What had his words been? "I will kill them all. " He was mindlessly bent on destroying other immortal paranormals just for being what they were.
"Oh," I said, softly. Monster indeed, for hating other creatures based on their existence. The clamor of gates unseen swirled around me, buzzing behind my eyes and making my fingers tingle, but instead of alluring, it made me feel sick. How could I consider this? Who was I to decide what fate faeries should have? I couldn't condemn an entire race of creatures to hell for being what they were.
I had a choice, and I wouldn't turn myself into a monster in the name of protecting the innocent. I'd lost so much of myself these last few weeks, chipped away slowly but surely. I'd lost my past, my future, my home, but this last little bit-this sense of right and wrong-that was human. Human, and no one could take it away from me.
