The Faerie Slayer

I stood frozen, inches by the doorway, contemplating what I was going to tell them.

How do I tell you that there is a strange but handsome boy out there, around my age, that kidnapped me tonight? How do I tell you that he may be linked to my birth parents?

Maybe I could wait it out. Maybe if I stayed here long enough, he'd go away on his own. I could go up to my room, have a bath and go to sleep perhaps and forget this night ever happened.

And if he doesn't?

If he doesn't, then I'll be forced to do something about it, the only thing I could think to do was to call the police. A sudden bang from upstairs jolted me back to real life.

"What was that?" Dad peered his head up the stairs.

I recalled Kade asking me to stay downstairs. Could that be him up there?

"I'm going to check," I prayed he did not discern the panic in my voice.

I scurried up the stairs and into my bedroom. The first thing that caught my eye was that my window was open, the glass was torn off the hinges and standing beside it was Kade.

He wasn't looking at me. Instead, his eyes were enrapt with something behind my door. I hadn't quite seen this side of him yet. He looks like a warrior.

"Aubrette, don't move."

"What's going on?"

Kade reached into the deep pockets of his suit and retrieved something that glimmered through the dark. A curved sword.

I didn't even have time to blink when claws emerged from the shadow behind my door and swaddled themselves around my throat. I opened my mouth to scream but the sound was muffled by yet another hand. I could feel the creatures hot skin on my back as their grip held me hostage. Downstairs, I heard my mother ask if everything was alright.

"Let her go," Kade demanded but the creature made no move to obey. Instead, he hissed like a brute.

"The queen of the Seelie Court demands the girl. Let us go or ail her wrath."

"I can't do that," Kade took a step forward, curved dagger in hand as if ready to strike," let her go now, or you'll be dust like your previous comrades."

"We do not seek a crusade with your kind. The girl belongs to us."

Kade's dagger lashed at the mysterious creature behind me. It tossed me towards the dresser, my back rolling off the knobs until I landed against the cold wooden ground. When my eyes finally landed on the creature, they widened in most horror.

He was leaden with skin the colour of dirty swamp water. The monster bore claws in place of fingers and a bald head that was big enough to weigh half of my body mass. He was the appearance of beasts in childhood tales. Could this be a nightmare?

I could not decipher my reasons for stifling a hurl. Could it be that I did not want my parents to find out, or was I simply too stunned, for this could not be true life?

I watched as the two danced in a scrupulous circle around my room. Kade often ran his index finger athwart his lips. The creature sneered and drooled heavy blotches of spit that hit the floor like puddles. Although he held no physical weapons, he boasted ten of them for fingers. Long black talons lashed out in a chaos of movement. Kade stroke again, missing the creature that was oddly quick on his feet although stout. The green beast darted at Kade with somewhat of a heedlessnesses. I could only watch in horror as the actions unfolded. In the background I could hear my parents coursing up the stairs. As if using the beasts carelessness to his advantage, Kade lanced the sword through it's thick forehead. He froze on impact, halting at the feet of his killer, knees buckling and hitting the ground with a blaring clunk.

"My parents are coming," my voice was steady, although I felt opposed, and I began to reclaim my balance on two feet," you have to hide him."

Kade squatted to lift the corpse and slung it over his shoulder as if were weightless. So quickly as if my eyes had fooled me a sight, Kade heaved himself out of the window and disappeared.

When my parents finally burst in, they found me with my jaw as wide as my eyes.

"What's wrong?" My father immediately began for the wrecked window,"what happened here?"

"Abby," my mother's hand bobbed up and down in front of my face," she's in shock."

Speak. Say something.

"There was a raccoon," finally, I orchestrated a tale," in my room. It was huge."

"Aw Abby," my father rubbed a reassuring hand on my back," things like this happen when you're this close to the woods."

"But how did it manage to tear the glass from the hinges," my mother was examining the damage," it's almost like it was torn perfectly."

"Your sheets are destroyed."

"And it stinks in here."

Within the next few minutes, my father had covered the airy window with thick cardboard from old moving boxes and my mother had replaced my sheets. I was silent for most of the time, I could only get out a couple whispered words whenever spoken to. I was all alone now, safely tucked into bed yet safety was the last thing I allied with. That thing was here to take me just like Jack had. It's happened before, and it will keep happening.

'He was under instructions from someone you may or may not know, to kill you.' Kade had said, but the question was, who would want me dead.

Kade was right. What the hell is going on and what do I do?

Nakoda, Alberta Canada, north across the border was a town with a tribe that would supposedly keep me safe. I couldn't possibly abandon my parents and Ben. What if they come back for them instead?

The cardboard aping as my windows fluttered the slightest and I could have sworn it was the wind battling against my fathers duct tape until I realized I knew better. Kade announced presence when his muscular leg emerged firstly from the shadows and the rest of him soon followed. I was surprised that I was so relieved to see him.

Because he's on my side, and he can help me understand what's going on.

"You're back," I sat up.

"We need to leave, now. This time there was just one, a few hours ago there were four."

Four others? Did he kill them too?

"I can't just leave, what if they hurt my parents, they know where I live," my words were submerged with panic.

"They won't touch your parents, they are summoned by their royalty and killing a human is against their law. They only want you."

My eyebrows scrunched in confusion,"why me?"

Through darkness, I could see Kade's expression soften the slightest," I can help you. Come with me, now."

"Why are you helping me? Did my parents...my birth parents, did they send you?"

"I don't have time to explain, can you trust for now that you'll have all the answers soon?" He descended a hand out to me. With hesitation, I grasped hold of it.

I was quick to my feet and quicker to grab my passport that was in the second drawer of my dresser. Equipped with my cellphone in hand, I found a jacket to warm into as well.

"What do I tell them?" I mumbled, staring blankly at a new text message box.

"Tell them that you love them, and that everything is alright, and most importantly, tell them you'll be back very soon."

I looked into his eyes and realized for the first time that they weren't brown but green. Concealed by hazel specks that impersonated his eyes the colour of coffee, but now it was so clear. I nodded, drifting out of my haze. I fiddled with the screen until devising yet another fib of how I was to join a friend of mine on a drive through the northern states and provinces.

'It'll be just a few days, I promise.'

Sent.

I forwarded the same tale to Ben and immediately silenced my phone. I knew my best friend, and he would not agree to this without a million questions and I did not trust myself not to answer his dismayed calls.

At least I hoped he still cared, he must have been calling me for a reason. After packing a backpack with some essentials, I looked up at an awaiting Kade to suggest ways to depart my home but he beat me to it with a gesture to suggest that I should get onto his back.

I immediately begin to shake my head.

"Just trust me," he said.

Concluding it is as the realization that I no longer had much to lose, I nodded and gave the boy the benefit of the doubt. I let him aid me in getting onto his back and wrapped my arms as tightly as I could around his neck. It felt good to be held this closely by someone, even if it were mere seconds before we both jumped out of a window and into our possible mutual plummet of doom.

To my surprise, we did not land as scads of skin and bones. I had my eyes shut as tightly as I possibly could and felt my my heart drop to my knees as if I were on the steepest ride at the ferry. Had it not been for the thud that ensued when Kade's feet met the ground, I would have sworn we were still soaring. I opened my eyes to unveil the darkness of the night.

"I told you you can trust me," I heard Kade's alto yet gentle voice. I would have rolled my eyes had this this been any other situation. But it wasn't and I must now seek out answers as to why there was a creature that I had only envisioned to exist in fairytales in my bedroom?

I struggled to get myself off of him and with the help of his arms, landed not-so-smoothly on the earth. I caught his eye and simultaneously, I caught my breath. I broke the contact and gazed around.

"Where's the thing?"

He reached into his pockets and retrieved a small transparent plastic bag that held a shiny dust.

"What is that?"

"That's the ogre's ashes."

"Ogre. Like Shrek."

He grinned as if I were amusing and half nodded, half shook his head," more or less."

"What now?"

"Now, we begin our journey to Canada."

"How long will it take?"

"On foot, around 20 hours."

Puzzled, I questioned," on foot? What about your bike?"

"On foot is faster."

"How?"

He suddenly became uneasy," I have to show you something."

I was about to tell him that I've lived in New York my entire life and that I was sure I had just about seen it all, but after what had just happened, I wasn't so sure. He began to retrieve backwards.

"There is something you should know about me, Aubrette. Just know that I would never hurt you." The look in his eyes was sincere. I suddenly wondered if he too, were an ogre.

The boy leaped up into the air and the first thing I had noticed was that his leather suit began to sprout of fur. All of his body, bare or clothed, black hairs emerged as if planted. His fingers extended into paws and head morphed into a beasts. Large fangs the size of my fists surfaced from underneath his wet gums. When he landed, he was not a boy anymore. He was a wolf. I was not stunned into silence. I screamed with as wide as my mouth could part and as loudly as my throat permitted. I hurled out loud and spun on the heels of my foot to escape the wild animal. The adrenaline coursing through my veins disguised itself as ringing that robbed me of my sense of hearing. I could not bare to risk turning to see if it were following me. I coursed into the woods and as far away as I could from the home of my childhood. My vision was as capricious as my ears were and the only thing that aided me on my venture were my hands, palming at the thick trunks of the trees and swiping at the branches. My legs struggled to take me further, but they didn't have to because hands grasped at my waist and pulled me into the chest of a figure that was blended into an outline of darkness.

Kade.

"Let me go!" I squirmed within his grapple but there was no budge. His lips were at my ears when he whispered," stop struggling."

It took a couple of minutes for me to finally surrender. My breathing had eventually slowed down, but the thud of my chest was continuous.

"You're a...." I struggled to get my words out. I felt both dubious and foolish at what my brain had suggested but the boy confirmed.

"Werewolf."

He did not bother explaining, instead, he merely carried on as if I was expected to just move on already.

"I have leather straps attached to my shifting gear," he demonstrated by pulling at the camouflaged harness on his back," when I shift, you have to get on top and hold on. This is the only way to make it out of here safely and as quickly as possible."

I struggled to weigh the thoughts in my head. I couldn't tell which I should say out loud. I found myself wondering if it were him on the news, and if it were him that night during the battle with the snake. Had he saved me before without my knowledge? Is that why his eyes seemed so familiar to me, as if I have seen him in a dream?

It was never a dream, I thought, it was real life.

"How did you...how are even you real?" The words he'd attempted had drifted amidst. I could not concentrate nor can he expect me to.

"As I told you before, you don't live in the world you think you live in."

"Is it all real? The books, the movies-"

"We have to leave, now."

"What? No, we can get your bike or rent a car-"

"It would take days in a car or a bike, we don't have that time. They know you're alive, they'll be sending in faeries by the dozens now."

"Faeries?-"

"Stop," his fingers darted to grasp my shoulders,"Like I said, I will explain everything to you, soon."

"The people you're taking me to, are they also...?"

He nodded and then I nodded.

"I'm going to shift again now. I need you to not freak out, alright?"

I gulped but conferred no consolation, neither verbal nor physical. I could not make any promises, not even to myself. I wondered if I would recognize him this time.

The second time around remained a startle to say the least. I didn't think that there would ever come time where I could get used to that. The wolf was huge, the size of a sedan and pitch black like carbon. Kade buckled his knees that were at my shoulder and leaned into the mud. I stared into his big green eyes. It still looks like him and it looks like the wolf that saved me.

Has he been here all along, protecting me?

Getting on top of the wolf was no easy task. I struggled for minutes and he tried to lower himself as flat as he could. Finally, I was on top and there was no stranger feeling. I grasped a firm hold on the straps of his suit. Kade looked back as if to ensure I was alright. I offered a confirming smile. He began to strut slowly, and I knew it was an attempt to gain my comfort. Little by little, he sped his speed. I felt oddly secured. And tall.