Shadow (Touched by the Fae Book 2) Page 3

  3

  I don’t dream.

  I rarely do. It’s a side effect of my meds. Some of my nighttime pills make it so that I can’t fall asleep deep enough to dream. As I come to slowly, aware that I was asleep and now I’m kind of not, I realize that I didn’t dream—and, for some strange reason, I’m not only relieved, I feel like I won something.

  Waking up is a fight, though. That is unusual for me. Ever since I was forced into the asylum, I’m always up before the rest of my floor. Not today. Not now. It’s almost like I’m drifting under the waves, floating along, no intention of breaking the surface.

  I don’t think I’m going to get the choice to stay under much longer. It’s a gradual process, but my restful state is slipping away like grains of sand in a timer. I try to hold onto it. A warning beats against my hazy brain, telling me that I don’t want to wake up. I’m warm, though my face, my ears, my nose are a little cold, and I’m safe while I’m asleep.

  Right?

  I… I’m not so sure.

  For some strange reason, I ache all over. My bed isn’t the softest, sure, but it feels like I’m sleeping on the floor. My back is super stiff. While I keep my eyes screwed shut, a weak attempt at tricking myself into thinking I’m still asleep, I curl up into the fetal position, trying to twist my body in a better position.

  It doesn’t work. My side is screaming and I roll over, flopping on my back, my arm flung outward as I stretch.

  My fingers brush against something fuzzy. Images of rats and caterpillars and, I don’t know, mutant spiders go running through my mind. My eyes spring open.

  Suddenly, I’m wide awake.

  One second. That’s all it takes. One second where I gasp in terror, unable to keep from imagining a big, fuzzy, mutant spider running across my hand, then I react. I throw my blanket off, then try to jump out of the bed. Impossible. I’m already flat on the ground. There’s nowhere else to go but up.

  Scrambling into a sitting position, I push off of the hard ground, desperate to get away from the monster spider I’ve imagined.

  I’m disoriented. It’s strangely dark where I am, with a heavy, dank, musty chill hanging in the air. I’m halfway to my feet when my bare foot slides on something slick, something sleek, and I stumble forward, throwing my hands out in front of me to break my fall.

  I land on my hands and knees, the same material I slipped on cushioning me enough so that I don’t shatter my kneecaps. Like I thought before, the floor is hard—and it is the floor. It’s hard as marble and just as cold; the shock of the temperature cuts through my leather gloves. My fingers scrabble to find purchase against the slippery swath of thin fabric beneath me. Once I’m resting against my heels, I blink, trying to figure out where I am and what the hell is going on.

  Okay. So, it’s not my room, and not only because I’m missing the six vertical bars stretched across my window. Can’t have any bars—there’s no window where I am. No bed, either. Just the encompassing dark and, as I blink rapidly, trying to get my sight back, a pale light illuminating the gloomy space surrounding me.

  I blink again, focusing.

  I’m not seeing things. A faint orange glow stretches out, touching everything around me. It’s not enough to help me make any sense of my strange surroundings, but the eerie gleam makes me nervous. That’s… that’s weird. I should be glad that there’s any kind of light here—

  Light.

  Light Fae.

  I remember. Suddenly, I remember where I am and why.

  I’m in the sewer, and I’m hiding.

  Or, I was. I didn’t do such a great job since he found me.

  Rys.

  My head jerks toward the source of the faint orange light. Facing it head-on, the fire inside is so bright that I have to shield my poor, stinging eyes with the shadow of my glove.

  The lantern. How the hell could I have forgotten for even a minute? The fierce flames flicker, licking at the glass enclosure. It’s an unmistakable leftover from the Light Fae before he left me and I—tired and afraid and alone—fell asleep in the confines of the empty, chilly sewer.

  No. No. It’s all coming back to me now. The smug expression on his sculpted face, the promise—the threat—in his bright gold eyes, the way his perfect lips pouted before he conjured up his weirdo dust and blew it right in my face.

  That’s right. I didn’t just fall asleep.

  I was put to sleep.

  Dick.

  Lifting my hand to my face, I rub my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. Now that I’ve remembered, I can actually feel the dried remains of his stupid powder on my skin. I wipe angrily with my gloved fingers. When that doesn’t do anything, I yank my hoodie’s sleeve until it’s pulled over my thumb, then scrub.

  Better.

  At least, my face is. I knock the dust off, my nose wrinkling when I catch a whiff of something nasty. Phew. A terrible stink is coming off of my sweatshirt. Even worse? I can’t tell if it’s coming from me or if it’s something I might’ve touched down here in the disgusting sewer.

  I blow air through my nose, trying to get the stink out. Then, because I don’t want to accidentally sniff that crap again, I roll my sleeve up and, still on my knees, I scoot away from Rys’s lantern.

  I remember that fire, too. My hands hurt just looking at it. Rys might have pretended he was leaving it behind with me because he cared. Yeah. Right. It was just another way for him to remind me that, no matter what, as a human squaring off against a fae, I was forever at his mercy.

  I can’t stay down here. Glancing up, I don’t see anything. I’m not exactly sure what that means. Did the manhole cover get shifted, settling in place so that I’m trapped down here? Or is it dark up there? The stream of sunlight that eked its way down here earlier is gone.

  So is Rys.

  How long was I sleeping? No way to tell. I feel rested, though, like I’ve slept for a while and that scares me. I don’t know what he hit me with or what it did to me except for knocking me out. Where did he go? Why did he leave me here?

  Considering I lost a week after my pitstop in Faerie with Nine, I’m terrified to discover that I’ve been sleeping down in the sewer for a couple of years, like I’m Rip Van Riley or something. After everything that’s been happening to me lately, I don’t even think that would surprise me.

  I gotta do something. Stand? Standing sounds like a plan.

  My knees are okay. That’s good. I felt a jolt all the way from my knees up to my thighs when I slammed into the stone floor, but no permanent damage.

  I didn’t experience any discomfort when I got to my feet, either. I give my ankle an experimental turn. No pain. Maybe getting some sleep wasn’t so bad after all.

  Shifting a little, I put my full weight on my bad ankle. The only thing I feel is that same silky, sleek material under my bare foot. I had forgotten all about it once I saw the glow and remembered Rys’s lantern, but it’s the same unfamiliar blanket I’d been sleeping under—and that I slipped on when, still half-asleep, I convinced myself that I’d brushed up against something fuzzy.

  One question, though. All I have are the clothes on my back, my gloves, my sweatshirt, and that’s it. Where did I get a blanket from?

  I’d never tell him so, but Rys’s lantern comes in handy. Squatting down, I move to the side, allowing the bright flames to illuminate the crumpled fabric that’s sprawled on the ground from where I kicked and slid on it. I can see the outline of a large, thin blanket that, when I pick up the corner and run it between my fingers, is way heavier than it looks. It’s made of a glittering black material that looks like satin but feels like flannel.

  It’s a strange shade of black, dark yet almost reflective of the Light Fae’s fire. And while I have no freaking clue what this is or where it came from, I… I’ve seen material like this before. I’m almost positive. Unless I’m wrong, the long, duster-looking coat that Nine always wears is made of this stuff.

  That’s so weird.

  What is it doing here? I doubt Rys
blew that crap in my face, then conjured a blanket out of thin air to tuck me in. Something tells me that, even if he did, he’d never use anything that would remind me of Nine. This blanket? It totally screams Nine.

  Too bad it couldn’t be from him. I mean, Rys did say that he had to leave since it was… what did he call it? The time of shadows. Nighttime. As a Dark Fae, Nine could cross back over from Faerie—but how could he find me? I’m hiding in a sewer. Despite how easy it was for Rys to track me down, this has got to be the last place on earth anyone would ever expect me to be hiding.

  And that’s if he was even looking for me in the first place.

  No chance. Not after the scene in the Acorn Falls cemetery. I told Nine that I never wanted to see him again and, even after he told me that he’d come if I wanted him to, I promised that I would never change my mind. So what if Rys seemed convinced that Nine would come for me?

  He wasn’t there when I sent the Dark Fae away. He doesn’t know that, at that moment, I meant it. Just like I meant it when I told Rys that I’d rather live in the sewer than go anywhere with him.

  I glance back up at the ceiling again. I really, really don’t like how I can’t tell if the manhole cover has been replaced or not. Now that I’ve learned that Rys’s kind of fae needs a ray of light to appear the same way that Nine travels through shadows, maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t know. No light means I’m safe from Rys either way.

  For now.

  A shiver courses down my spine. My body trembles. I can’t tell if it’s from residual fear or because it freezing down here since, well, it is. My sweatshirt isn’t doing enough for me in the sewer.

  The black blanket looks thin, but it kept me warm. I want to wrap myself up in it. Tugging on the hem twisted between my fingers, I pull the blanket toward me.

  Something moves with it.

  What the—

  I yank the blanket roughly, watching it slither across the stone floor, almost folding in on itself as I reveal more and more of the pock-marked stones and cobbled path. The tail dips into the oily puddle inches away from my bare feet, leaving a trail until it’s close enough that I just toss it to the side.

  The orange glow lights up something small, round, and a sort of pale-ish color. It’s a little bigger than a golf ball, smooth all the way around, with a darker, rosy patch on the side closest to me.

  Well, that explains the fuzzy. It wasn’t a mutant spider after all that I brushed against when I rolled over. It was a peach that had been nestled by my hand, hidden beneath the blanket.

  Okay, then.

  So… is it a gift from Nine? Like the shadow blanket, I’m thinking the piece of fruit might be an offering from the Dark Fae. Who else would’ve known my weakness for a perfectly ripe peach? When I was little, I went through a phase where the only thing I would eat was sliced peaches swimming in the sugary syrup of a fruit cup. Even now, as an adult, peaches are my favorite.

  It’s sitting on the dirty ground. When I pulled on the blanket, the peach moved so that I can’t even pretend that the thin fabric is protecting it from the grimy stone floor. Know what? I don’t care. I really don’t give a shit.

  I’m starving.

  Rys put me to sleep hours ago. The beef stew I ate last seems like a lifetime ago. Depending on how I look at it, it’s either been more than a day or a whole week since my last meal. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. Just the sight of the peach, sitting between two cobbled together pieces of stone, has me salivating.

  Before I think better of what I’m about to do, I squat down and scoop it up. Maybe I shouldn’t eat this gifted peach. After rubbing the rosy side on the least filthy patch of my hoodie, I decide that I just don’t care what I should do.

  I take a bite. It’s simply sumptuous. Sticky juice trickles down my chin; I wipe it away with the back of my glove. The peach is so tender, so flavorful, that it nearly melts in my mouth.

  And then I swallow.

  I know right away that something is wrong. As soon as the peach is down, my mouth fills with the most rancid, sour taste. Once, when the Everetts went out for the evening, me and Madelaine snuck into their liquor cabinet and shared an entire bottle of peach-flavored vodka. We got so sick off of it that we spent the entire night throwing up in our shared bathroom.

  That’s what my mouth tastes like now. The acid backwash of artificial peach vomit. It’s freaking nasty.

  What’s worse? I immediately sink my teeth back into the peach.

  The same thing happens.

  Over and over again—I can’t help myself. No matter how bad I know it’s gonna be when I swallow, I can’t stop myself from taking another bite.

  Another.

  And another.

  I only stop when my teeth clamp down on something hard. I lift it up to my face, squinting in the harsh glow of Rys’s lantern. I’ve already eaten down to the pit. There’s about half the peach left on the other side, but before I rotate it, I see something wiggle.

  What the—

  It’s green and small and it’s… it’s wriggling. I’m immediately reminded of an inchworm. You know. Those tiny creepy crawlies that have a reputation for popping out of apples.

  Only this is a peach and, holy crap, I almost ate it.

  I shriek, then toss the peach across the sewer. It lands in a puddle with a soft splash, spraying the nasty muck outward. One drop manages to get inside the lantern. It hits the flame with a sizzle.

  My stomach rebels. Just the idea that I was seconds away from swallowing that little squirmy, wormy-thing has me gagging. The sour taste in my mouth doesn’t help. I kind of think that has more to do with my sudden nausea than seeing the worm inching its way across the peach’s pit. I swallow roughly, breathing shallowly through my nose, trying to control it.

  I heave. Gritting my teeth together doesn’t do a damn thing. I wrap my arm around my belly, chanting don’t puke, don’t puke over and over again as if that’s going to help.

  Spoiler alert. It doesn’t.

  I’ve got to be one of the worst sick people ever.

  Throwing up has always made me super miserable, I tend to get whiny and complain when I feel weak, and I get kind of testy at the slightest headache. Luckily, I’ve got a pretty strong immune system. I haven’t gotten a cold in years, I can count the stomach flu’s I’ve had in my life on one hand, and I rarely get headaches.

  This? This is the mother of all migraines. It’s like a rock band is playing their second encore at the base of my skull. My eyes are screwed shut because even a glimpse of the lantern’s light has my stomach turning.

  There’s nothing left in there. I’ve thrown up everything in my stomach and then some. I’ve got to be dehydrated, too, which isn’t doing the pounding in my head any favors. The sewer had its own nasty smell when I first came down here to hide. Now, the stringent, acrid scent of vomit mixed with the cloying scent of that awful peach is all around me.

  Any time I breathe through my nose, the rancid stench has my weak stomach twitching. What makes it so much worse is that I’m not sure if I want to hurl again, or fish the half-eaten peach out of the dirty water and take another bite.

  I’m not even hungry. Right now, even though it’s been hours since I first bit that peach, I feel so crappy that I don’t know if I ever want to eat again. It’s like there’s this… I don’t know… compulsion almost. I don’t want to do it. Just thinking about it makes me feel ten times worse, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t tempted.

  I lose track of time. Wrapping that strange blanket around my shoulders, wiping my mouth with one of the corners, I curl up into the fetal position and promise myself that, as soon as I regain enough strength to climb out of the sewer, I’m begging someone—anyone—for help.

  I’m sick. I’m filthy. I’d just about kill for some water to wash out my mouth and rinse my face.

  And that’s when I hear a sudden gasp, followed by a soft growl and I decide that when I thought that I’d beg anyone for help, I was tem
pting fate.

  “Oh, Shadow.” The familiar voice with its alluring lilt and undeniably harsh edge makes my heart race and my stomach twist. “You should’ve called me.”

  Nine is lucky that I’m too weak to do anything but lie here otherwise I’d flip him the bird.

  Call him? How the hell was I supposed to call him?

  When I sent him away from the cemetery, I didn’t know if I would ever see Nine again. I told him I wouldn’t want to—because, contrary to the fae, I can totally lie—and then, when Rys tracked me down the next morning, he basically confirmed it. Without knowing Nine’s true name, his Faerie name, I would never be able to summon him for help.

  Know what, though? He’s here now. He found me again.

  The least he could do is help me after how much his peach has made me suffer.

  “Water.”

  “Did you say something?”

  I tried. My lips are cracked, my throat way too dry. My head throbs so bad that I squint and wait for a beat between the pulses to spit out that word again: “Water.”

  I’m so desperate for a drink that I’m seconds away from crawling on my belly and lapping at the puddle where my slipper still sits, mud and oil and all.

  Luckily, I don’t have to do that. Nine murmurs for me to stay where I am—like I’m really in any shape to move—and disappears. I can tell. Just like when he appeared in my room at the asylum, once I sense him near me, it’s easy to pick up on how different the air feels when he’s gone. Like… like it’s lighter somehow.

  Or maybe a bad case of food poisoning and severe dehydration has me cracking up more than usual.

  Yeah.

  It’s probably that last one.

  4

  Nine isn’t gone for long. The air grows heavy again a second before I hear his voice. As if he can tell that I’m suffering, he keeps it low.

  “Riley. I have your water.”

  “Don’t touch me,” I whisper. I want that water so bad, but not enough to give him permission.

  The air shifts around me. I can sense him at my back for a heartbeat, and then he’s gone again.