“What do you mean by ‘the apple’?” I ask as I eye the woman in the corner. She’s not glamoured. Instead her real self shows. Her teeth fang out of her mouth. Her blue skin clashes with her sequined red dress. She has her hand wrapped around a mummy’s waist. The mummy is human, male, and probably about to die. I can’t let that happen, so I start heading toward her but stop midway and yell back to the fiddler, “And how about you? Who are you in it for?”
“Me. I am in it for me.” He lifts an eyebrow and adds, “Same as you.”
We eyeball each other for a second. The world seems to still, go slow motion, as we try to sniff out each other’s intentions. His pupils flare for a second. It’s almost like he’s trying to hypnotize me, but he can’t. I am not so weak. For a second I wonder if I could do that to him, break his will, but that is not what I do. I may be pixie, but I am still good.
Right?
I am still good.
“What do you mean by ‘the apple’?” I ask again.
“Zara!” Issie’s shrill scream breaks through the crowd. Pivoting back toward her, I take in the scene in an instant: the unglamoured pixie has Issie’s head in the crook of her elbow, ready to snap Issie’s fragile neck in two.
12
Boys in Bedford, Maine, are going missing. Yet the freaking town is acting like everything is all hunky-dory. It’s like the whole place has its head in the sand—or rather the snow. From what I hear, it’s been snowing for three weeks straight. Folks are looking for a serial killer, but I say that the perps are from out of this world. Best be looking for mutilated cows and crop circles, folks, ’cause you got aliens there. —THE CONSPIRACY BLOG
While Issie’s trapped in the headlock, the pixie’s mummy companion points a gun toward Cassidy’s side, just barely hidden from everyone’s eyes, thanks to the dangling costume bandages. Cassidy gasps and becomes unnaturally still. Shock and terror elongate her beautiful face.
A growl rumbles through the bar, low and fierce and primal, like a wild animal cornered and ready to fight for her life. That growl comes from me, I realize as I leap over tables and land in front of the pixie. Someone yells, “Girl fight!” and people nearby scatter as I wrench Issie free with one move and fling her behind me. She must land on someone, because there’s an oomph and an apology. I can’t look. I have to focus on Cassidy and the pixie.
“Stand down or I’ll kill her,” the mummy says. His voice is low, cowboylike. He’s thin. He’s human. I could break him in a second, but I don’t because I am not evil or soulless. I realize right then: I am still me.
“Let her go or I’ll kill you,” I say. My fingers are claws. How? They curl toward him.
“Iron bullets, pixie.” He sneers at me while he speaks. The pixie with him doesn’t say anything. She just smiles and it is so creepy.
My eyes meet Cassidy’s eyes. She’s trying to look brave even though her long skinny fingers are shaking by her sides. I love her for that, for trying to be brave.
“You hurt her, I’ll kill you before you get a chance to breathe,” I threaten. I take a step closer. His finger twitches on the trigger. His pixie companion steps forward.
“Wow. That costume is awesome,” some random woman says. “Hey! Does he have a gun?”
People have started to notice something bigger than a girl fight is going on. They’re gathering around. Some guy yells, “Cool! Entertainment.”
The mummy looks away. It’s the break I need. I lunge forward before either of us can think, which, I have to say, isn’t always the best move when fighting.
My stepdad always said my biggest problem was a failure to look before I leap. I have to say, he might be right, because I bash into the mummy hard without really thinking about what might happen. The guy’s head knocks against the wall below a Budweiser mirror, but he keeps his grip on the gun. Right away, Cassidy’s body twists as she tries to yank herself free from him, but it seems like she’s moving slowly, way too slowly.
Issie screeches and I yell for Cassidy to hurry as I wrench the guy’s thick arm. At the same time, his pixie companion reaches for me, her claws slashing my cheek. Pain scissors through my skin.
“That better not scar,” I’m saying as the gun fires. The boom of it echoes throughout the entire room. People scream and scurry backward. It’s like dynamite has gone off next to me. My whole body wrenches away from Mr. Mummy Guy, but I don’t let go of his arm and instead try to kick toward the pixie and scream, “No!”
Simultaneously, I look up at Cassidy. Her face is twisted and terrified. She starts forward toward me, her arms reaching out, and I shout to warn her off. That is when the pain hits. It’s like something has exploded into the side of my chest. My legs lose their purpose and I fall to the floor. Waves of tingling rush through me and the world suddenly goes into super-slow motion.
Cassidy’s mouth is screaming, “Get away from her!”
The mummy raises his gun again, and this time it’s Cassidy who blindside tackles him. The gun flies through the air. I don’t know where it goes. I can’t see it land. Instead I’m focused on the waves of tingling, the bomblike pain centered inside of me. Some random man with a wicked Maine accent yells, “I’ve got the gun. Get on the floor. Now! On the floor!”
But instead the pixie girl snarls, wraps her arm around the mummy, lifts him from the ground, and leaps out the window. Glass shatters as snow and cold burst inside, but it’s like a whole separate me is noticing even that. The main me is focused on breathing, because my right lung suddenly feels deflated. My breaths are short and sharp and hard. Another part of me is floating above it all, just watching.
I come to. Cassidy’s face is over mine. Her eyes are insistent and watery. “You are not allowed to die! Do not die!”
My vision starts to go. It’s like a giant white board is shifting in front of my eyes.
“Nick,” I gasp, but Nick is still gone. That’s why I’m here in the first place, right? Nick. I don’t even know if he’s alive. I just know he was taken to Valhalla … Valhalla? Wait, what is that? Okay … okay … Right … Nick’s face swims in front of me and the whiteness fades away. There are laugh crinkles by his dark brown eyes. He starts to smile his boyish smile, the one where it starts really slow and—
“Zara! Stay with us!” Issie grabs my hand and yells, “We have to stop the bleeding.”
Then someone presses something into my side.
“You hang on, Zare Bear,” she insists. “Call Betty! Get her cell, Cassidy. It’ll be on speed dial.”
Someone starts rummaging in my pocket. Calling Betty is a good idea. She’s an emergency medical technician … technologist? … No, a paramedic … No, an EMT … Are those the same? She’s going to be so mad I’m shot and that I went in a bar and that I … that I still want to find him. She will kill me if I die. Oh, that doesn’t make sense! I start to giggle. It’s more like a gurgle.
“She’s losing it!” some guy yells.
“The phone’s all bloody,” Cassidy says.
I try to focus, find her face in all the whiteness.
“Astley,” I manage. “Find Astley.”
“Who is Astley?” some guy asks. “Rick Astley? The singer? Is he listed? I’ve called 9-1-1.”
“He’s—he’s—” Issie doesn’t know how to answer, I guess.
I rasp in a breath. My chest squeezes tighter.
“Her boyfriend,” Cassidy lies.
He’s not, though. He’s not my boyfriend. That is Nick—was Nick. He is not my boyfriend because he’s dead. I’m going to be dead … Focus, Zara … Focus … Who is Astley? My brain struggles to remember. The apple. The queen I replace is in the apple.
I lift up my head as much as I can and say, “Issie … Valkyries?”
“None.” She shakes her head.
I am not enough of a warrior, I guess. That’s why the Valkyrie took Nick. He was a warrior and a werewolf who was dying. Me? I don’t make the cut, I guess. They’d take Astley. Astley. I want him here. I wheeze ag
ain. I think I groan. The world has gone completely light.
“She’s lost so much blood,” Issie whines. “Where the hell is the ambulance?”
“The queen I replace is in the apple,” I manage. I clutch at someone’s wrist. I think it’s Cassidy’s. “The queen I replace is in the apple.”
“What’s she talking about?” Issie shrieks.
Cassidy’s eyes meet mine. Oh, she looks so sad. She looks like she thinks I’m going to …
“Can’t die.” My lips move. “Astley needs me.”
But a hand presses into my face and his voice is there, right there, as he says, “Hush, Zara. I am already here.”
When consciousness finds me again I am sideways in the backseat of some really fast car. Issie is driving and I’m lying across Astley’s lap. Cassidy is murmuring something in the passenger seat and there’s a funky goldish glow everywhere that’s not coming from the interior lights. Astley’s got his hand pressed against my side and he’s kind of rocking me back and forth.
“Betty! We have pressure on it!” Issie’s yelling into the phone. “Where are you?”
Astley notices I’m conscious, I guess, because he leans closer. His blond hair is caked with blood. I have to assume that’s mine. There’s a smudge on his cheek. He has nice cheeks.
“Zara …” His voice trails off.
“Hard. To. Breathe,” I tell him, which is a total understatement, because my lungs are fragments of fire.
“I know. We think it collapsed your lung,” he explains. His lips turn in toward his mouth.
“Blood. Your. Car.”
“That is the least of our worries. I can dispose of the car, but not you.” His eyes narrow and he holds a free finger to my lips. “Cassidy is attempting some magic to slow your blood loss, but she is not full blooded and she has never attempted this previously. She says that she has read about it online.”
I would nod but I can’t muster up the energy. Whiteness threatens to take over again. I try to hold on. “I’m going to die.”
“No, you will not.” Astley keeps talking. “Issie has connected with your grandmother, who is on some other call halfway across the county, it appears. Why this godforsaken place has only one ambulance is absolutely beyond me. We will either meet the ambulance or we will get you to the hospital. Either way, you should have medical attention in ten minutes or less.”
That’s a long time and I don’t think I’ll make it. I lose my vision again. The whiteness descends down on me. Struggling, I try to focus on his voice and I manage to whisper out, “He said … in the apple. Like a worm. Your mother is … No sense … You … save him. Bring him back … The apple …”
He murmurs a swear and Issie shouts, “She’s unconscious again! What do we do? What do we do?”
“Issie, breathe,” he commands. “Relay to the grandmother what is occurring and drive faster. This is a Koenigsegg. She can handle it, but she’s full of power. Do not spin out. Cassidy? Are you praying? Focus on your crystals. The elves I have seen connect with them.”
He is almost as bossy as Nick. I manage to lift up my hand. He grabs it with his own free hand. Fingers touch warm fingers. The world smells suddenly like the forest in spring, new wet moss, pine needles.
“How … did … you … know?” I wheeze out. It is a hoarse whisper. It is all I can manage.
“Where you were or that you were injured?” he asks.
The car hits a pothole. We bump up and down. I scream. At least I think it’s me screaming. The pain spirals through my whole body, even my brain. Cassidy chants more loudly and Issie murmurs a stream of worries and pleas and a lot of swearing. The goldish glowing light is incredibly bright, filling the car.
Astley’s fingers let go of my hand and join his other hand, fixing something on my side, adding more pressure. That’s when I notice how pale he is—like he is injured too. His voice whispers out, “I knew because you are my queen, Zara. We are connected and it is my duty to know when you are hurt, where you are, all of those things. It is my sacred duty and I swear upon all that I am that I will not let you die. Do you believe me?”
I think about how we’re bonded together now, how our lives are interwoven like the branches he showed me in the hotel room after I changed.
“Do you believe me, Zara?” he asks again.
I try to answer, but I am spiraling down, down, down.
The fear of death is thanatophobia.
I will not be afraid of death.
I will not be …
“Zara,” he insists. “Do you believe?”
I open my mouth, but I’m not sure if any words actually verbalize. Instead I grit my teeth and buck up, then fold into myself.
I am so afraid.
“What is it?” Issie screeches.
Astley’s hand lifts up something small and shiny. A bug?
“The bullet came back out,” he said. “At least the iron won’t poison her any longer. Thank you, elf.”
Cassidy just keeps chanting.
“So she’ll live?” Issie asks.
“She has lost blood, much blood,” he practically hisses. “She would already be dead if she had not just taken that pill. You are sure she took it, correct?”
“She did!” Issie answers. Her voice is drifting away. Issie …
Astley’s bloody hand rests on my forehead. “Fight, Zara. Fight for us.”
I am. I am …
When my eyes open again the next time, I’m in Astley’s arms and he’s carrying me under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital’s emergency room entrance. The world is so white and cold and the lights are so horribly bright. Sliding metal doors open and attendants race out with a gurney.
“How long?” one asks.
The gurney is hard and cold against my back. I try to reach out for Issie or Astley or anyone. It’s Astley that grabs my hand while barking at the attendant, “Twenty minutes.”
The world whites again before I have a chance to ask him not to leave me. Everyone always leaves and I really don’t want to be alone, especially if I’m going to die. I don’t want to die alone.
I wake up again, but just for a moment. Betty’s commanding scent is right near me.
“Grammy …” I struggle to say her name. I can’t quite open my eyes.
Her smell comes closer; her voice is a distant echo in my ear. “They are stabilizing you. You hang on, you hear? You hang on, because when you wake up again, I am going to murder you with my own two hands.”
When I manage to make it to a semiconsciousness that lasts more than two seconds and the massive pain isn’t rippling through me, I run through what happened: gunshot … fiddling … apple … Astley … hospital … It wasn’t in that order, though. I straighten it out, and when I open my eyes, I’m in an ICU room. It’s bigger than your average hospital room and there are all sorts of tubes and things attached to my arms, monitors that are bleeping. Someone is here with me. I move my mouth, but no words come out.
“You’re awake.” Astley’s face hovers above mine. He still has my blood on his cheek and in his blond hair. He kisses my forehead with soft, cool lips. “Do. Not. Worry. You are all stabilized. Your grandmother is arguing with the doctors. They say only two visitors allowed at one time in ICU. They want to transfer you to Bangor, because your blood pressure is so low and some of your readings are not typical.”
“I …” Trying to sit up is so hard, and Astley gently leans me back down. His arm goes behind my shoulders. His hand cradles my head.
“I thought … I …” I don’t know why I didn’t tell him where we were going. I don’t really know why I didn’t tell Betty either. I guess I thought I could do it without them. I guess I worried that they would stop me. “I’m sorry.”
“There is no need for sorries,” he says. “But let me help you. You need to let me help you, Zara. We are on the same side.”
I try to answer, but I can’t stay awake.
The next time I open my eyes, Devyn leans into view.
His nose is red at the tip. His eyes are tired and the pupils are too big. “Hi,” he says.
I open my mouth again to ask about Betty. Still no words come out.
“Betty?” Devyn guesses. “She’s okay. She’s not mad. She’s not happy about things or that the pixie boy is here, but she’s not mad at you.”
“Are you?” I ask.
“Why would I be?” He shakes his head. His hands are fists. “I’m just mad that I wasn’t there.”
“Issie?”
He frowns. “Let’s just say the grounding has been extended until she is fifty. And her mother wants her to duct tape knives to her skin.”
I groan and clear my throat. My voice is whisper weak. “We can’t give up.”
The world slips sideways as a nurse comes in, but before she shoos Devyn away, he whispers in my ear, “We won’t, Zara. He’s my best friend too.”
13
MDI police responded to a bar fight tonight. Details are sketchy, but it appears a local teen was shot and is in critical condition. The police stress that the shooting is in no way related to the rash of disappearances in the nearby town that’s been plagued … —NEWS CHANNEL 8
Days pass where I’m in and out of consciousness. Someone tells me my mother is stuck in Europe because of some airline strike. I didn’t even know she was in Europe. Slowly, my body heals. Cassidy’s been helping too somehow, using herbs and praying. Sometimes I see her in the corner of my room, her eyes closed and hands together. Betty tells me I’m lucky I’m pixie now, because if I were human, things would be really bad.
“Weeks,” she says. “Weeks in a hospital.”
I wake up again and there’s an Amnesty International poster above me. It’s thumbtacked to the ceiling. It takes me a second of staring at the image of a candle wrapped in barbed wire before I really make the connection: I’m home. The information processes a little slowly, and for a second I almost think I’m back in Charleston, where life was warm and full of flowers, where my stepdad was still alive, where I didn’t know pixies existed, where I was human.