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“Adam left me, thanks to the beating he received in Tenacity.”
All humor left Mya. She exhaled heavily and fully faced me.
“I heard.” Her gaze flicked to something over my shoulder, and I glanced back to find both Drav and Tor standing there. “Could you two give us a few minutes for some girl talk?”
They both left without another sound.
“How’d you hear?” I asked.
“News travels fast here. The fey like to share what they learn about humans. Seeing a man give up a perfectly good female blew their minds. They don’t understand. To them, relationships are all or nothing from the start. There’s no test period. No dating, you know?”
“Yes, I’ve been getting that impression.” I moved to the table and took a seat. “The fey aren’t the problem, though. It’s the people in Tenacity. Your dad told me that you’ve been telling Matt he needs to remove the bad apples from Tenacity. Is that true?”
“Yeah. He and I have talked about it several times. It’s not simple, though. If he removes people without having cause, he’ll have a riot on his hands. Honestly, there are days I wouldn’t care if that happens. Then, I look at all the fey still without females of their own and know we need to keep trying to find a peaceful way to bring the two communities together. The fey are counting on us. They need each human that remains. They’ve been alone for too long.”
“I heard,” I said. “And I feel bad for them. But not bad enough to keep doing nothing. The hate is festering. Whether Matt does something or not, he's going to end up with a riot. The mood is volatile over there and growing more so each day due to their desperation and fear.”
She studied me for a moment.
“Matt’s a reasonable person. If you have any ideas, I’m sure he’d listen.”
I shook my head.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t. The ideas I have aren’t nice.”
Mya’s brows rose.
“Those people lived here, ransacked our supply shed, and spit on the fey. Even if Matt’s not in the mood to listen to ‘not nice,’ I am.” She joined me at the table as she spoke. “Tell me your ideas.”
“We need to profile everyone in Tenacity.”
“That’s a lot of people.”
“I know. But I have a lot of time on my hands.”
“How do you want to profile them?”
I smiled at the interest in her expression.
“I’ll need fey help. Emily and Tor told me a little about Emily’s efforts to find ways to integrate humans and fey. Her lack of volunteers says a lot. People are afraid of the fey. Why wouldn’t they be? The first time I saw two at our farm, one of them lifted a damn cow. Do you know how terrifying that show of strength was? The second time I saw the fey, they were covered in blood. Those encounters built a perception that they were dangerous. Of course, humans fear them. We need to change their perception, and in our attempt to change human perception, we’ll watch. We’ll profile.”
“That sounds great, but how.”
“You have food, and Tenacity needs it.”
Mya was already shaking her head. “We’ve tried that. Giving those asshats food only made them feel more entitled to it. We’re not going down that road again.”
“We’re not going to give it to them. We’re going to soup-kitchen it. Fey prepared and served food in a common group area where we can watch how people react and take notes.”
Mya leaned back in her chair, clearly considering the idea.
“That’s brilliant. The haters will balk at the idea of having to eat fey food. The hungry people will see fey doing something mundane and domestic.” Her smile grew. “That could work.”
“Being hateful isn’t enough to get kicked out of Tenacity, though,” I said. “Stealing food is. We build a list of the haters, then we bait them to steal until each one is gone.”
“How do we bait them?”
“The same way Adam did. I’ll move back to Tenacity and go out on supply runs. I show off what I bring back and be vocal about everyone else’s lack of initiative while eating like a queen.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s too dangerous. Look at what happened to Adam. The fey will never go for it.”
“I want the people who beat Adam to be caught and exiled. In order to do that, I need to see faces and have witnesses. The bunker had cameras all over the place. I want to do something similar. And I don’t plan on being alone. With your permission and Matt’s agreement, I’d like a fey to watch over me while I’m in Tenacity. Whoever volunteers would need to stay hidden at all times and understand he’s only there to observe. No violence under any circumstances.”
Mya was silent for a long moment.
“Every decision I’ve made has come down to a simple question. Will this help protect the people I care about?” She sighed. “The short answer is yes in this case. But the long answer is more complicated. Who are we to tell other people what to think? Don’t they have a right to their fears and biases just as we have a right to ours?”
“Everyone has a right to their own beliefs until those beliefs start harming people. If these people want to hate the fey, they can do it somewhere else. No violence.”
“Then, I agree to your plan.”
