Sovereign Hope (6 page)

How could Agatha not see? How could she not see that my mom
was standing
 right
there? 
But Agatha was gone. Instead,
when I spun around, there was something else—an elusive streak of
black, prowling through the crowds like a silent wolf. A flash of
green. The suggestion of a curved eyebrow.

Daniel.

I hissed under
my breath. Why was he here? If he was with Agatha, then that alone
spoke volumes. He must believe everything she had just told me—an
excellent reason to avoid him, aside from his terribly annoying
attitude. I caught another glimpse of him as he flitted through the
crowd, never taking his eyes off me. He wore an old blue Civil War
Union coat that swept the backs of his knees, the collar turned up
against the cold.

“
Damn it.” I pulled forwards, hoping to reach my mom before he
could do something irritating like grab hold of me. And that’s when
I saw them. My mother wasn’t alone. Standing just to the right, a
couple of feet behind her, two men were scanning the crowd. They
wore long coats themselves, except theirs were trench coats. In the
failing darkness, they pinned me under their gaze. There was
something alarming about their eyes: a thin thread of silver
circling their irises. They pulsed like glowing silver halos. More
coronas, really—a perfect, shining eclipse in each of their cold,
dead eyes.

******

I was probably
holding her too tight, but so what? It wasn’t like I was going to
break her arm. Not unless she kept pulling like that.

“
I thought you weren’t going to be there next time to pick up
the pieces?” Farley growled.

It was almost
comical how angry she was, despite the fact that I had just dragged
her away from yet another unpleasant encounter with the Reavers’
men.

“
I can leave you alone if you like?”

Her voice was
a little high-pitched when she said, “Finally! That’s all I’m
asking.”

I let go of
her arm and carried on walking toward the run-down Ferris wheel on
the other side of the fairground. “Bye, then.”

It was an
interesting experiment—one I was probably going to cop an earful
for later. Agatha would have seen me let her go, but in the end it
was better this way. I couldn’t seriously carry her out of the fair
kicking and screaming. That would draw way too much attention, and
in truth, this had to be her decision. It should have been a
decision she didn’t have to make, but…some things were out of my
control. It was up to her now.

The move paid
off.

“
Okay, that’s not fair. You know I’m not going to let those
guys snatch me, regardless of who they are. Since you destroyed my
truck, you should drive me home and 
then
 leave me
alone.”

I allowed
myself a small smile before taking her by the arm again. “And you
think they don’t know where you live?”

She didn’t say
anything, just stumbled alongside me in her oversized red jacket,
staring at me with those pale silver eyes. The sight of them was
rather disconcerting. They were closer to her father’s than she
could have known.

“
Let’s just give Agatha some time to lead them off. We can
discuss where we go from there.” I pulled her towards our
destination and felt her pace slow.

“
I hope you’re not expecting me to get on that.” She pointed
up at the Ferris wheel like it was a giant spaceship, liable to
whisk us off to an inhospitable world where the locals had
developed a proclivity for eating human flesh. 

“
What?” I laughed. “Afraid of heights?”

She
practically growled like an animal. It was quite a sexy sound, but
somehow I didn’t think she knew the effect it had.

“
It looks like it’s about to fall down,” she said. “If I’m
going to die, then I’d rather it be from something heroic like
pushing a small child out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, not
because I got smushed by an ancient fair ride.”

I curled my
mouth into a practiced smirk. “I think we’ll be pretty safe, but if
you’re afraid…”

Of course she
was afraid. I could almost see it rolling off her in waves. Fear
had its own energy, after all. My smart remark had the desired
effect, however, and her body went rigid.

“
Fine. Just don’t blame me if the carriage breaks and we
plummet to our death.”

“
Hmm,” I mused, “I’d probably be okay if that happened. I
don’t know about you, though.”

She gasped,
but it was too late. We were at the front of the line. The small,
jaunty-looking attendant ushered us directly onto the waiting
carriage and yanked on the lever, jerking us five feet into the
air. She pulled the bar down and gripped onto it so tight her
fingers turned white.

“
Why is this a good idea, anyway?” she asked. There was a
tremulous hitch in her voice that turned into a squeak when we
jolted up another five feet. “If they followed us, then all they
have to do is wait at the bottom for the ride to
finish.”

“
They aren’t the only ones with a few tricks up their sleeves.
Agatha’s leading them off. This is the perfect place to watch the
show. See…” I pointed across the fairground below, which gradually
grew further and further away as we approached the very top of the
wheel. Agatha was down there, making a point of traveling slowly
through the crowd. She paused to wait for the two men, who had
given up pretending that Moira Hope was with them and were shoving
their way towards the exit.

We sat in
tense silence for a full rotation of the wheel, watching the cat
and mouse game unfold on the ground below. Eventually, Farley
nervously shifted in her seat, and a small flash of something
strangely guilt-like flared up inside me.

Okay, so it
was a little fun teasing her about the ride; she’d looked
positively terrified when she’d been staring at it before. She had
even shivered a little as it shunted into life. But this—having
people follow her, being told the worst news she was ever likely to
receive in her blissfully short life—this was bad for her. She was
probably going to remember today as one of the worst days of her
life. 

The ride
smoothed out, and we moved slowly backwards. Farley’s jittering
calmed down, although it didn’t disappear entirely. I knew she was
looking at me out of the corner of her eye. It took a while before
she said anything.

“
I can’t see them anymore. Will Agatha be okay?”

“
Oh, so you’re worried about her now?”

“
Of course I am. She seemed nice. I just had trouble believing
some of the things she told me, is all.”

“
Right. But now that she’s risked her life to keep you safe,
that makes her story more believable?” It was probably unkind to be
so sharp with her, but there were certain ways to handle some
people. Of all the things I knew about her, I knew the soft
approach wasn’t one that worked well with Farley. Her gung-ho
harassment of the LA police department was proof of that. And
besides, this was who I was. No point in sugar-coating
it.

The lights of
the fair glittered and sparkled below us like fireflies trapped in
a spider’s web. The ride wasn’t really that high, but it still
seemed to bother her.

“
You’re a bit of a jerk, you know that?” she
sniped.

“
Yep. Deal with it.”

“
Why the hell should I? As soon as this ride’s over, I’m going
home.”

I sighed. “And
we’re back here again. Haven’t you been listening? They know where
you live.”

She gave me a
hard glare and pulled the sleeves of her jacket over her hands.
They looked cold. “So what do you suggest I do? I s’pose you think
it’s best for everyone if I disappear off into the night with you
and Agatha, right?”

I let out a
hard laugh and pushed the hair back out of my face. The wind blew
it right back again, but I knew she’d caught the look I crafted. “I
don’t care what you do. You can go home for all it matters to me.
I’m not the one who believes in this stupid prophecy anyway.”

I paused,
waiting. It wouldn’t be long. Five seconds at most. I’d made it to
four when she said, “What prophecy?”

Too easy.

“
Oh, Agatha didn’t tell you?”

She shook her
head.

No, Agatha hadn’t told her. I knew she hadn’t. She’d thought
it would be too much information to take in in one sitting. It
probably was, but we were running dangerously low on
options.
 Your dad is an immortal
psycho killer who wants to end your life 
clearly hadn’t done the job.

“
There’s this prophecy. It states that one day, a female child
will be born of the Reavers. That their world will change forever
when that happens.” I turned and gave her an overly enthusiastic
fake smile. “That would be you. Consider yourself a game
changer.”

Her eyebrows hiked up a couple of degrees. “What? I’m going
to change their world? 
That’s
 why they want to kill
me? They think I’m going to start up some one-woman feminist rights
movement or something?”

“
Yeah.
Or
something
.” Elaborating on the fine print
was definitely a bad idea. 

“
But what about my mom?”

“
What about her?”

A disgusted
look washed over Farley’s face. For some reason it felt good that
she was angry. It was easier to handle her when she was
hostile. 

“
Why would they want to kill her?”

“
I imagine giving birth to you would have been reason enough.
But who can say? They’re bat shit crazy.”

“
So it’s my fault?”

Hollow.
Twisted. That’s how her words made me feel inside. “No, of course
not.”

“
I don’t believe you. If what you say is true, then it
definitely
is
my
fault.”

“
Whatever. You can beat yourself up over it if you like, but
it seems a little stupid to me. You can’t blame yourself for being
born.”

“
Ugh.” She yanked on the bar, pulling it up over our heads. I
hadn’t even realized the ride was over. “I don’t know why I’m
listening to anything you say. You flat-out lied to me yesterday.
You told me you didn’t know anything about my mother.”

I looked at
her—her long, black hair windblown and tangled about her face, her
lips a little redder than usual from the cold—and shrugged.

“
I lie
. All the
time
.”

There were other words at the back of my throat, words that a
normal person would have said, about not wanting to crush her hope,
about not wanting to pull her into this life. They remained there,
frozen, each one a tiny insect trapped inside amber, testimony to
the fact that once upon a time I might have been the kind of person
to say words like those. I’d tried to kill off that person. I’d all
but succeeded. Now, if only I could kill off the person inside me
that even
thought
them in the first place…

“
I’m not surprised,” she said. “It must be cathartic to at
least be honest about that.” Everything about her had hardened and
gone spiky. The look in her eyes, the angular line of her jaw, the
stiffness in her shoulders. She got up and stormed off towards the
exit, holding her cell phone to her ear.

“
What are you doing?”

“
Calling a taxi.”

This wasn’t
going as planned. I trudged through the mud and fell into step
alongside her. “Okay, so I’m a jerk, but you’re really stubborn.
You have to come with us.”

She ignored me
and bit down on her lip, marching towards the car park. The wind
whipped up around us, flinging her hair up around her face. The
long, black tendrils looked like dark ink drops spiraling in
water.

“
I don’t
have
to do anything. Yes, hello? Can I get a cab to—”

I reached out
and snatched her cell phone out of her hand then snapped it shut.
It probably wasn’t the best idea. The look on her face implied she
was on the verge of exploding, but she’d left me no other choice.
“You do. Have to, I mean,” I said.

She glowered at me, her face turning redder by the second.
She flared her nostrils and hissed,
“Why?
”

“
Because.” I tried to keep the pleading edge out of my voice
but a hint of it leaked through anyway. Damn it. I scowled.
“Because you’ll die if you don’t.”

CHAPTER SIX

Into The Dark

The inside of
Daniel’s ’70s Charger was as pristine as the outside, which was
blindingly shiny even in the dark. It smelled masculine, like
coal-tar soap and leather. Guy car smells.

Once we’d
picked up a bag of my belongings from home, we hit the freeway, and
I tumbled headfirst into a numb kind of sleep. After a while, the
sound of voices gradually pulled me back toward consciousness.

“
She doesn’t know?” Daniel whispered.

“
I could hardly tell her everything all at once, could
I?”

One of them
must have noticed me twitch. They both fell silent, and then Agatha
reached through the back to place her hand gently on my
shoulder.

“
We’re nearly there, kiddo. How are you feeling?”