Captivate (18 page)

“Wait. The her—”

He’s hung up. A squirrel prances along a branch like a mad emperor. He chitters at me.

“I know, I know. Okay.” I grunt back.

I check Nick. He is barely breathing. Blood covers the jacket I put on him, soaks his own clothes. I growl at him to fight and then I call Issie. It rings and rings.

“Hey, Zara.” Her voice is dull but familiar.

I swallow hard, relieved. I go and squat by Nick, touch his sleeping form with the flat of my hand, scan the sky again for enemies.

“Zara?” Her voice wakes me up, solidifies me into something else.

“Issie. We have a problem. A big problem.”

“What?”

My hand touching his fur starts to tremble, shake really. I can’t control it. Ìt’s Nick.

He’s hurt, really hurt. And the pixies—they’re dead and some are gone.”

“What do you mean? You weren’t on the bus were you?”

“What bus? Issie, listen! There were other pixies. They attacked Nick and—”

I stop because it sounds like Issie has dropped the phone.

“Issie? Issie?”

Nick’s eyes flutter a little bit. His beautiful wolf lips move just the tiniest amount.

Through my worry, through my fear, I can see him trying desperately to hold on.

“Zara, this is Dev. Issie just passed out. Can I call you back?” Dev’s voice is distracted,

“No!” I yell into the phone. “You cannot call me back. Nick is—`

But he’s gone. I call again but nobody answers.

“Crap!” The word frustrates out of me, loud, and echoing.

I regret screaming it right away. There could be other pixies hanging out in the woods.

They could have been watching me move the snowmobile slowly through the forest; watching Nick bump along behind me, watching and waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Attached to the side of the snowmobile is a fireplace poker. It’s made of iron. It’s not the best weapon, but it’s something. I rip off the duct tape that keeps it in place and hold it in my good arm. Then I rush back to Nick. He’s turned human.

“Nick?” My voice is tiny small. I drop the poker in the snow and fall to my knees, touch his face. His skin has lost all color. I move the blankets around so I can see his wounds.

He’s bleeding everywhere. And bruised. I cover him up again. “Baby?”

He moans.

“Nick?” Something wet falls from my face and hits his cheek. Tears. “I’m getting you help, okay?”

“I’m dying.” He whispers.

“No, you are not,” I insist. I kiss his forehead. It’s a horrible fire. “You will not die.”

His eyes close. He thrashes. I press my hand against his shoulder. It almost burns me.

“You have to stay still, baby. You have to stay still. You’ll make it worse.”

His eyelids flutter and his body quiets. It seems like a monumental fight but he gets his eyes open again. I lean back down and press my lips against his. “You’re going to be safe. I swear. I’ll keep you safe.”

His lips move beneath mine. “I love you.” His eyes are strong for a second, intense Nick eyes. “I will always love you. No matter what.”

“We’ll always love each other,” I say. “Okay? I’ve got to get you back. We’re going to get to the road and then I’ll get an ambulance and you’ll be just fine.”

His eyes close. “Don’t ….worry….you…..always…”

I grab his head in my hand and lift it. “Stay awake! Nick, baby, you have to stay with me.”

A woman’s voice comes from behind me. “He can’t.”

My whole body shudders. I don’t turn. I won’t look at her. I know who she is. The Valkyrie. Thruth. Something inside me goes feral. “Get the hell away from us.”

The air moves behind me. She vaults over us and lands on the other side of Nick. Her wings are massive. She glows. But her face is far from happy angel. It’s more like a cold knife. It rips me apart.

“You cannot save this warrior,” she says. Each word slices into my stomach. Each word is a death sentence that I refuse to hear.

I grab the poker and carefully step over Nick so I face her. She’ll have to go through me to get him. My fingers tighten around the cold iron. “I won’t let you take him.”

“You have no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.” I am not touching Nick. I want to be touching him somehow, making sure he’s there. I step back just enough so the heel of my foot grazes his arm. He doesn’t move.

Thruth’s wings reminds me of a black, upside-down valentine heart. She says, “No, you are incorrect. There is not always a choice.”

The wind shifts around us. Snow whisks into my eyes, brittle and cold, and I wonder if she’s doing that somehow.

“You will let him die here rather than continue his existence as a warrior for good in the halls of Valhalla?” She sneers at me. “You are both greedy and selfish, typical for a human.”

“He is
not
going to die,” I insist.

She nods. For a second a kinder emotion flicks over her features. “Yes, he is. Soon.”

Something inside me crumples. Despair fills my head, my heart. My hands shake and my fingers loosen their grip on the metal. Nick is dying. He is dying and I can’t save him. He is so pale and he is barely breathing. His body is like a shell, a coat hanging on a coatrack, lifeless and empty. My body scrunches up in half and then I manage to straighten back up again. I try to hand her the poker. “Then kill me. Take me too.

Just—just don’t …I can’t lose him.”

She shakes her head. Her hair flows out behind her, catching the wind. Her eyes harden.

“You aren’t a warrior. You’re just a girl, a human girl.”

Someone sobs. It’s me. I beg. “Please.”

She doesn’t move. The wind stops. Everything is clear, unobstructed by flying snow crystals. I can see everything about Thruth; every hair, every feather. Still, I beg and refuse to accept it.

“Please….I’m half pixie. I’m not a human! I frantically push the poker her way. “I’m turning blue. That’s pixie. Take me. If you have to take him, take me too!”

“No, your parent is pixie.
You
are still human, susceptible to pixie magic, destined perhaps to be a pixie, but you are a girl—just a girl.” Her shoulders move a tiny bit and she steps forward. “You have not yet been a warrior. You have never killed.”

Something steels inside me. “Do. Not. Come. Closer.” I flip the poker around and jab it toward her. “Or you’ll be my first.”

Her lips twitch almost like she’s about to smile. She doesn’t think I’m a threat at all. She sniffs the air. “Little one, there are pixies approaching.”

She gestures behind me.

I do not turn. I won’t fall for that. “You’re not going to distract me.”

She sighs. “Your warrior’s time has come. I need to hurry before we both lose him.”

Her posture changes. I steel myself for her and I jab the poker. She brushes past me as if I’m a puppy. Her arm knocks me to the side.

“No!” I scream the word like a curse, like a prayer, and twist myself toward her.

Lunging, I grab at her ankle just as she pulls Nick into her arms. My nails break her skin.

She bleeds red. I use my hurt hand to try to get a better grip. “You can’t take him.”

Her wings tense and tighten above us. They catch the wind and she lifts. She lifts straight up. She lifts straight up, pulling me with her.

“Let go,” she says.

“No!” My feet leave the ground. “No!”

We are moving up. One foot. Another.

Her voice is frustrated. “Let go, girl! Humans can
not
enter Valhalla.”

“You can’t take him.” My fingers slip. My hurt arm dangles uselessly. Damn. Damn.

“I need him.”

We move higher. We are six feet up now. I don’t care. I am not afraid of heights; I am only afraid of losing Nick.

“Let him go,” I plead. “I can take care of him. Please…..”

She shakes her leg. “You are worse than a dog, begging. Where is your honor?”

“He is mine!” I yell. My fingers quiver from the stress of holding my weight. “I love him. Please.”

“I am sorry,” she whispers. She shakes her leg again. “We need the wolf for the battle.

He is no use to anyone dead and rotting in the earth. Now get off me.”

She kicks at me with her free foot. Her heel smashes into my fingers. They spasm. It’s just for a second that I lose my grip but it’s enough: I fall. My feet hit first. The shock of gravity and contact thuds all the way to the top of my head, but I almost don’t topple over. My knees bend. I stand my ground, then a second later I plop backward on top of the poker. The hard cold line of it is just to the left of my spine. I look up. They are gone.

I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t keep him.

“No.” I don’t yell the word. I whisper it. I whisper it over and over again until it becomes sort of crazy chant. “No. No. Nono. Nononononononono….”

Everything inside of me empties like the sky. It’s just this one massive hole that grows out of my stomach and keeps getting bigger and bigger, erasing all of me. Nick. Nick is gone.

Pixies don’t care about your loss. They will not send you flowers or hold our hand. Forget about
sympathy cards too. They’d rather bite you.

He’s gone. His body bleeding and broken, his beautiful body, is somewhere I can’t reach it. His deep, growly voice will no longer speak. I’ll never feel his lips press against mine. His fingers will never twine themselves into my hair. I’ll never be able to tease him about Snausages or fire hydrants.

I spend a wile on the ground, just staring into the white sky; staring, staring, and seeing nothing.

Something moves out of the woods. My hand reaches underneath my back, finds the iron shaft of the poker. It’s cold from the snow. My fingers wrap around it, moved by an instinct that has nothing to do with my heart.

“She’s wounded,” Something says.

I turn my head to the left but stay lying down. It’s a female pixie. Her glamour is gone.

She is all silver eyes, blue skin, and teeth. Her designer dress is tattered. She has no coat and no shoes. She’s bleeding from the leg and arm.

Another one comes from the right. I have to turn my head to see him, too. He’s taller, still capable of his glamour. He’s wearing workout clothes, wind pants, a green and white hoodie. He has deep circles beneath his eyes. They both look…...hungry.

“Wounded makes the kill easier,” he says, “and we like easy right now.”

I calculate my options. They think I’m wounded and I’m not. If I sit up they’ll see the poker. I’ll lose my only advantage, which is surprise. They slink toward me. I know how fast they can be, but they are slow. They act like cats, tormenting their prey.

“She lost her wolf boy,” the woman says in a fake compassionate voice. Ice drips from her words. “Poor defenceless thing.”

The hole in me gets bigger but the edges of it ripple with something dark and fierce. I think it’s hate. It’s their fault. I lost Nick because of them, because of pixies. The hate inside me is cold, but it pushes aside the sorrow just a tiny bit. It gives me purpose.

“It must be hard to lose something so smelly and furry and warm,” the guy says. He leaps forward and lands by my head. His hand reaches out and wipes at my cheeks. His touch is hard. “Oh, she’s crying….so sweet. Don’t worry. The pain won’t last too long.

And anyway, we’ll give you a whole new pain to think about.”

A crow shrieks in a treetop. The male opens his mouth. His glamour is suddenly gone and his teeth are like nails, pointed and deadly.

“Oh, she’s shuddering, poor baby,” he mocks.

Nick is the only one allowed to call me baby.

I think. The woman is almost to us, slinking up but limping too. I’ll have to take the man first.

“Did she land on her arm? Maybe it’s broken. How fun.” The woman giggles. “We could torture her.”

“Falling from the sky as her wolf was taken from her wasn’t torture enough?” he asks.

“She imprisoned us. Nothing is enough,” the woman hisses.

He turns back to me. His eyes flash. “True.”

He opens his mouth and leans forward. His hands come to both sides of my head. The drawstring from his hoodie dangles down, hits my cheek. He jerks my head back to expose my neck. “Maybe vampire style?”

For a second I don’t react. For a second I think, “Maybe it’ll be better this way. Maybe it’ll just be better to give up.” And yeah, maybe it would be. But not like this. I do not want this. My fingers tighten around the poker.

The pixie leans in. The woman leaps forward. She lands beside me and moans, obviously too injured for fast movement. Good.

“Just take her,” she orders. “Hurry if you’re going to go first.”

“Shut up,” he hisses back. His hands tighten on my face. His teeth come closer.

That’s me cue. I buck my hips up. My legs kick and my arm whips out from behind my back. The poker smashes into his head. His eyes bulge and close. I roll away and spring up. The female pixie laughs. Rage fills me.

“Nice surprise, little
princess
.” She spits out the word. “It will be so good to taste you.”

“Right.” Not a good comeback. I am beyond good comebacks. I am beyond pretty much anything. Nick’s name echoes inside of me and that is all I hear right now, all I feel. I am on automatic.

A quick glance assures me that pixie man isn’t moving. Pixie woman follows my gaze.

“He’s not dead, see? His chest rises. You’re weak like your father. You don’t have enough strength in you to kill us, do you? Just trap us, let us slowly go insane with need because you don’t have the guts to do what you have to do. Do you know how many times I wanted to kill your father with his endless worries? But I couldn’t—oh no—I couldn’t because he was our king.”

She would be beautiful if she weren’t so pixie. Her long black hair flows out with the wind.

“I trapped you because you’re monsters.” I force out the words. “My father was a monster.”

“Monster? Why? Because we admit to the pain we caused? Admit we like it? Instead of pretending we’re some sort of warrior hero like your wolf.” She sneers. Her posture tightens. She’s going to jump me.

“He is a hero, He protects people from things like you.”

“And you.” She sniffs. She smiles. “I can smell the pixie in you.”