Finding Fae

Mal stood there for a while looking like he was both confused and thrilled to be here.

“If you don’t hand one of those knives over right now, I swear, this is going to be a lot worse for you in the long run, Tinkerbell,” I snapped and he blinked a few times.

Slow as a dang snail, he walks over and carefully hands me a knife, hilt first. As soon as I had it in my hand, I balled up my free hand into a fist and punched the unholy mess out of him. Well, I tried to. He, of course, blocked it at the last second and took a hasty retreat, eyes wide.

“I’m sorry, Fae,” he said as I launched my attack.

“You don’t get to talk right now. You get to shut up and listen,” I snapped as I slashed at him meeting only the deflection of his other knife. I brought my elbow up and caught him in the chin before he backed away.

“Zane’s been teaching you dirty fighting,” he said rubbing his jaw.

“You left us,” I hissed. “A letter? Seriously?”

“I thought it would be better if I wasn’t there when you got back from Heather’s,” he said.

“I said you don’t get to talk right now!” I snapped again, my anger getting the best of me as I launched myself at him again.

It was a tiny area. Much smaller than a proper fight would need, but it made things a little easier as he couldn’t avoid me forever. He was smart, though. He moved away from me at an angle, always avoiding getting cornered or backed against a wall. Jacob’s words about the King family came back to me and my anger only grew. They were some of the best fighters, he had said. It would make sense that Mal would be trained as such, even if he was only a bastard in his family’s eyes.

“We needed you, Malachi. You left all of us and for what?” I nearly shouted. “To protect yourself? To hide? You ran away.”

I don’t know how I managed it, but I somehow got my knife against his and twisted just right, disarming Mal as I landed another elbow to his face and a quick jab to his sternum, knocking the breath from him in the form of a grunt. He stumbled back, but recovered quickly as I stood up straight, unable to see through the rush of water that clouded my eyes anymore.

“I get why you would want to leave, but you could have had the decency to say it to my face,” I said, hating how my voice shook. “You could have just told me that it wasn’t worth the risks anymore instead of tucking tail and running like a bit-”

“That’s not why!” Mal huffed and took two steps forward and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me slightly. “You think I left because I didn’t think any of this was worth it? That you weren’t worth every second I spent with you, no matter the circumstances? How can you think so little of me?”

“How would I know any different?” I said and tried to shove him away. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you? You knew that we were Soul Bonded and you said nothing! You knew and you still left!”

“I left to protect you!” he shouted and shook me again.

“From what?” I said, trying to fight him off again, but he just held on to me tighter, his fingers almost hurting my arms.

“From me!” he yelled. “You didn’t know about any of this. You had no idea what you did when you fell in that pool and you wouldn’t have known what would happen if I gave in a finished the Bond! I was losing, Fae! I wanted you to know before the Bond was complete, but I couldn’t stop myself anymore!”

“You could have told me!” I said and stomped on his foot and knocked his hands off my arms, shoving his chest hard enough to make him take a few steps back. “You should have told me.”

“I didn’t even know what would happen,” he admitted, rubbing his chest where I had shoved him. “Soul Bonds are so rare, no one really understands them. I thought if I stayed away from you, it would give you enough time to figure out what you needed to know. I can’t tell you anything, because what I feel is different than what you feel.”

“You didn’t have to leave me,” I said and sank to the floor in a heap as a sob choked it’s way out.

“I’m sorry, Fae,” he said softly. “I really am. I didn’t know it would still affect you like that, since you’re not Awakened. I came back as soon as I found out that wasn’t the case.”

“How would you know?” I asked, my anger making me snappy again.

“I found some people who are Bonded,” he said. “Like us. One Awakened and one not when the Bond was made. They weren’t very helpful, but I did nearly get my wings yanked off when I said I had left you.”

“They should have,” I glared as I wiped at the water on my cheeks.

“Probably, but then I wouldn’t have gotten here fast enough,” he said and crouched in front of me. “Are we done talking with pointy things now? You honestly scare me right now.”

“I still hate you,” I said as I handed him back both knives.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it, I know,” he smirked as he put them in small sheathes under his arms. “If you’ll let me.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said flatly.

“Fair enough,” he sighed and sat down and rubbed his jaw, wincing a little. “Zane’s a good teacher.”

“That was from Ben,” I snorted.

“Of course it was,” he rolled his eyes. “Leave it to a fox to fight dirty. But you’re a lot stronger than before.”

“Feeling a little sore, Tinkerbell?” I smirked. “You’re lucky the Bond won’t let me actually hurt you.”

“I have no doubt I would be bleeding right now,” he grimaced. “I’m truly sorry. About all of it. I should have said something a long time ago, but I couldn’t find the words. You didn’t much like me to begin with, so I could only imagine how you would have reacted if I just dropped it on you. Then, the longer it took, the less likely you would react well.”

“So you have sparkly wings because of the Bond?” I asked and he nodded. “Explains why you never fluttered around the others.”

“I don’t “flutter”and they aren’t “sparkly”,” he rolled his eyes.

“And I’m a unicorn,” I scoffed, earning a glare that was completely ruined by the smile on his face.

I was almost inclined to smile back as the Bond worked it’s magic and made me want to just forgive him and let it go. Mal opened his mouth to say something when there was a bright flash and a loud bang, making my ears ring as the small room filled with smoke that made me dizzy.

Men in black tactical gear and face masks rushed in, pinning Mal down and hitting him in the back of the head until he went limp. I screamed, but I couldn’t hear anything except the pounding of my blood as it rushed through my body. Hands grabbed me roughly and yanked me up before a bag was put over my head and I felt a sharp pain that sent me into oblivion.

-----

Have you ever watched a movie with the subtitles on and the scene’s ambient noise is described across the bottom of the screen? “(Upbeat music)”, or “(creaking ship sounds)”? If this was a movie, and I found myself praying it was, the words across the screen would say “(creepy dungeon sounds)”. The occasional echo of a drip that came from some place no one cared to find, squeaky mice or rats, neither of which gave me warm fuzzies, the odd clang of a cell door being opened or closed, and the clink of chains.

That was the first thing I noticed. The second was my face felt like it was on fire and I could feel the swelling around my eyes from the smoke that had been used. My head hurt like it had been smashed with a brick and I was incredibly uncomfortable. Next came the cold. It was a chill that came from laying on bare stone for too long. The kind that sinks in through you muscles to tickle the bone, made worse by the still cool nights of early April.

I opened my eyes with great effort, to see a bunch of blurry shapes. Three walls were stone, one of which had a tiny, barred window, and the fourth wall was all bar, just like a dungeon cell. The floor had a bit of moldy straw thrown down, but it wasn’t enough to so anything. There was a bucket in the corner and I recoiled as soon as I figured out what it was for.

There was also a heavy, metal cuff on each ankle, attached to an equally heavy chain that was bolted into the wall. It looked like it was just long enough to reach the front bars, but no farther, meaning escape wasn’t likely.

It was dark out as I slowly regained a little more of my wits, which I soon began to lose all over again as panic set in. Denial soon followed. This wasn’t happening. It was a bad dream. It wasn’t real.

The sound of heavy steps echoed through the dungeon and I reacted, jumping up and pushing myself as far into a corner as I could get. Not the best choice, since it would leave me no way out, but being chained sort of made that a moot point anyhow. It was just a nightmare, after all. If anything bad happened, I’d just wake up, right?

The cell opened and I frowned at the person that walked in with a triumphant smirk on his face.

“You are a difficult person to find,” Rex said. “I almost had you a few times, but you always managed to get away somehow.”

“Rex? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Don’t play dumb, Fae,” he scoffed. “It’s very unbecoming of you. What do you think is going on? I mean, look around. I would think it’s pretty obvious by now.”

“Why?” I asked, lifting my chin.

“That’s easy. Money. Power. The chance to rub it in that smug face when he realizes it was me the whole time,” Rex sneered. “Arrogant, just like the rest of the King family. You’d think being an outcast would have humbled him, but it only made it worse.”

“Malachi? What does this have to do with him?” I asked.

“Very little, actually. That’s just personal satisfaction,” Rex grinned. “No, this has far more to it than that little twit. It goes back a long, long time. Back to when you were a helpless baby. That Demi woman was easily manipulated by my predecessors into taking you from your crib. It was the perfect plan, too. Until she got it in her head that she wanted more than was being offered.”

“Ricca? I don’t understand,” I shook my head.

“You were a piece to played,” Rex laughed heartlessly. “A means to an end. A way to make things right. Blood for blood. You see, your parents did something horrible. Well, your mother did and your father helped quite willingly. We would have given you back to him, after we had your mother.”

“You know who they are?” I asked.

“No, just the story about how your mother showed up bringing death and destruction and chaos,” he growled. “How she murdered thousands of people. Men, women, and children made no difference as she slaughtered them all the same. It wouldn’t have come to this had she been treated as the murderer she was. Instead, she was hailed as a hero for her crimes.”

“That’s not true,” I shook my head as a chill that had nothing to do with the dungeons crept up my spine.

“And how would you know?” he laughed heartlessly. “But that’s not why I’m here. Not right now, anyhow.”

He nodded over his shoulder and two big guy squeezed into the cell with us. They were Demi’s, but not a red Demi like Greg. These guys were gray. Red Demi were strong, but they were advanced enough to have rules, morals. They fought each other plenty, but they had to challenge and accept before the fight was considered “proper”. They had a system about things. Gray Demi didn’t. They were barbaric and brutal, not caring about silly things like willing participants.

I was grabbed harshly by one while the other unlocked my ankles. I was pulled out of the corner, out of the cell and down a long hallway to a room with a metal door. Something in me told me that I needed to avoid going into that room and I started kicking and flailing around, knowing full well it would do nothing against these two big brutes. I even tried to kick Rex in the back of the head, since he was the one leading this party train. It didn’t work and I only managed to get backhanded hard enough to see stars for a moment.

I was strapped down to a metal table that you would see in an old hospital, like an asylum or a morgue and it did nothing for the fear that had craned my breathing rate to ten and my heart rate to twenty.

“Now, I believe it’s time for us to have a little chat,” Rex said, rolling up has sleeves and picking up a small scalpel. “You did hit me with a book, you now. It hurt. I’m not one that lets things like that go, darling. It’s high time we worked on that.”