Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 3, Portal Guardians (10 page)

"Would I ask if I did?"
 
I shook my head at her denseness, which was so not like her.
 
Usually she was just a short, sweet, cut through the bullcrap kind of girl.
 
Now she wanted to practically girl-talk.
 
It was crazy.

"Well, how did you know about being a Fate if you don't know what it is?"

"A pixie told me.
 
So what is it?"

"It's a witch who messes with people's lives.
 
I'm not interested."

I laughed bitterly.
 
"You could have fooled me.
 
You've already messed up mine enough, and I don't see you apologizing for any of it."

Her nostrils flared and her lips thinned.
 
She stared at me for a full ten, silent seconds before she finally cleared her throat and said, "Jayne, I'm sorry.
 
For everything."

Truth.
 
The word came to me like a bolt of lightning out of the blue.
 
A sizzle of The Green came with it, making me feel instantly lighter.
 
What the hell?

A gasp escaped Samantha's lips.
 
"Jayne!
 
You're touching your elements right now!"

I shrugged.
 
"Yeah.
 
So?"

"So, you have your powers in here!"

I thought about it for a second, not sure how that was going to help us.
 
"Okay ..."

"Ben doesn't.
 
His were taken too."

I turned my head to look over at him.
 
He was staring holes into my head.
 
I quickly whipped back to face Samantha.
 
"He saw me."

She looked down at the floor of the cage.
 
"Don't look at him anymore.
 
He'll know we're talking about him."

"So what?
 
I couldn't give two shits about what he thinks.
 
He's dog meat when I get out of here and get my hands on him."

Samantha reached out as if to touch me, but then pulled her hand back quickly when she saw my death stare aimed in her direction.
 
"Don't.
 
Please just ... don't."

I shook my head in disgust.
 
"You are so pitiful.
 
Even after all the crap he's made you do and all the bullshit lies, you still love him, don't you?"

She shook her head vehemently.
 
"No, it's not that.
 
I might have thought I liked him before, but I just don't want you to bring that kind of bad karma down on yourself.
 
I've seen what it can do."
 
She fixed me with such an intense stare, I thought she was losing it a little.

"Yeah, like what?"

"Like Maggie.
 
Like ... others."

I nodded.
 
"Maggie is pretty hideous, now that you mention it.
 
Are you saying she's dag-nasty because she has a lot of bad karma?"

"You've been to her house, haven't you?"

"Yeah.
 
It's pretty gross, I'll give you that.
 
But I've seen worse."

"What about her pantry?
 
Have you been in there?"

I felt like Samantha was leading me down a path I should stay way the hell away from, but my morbid curiosity won out in the end.
 
"You mean the one filled with boxes of mimickers?" I whispered.

"So you know, then.
 
You know about Fates."

"All I know is she has a bunch of soul pieces in there and that she uses them from time to time to make horrible spells that bring demons up from the Underworld."

"They're also sometimes used to trick fae into bonding with other fae against their wills."

"What?!" I screeched, my voice echoing off the stone walls.

"Shhhh!"
whisper-yelled Samantha.
 
"Do you want to bring all of them back in here?
 
And don't let Ben know I'm telling you this stuff, either.
 
Now you know why I don't want that for myself.
 
It's bad magic, Jayne.
 
Black.
 
Dark.
 
I'm not like that."

It took all my strength not to look at Ben right now.
 
I leaned in closer to her.
 
"That really wasn't you who did that?
 
Tricked me into binding with Ben?"

"Hell no, I can't cast like that.
 
Not yet, anyway."

I shook my head.
 
"I cannot believe that old hag Maggie sold me out like that.
 
The next time I see her she is
so
going down to ass-kicking town."

"She's just trying to fix things, she didn't mean any harm."

My nostrils flared with barely controlled anger.
 
"How could binding me to Ben possibly be fixing anything or not be meaning me any harm?
 
How is that even possible?"

Samantha dropped her face into her hands, rubbing them up and down a few times before lifting her head again.
 
"I don't know all the details, but I know who's involved.
 
And I know it was something that started a long, long time ago before we were ever in the picture or even born.
 
Somebody fell in love.
 
Somebody messed with fate.
 
Somebody screwed up, and now we're all paying for it."

"Who?
 
Who fell in love, who screwed up?
 
Give me the names."
 
I was thinking that maybe with the guilty group identified, I could put some pieces together.
 
For the first time in the last hour I was glad that I was being held captive; otherwise, I never would have gotten this close to Samantha without strangling her.

"Céline, like I said ... Dardennes, Maléna, Torrie, Maggie of course ... Ben, Leck ... maybe some others.
 
I don't remember all of their names."

"You've remembered enough," I said absently, trying to figure out how they were all connected.
 
"Fuckers have been playing me from the beginning."
 
I looked up.
 
"But Céline?
 
Her I have a very hard time believing."

Samantha shrugged.
 
"I heard her name a lot from Maggie and Maléna.
 
Neither were happy with her."

I felt a glimmer of hope.
 
"That's a good sign as far as I'm concerned.
 
Any enemy of Maléna's is a friend of mine."

"Don't be so sure about that," she said.
 
"Any of us can be fooled.
 
I've learned my lesson; I suggest you learn it too."

"Did you know we're supposed to be related?" I asked her, venturing into territory I had sworn I'd never go to voluntarily.

"I heard something like that," she said, a guarded expression on her face.

"What do you think?
 
Is it true?"

She shrugged.
 
"Could be possible.
 
Everything I thought was impossible before is suddenly part of my reality, so I never say never anymore."

I half-smiled at how that sounded exactly like something I'd said before about my own new life.
 
"What is your family name, from like, way back?"

"I have no idea.
 
I was in foster care most of my life.
 
I was left abandoned at a hospital when I was, like, two years old.
 
Too old to be adopted, I guess."
 
She shrugged.

"Oh.
 
Shit.
 
Sorry."
 
Her anger at life was starting to make sense, and my past anger at her was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
 
Maybe I hadn't exactly been fair.

"Whatever."
 
She shrugged again.
 
"That's the breaks, right?"

I nodded, but I really didn't agree.
 
That shouldn't be how life goes for any kid, especially a two-year-old.
 
I looked down at the sleeping pixie next to me, glad he was always going to have someone around who wanted him, even when he was stuffing pollen balls up people's noses.

"So ... what are we going to do now?" Samantha asked, looking not quite as depressed as she had earlier.

I searched the room for answers.
 
All I saw were my friends hanging in cages and a dirty, empty room beneath us.
 
Triden had left during our conversation, and no one else had come in to take over, making me wonder if a group of brownies would be descending on the place soon to work their magic.

"We have to get out of these cages and back to finding the dragons," I said, not sure how that was going to happen.

"They're here, you know," she said.
 
"The dragons."

"Here?
 
In this mountain?" I asked, not sure whether I was understanding correctly or not.

"Yeah.
 
In a cave with access to the outside, so they can fly in and out."

"How'd you learn about that?"

"Shayla.
 
Before she left us she gave us some info to try and help us."

"Why'd she leave you?"

"She was attacked, actually." We took off running and lost track of her.

It sounded too eerily familiar.
 
"By angels with black wings?" I asked, hoping the answer would be
no.

Samantha nodded. "Yeah.
 
You saw some?"

"They came after Beau, too.
 
What are they?"

"Demon angels from the Underworld.
 
They've been slipping in through the void like everyone else."

"Courtesy of Ben," I said, my anger coming through in my voice.

Samantha looked at the floor of the cage.
 
"Yeah.
 
I think so."

"Did you help him with that?" I asked.

Samantha's head jerked up, her eyes blazing with earnestness.
 
"No.
 
I had
nothing
to do with that.
 
I knew he was working with some others to bring demons up to the Here and Now to scare people a little bit, but I had no idea he'd gone this far."
 
She looked over at him in his cage and leaned in closer towards me again, speaking softer now.
 
"I'm not even sure he knew exactly what he was getting into.
 
He seemed as surprised as we did about the dark angels."

"You wish," I scoffed.

"No, I mean it.
 
He didn't look happy.
 
He looked scared, actually."

I didn't believe her, but I
did
think that she believed herself.
 
I was struggling to hang onto reasons to hate her, but my conscience wasn't making it easy.

"What?
 
Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, sitting back and wrapping a string she'd pulled out of her tunic around her finger, turning the tip of it white.

"I'm just ... trying to figure you out, is all."

She breathed out in a bitter huff.
 
"I haven't made that easy, I guess."

"No.
 
Not at all.
 
You were my sworn enemy an hour ago."

"Now what am I?" she asked, not looking at me and pulling on the string that was strangling her finger for all she was worth.

I shook my head.
 
Life was so messed up.
 
How could all the feelings of anger and hate and bitterness against her just be melting away like frost off a heated windshield?
 
I thought they were a permanent part of me, something that would never leave, let alone be replaced.
 
Replaced with what?
 
Pity?
 
Respect?
 
Friendship?
 
It was too much to figure out now.
 
And maybe it wasn't even my choice.
 
The thought was sobering.

I sighed heavily, feeling the weight of mature choices settling down over my shoulders.
 
It would have been so much easier to just tell her to go to hell.
 
"I don't know, Samantha.
 
What do you want to be?
 
You tell me."

I could sense that she wanted to speak, but there was something holding her back.
 
I could almost see it burning her up inside.
 
"Say it," I urged.
 
"What's the worst that could happen?
 
I could tell you to fuck off, and then we'd be back to normal again, right?
 
No harm, no foul."
 
I waited with bated breath, wondering what she was going to reveal about herself.
 
Would it be her deep-seated hatred of me, impossible to dismiss with a single conversation?
 
A desire to ring my neck with her bare hands?
 
Something worse?

She whispered something unintelligible.

I leaned towards her a little.
 
"What?
 
I didn't hear that.
 
Talk louder."

"I said ...
friends."
 
She looked up, the vulnerability in her eyes nearly killing me.
 
"I'd like to be friends.
 
The real kind.
 
Like you are with Tony."

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come out.
 
Is she serious or is she mocking me?

She rushed to keep talking.
 
"You don't have to say anything.
 
I know you can't do that.
 
Not with me.
 
Not now.
 
I was just saying ... you know ... someday maybe.
 
If you can stop hating me, eventually."
 
Her voice sounded strangled and wheezy as if her throat had closed up most of the way.