Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 4) (10 page)

Mina decided that stomping loudly as she
walked would help disperse the rats faster. She aimed the flashlight at the
tunnel that Teague disappeared down and was surprised that it immediately turned
and opened up into another large culvert. Light poured in from an opened
manhole in the ceiling above, and she realized Teague must have carried her
until he found another exit.

She stood in the circle of light and
looked to the left. No sign of him. After she clicked the flashlight off, she
pocketed it before ascending the rungs to the street level. Orange construction
cones surrounded the open manhole and a Silver City Sewer & Water truck was
parked nearby. The city workers had abandoned their sewer work to investigate a
crash—the one that had almost killed her—farther down the block.
Mina pulled herself out of the hole and moved to the other side of the caution
tape.

At first she walked, but then she started
to run back to the scene of the accident. The garbage truck had struck a fire
hydrant and run into the brick building. The whole area was cordoned off with
tape, and carefully placed police vehicles kept the looky-loos at bay.

Mina walked closer. The vehicle that
actually covered the manhole and blocked her escape was a small pickup that had
been caught in the aftermath of a pile up.

Even now, she could see Ever and Nan
pointing beneath a totaled Toyota. A fireman was carrying over a large
hydraulic spreader to try and lift part of the car off of the hole.

“Nan! Ever! I’m over here!” Mina called
out, waving from behind the police line.

Nan looked up and started shrieking. She
ran to Mina and threw her arms around her. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

Ever rushed over behind Nan. “Are you
okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think.” She rearranged
her scarf so the soft material was up against her neck. The pain seemed to
lessen a little that way.

“Mina, did you see?”

“See what?” she mumbled.

Nan leaned forward and cupped her hand
over her mouth. “Ever can fly. She picked me up flew out of the way of the
crash. I saw it.”

“Did not!” Ever denied it and rolled her
eyes.

“Did too.” Nan placed her hands on her
hips. “I know what I saw.”

“You have no idea what you saw. I think
you got a bump on your head.”

Mina didn’t feel like hiding anything
else from anyone ever again. Despite Teague’s warning. “Give it up, Ever. She
saw you. And I know for a fact that she won’t give up till she proves you
wrong. I actually think it’s about time we start sharing what we know and stop
keeping my friends in the dark.”

Ever didn’t look pleased. Nan beamed and
turned to give Ever a poke in the arm. “So how’d you do it? Happy thoughts and
pixie dust?” She continued to walk around Ever, trying to find the secret of
her flying.

Ever started laughing. “You have no idea
how close to the truth you really are.”

Nan just crossed her arms and demanded an
explanation. “Show me.”

“Wha—? No!” Ever waved her hands at
her.

“Show me…or I’ll do something really
embarrassing.”

Ever rolled her eyes. “That’s not hard to
do when you hang out with a gimp.” Mina hated when Ever referred to her family
that way, but she didn’t say anything.

Nan frowned and turned to Mina, worry
etched across her face. “How’d you find your way out?” Nan lowered her voice.

“Yeah,” Ever said. “How
did
you escape?”

Nan shot her a doubtful look.

“What? She was kidnapped by an evil Fae
prince.”

“No, he saved me, and then he let me go,”
Mina said loosening her scarf again. “But not before giving me a warning.”

Ever sucked in her breath when she saw
the purplish bruise. “He did that to you?”

“Yeah,” Mina dropped her hand to her
side, feeling conflicted and confused about what had transpired with Teague.

“It seems there’s no hope for him,” Ever
sighed sadly. “It would be best not to anger him. Just keep your nose clean.”

Mina swallowed and agreed. “That’s my
plan. Except he seems to want something from me, and he’s threatened to hurt
you. All of you—including Brody and Nix and my family.”

Ever didn’t even flinch. She seemed to accept
the news.

Nan, on the other hand, flew off the deep
end. “What? How could he threaten me? He doesn’t even know what he’s getting
himself into. Just you wait. No one crosses Nan Taylor.”

“You’ll stop him before it comes to that,
right, Mina?” Ever’s voice hinted at the fear that she hid behind her stony
mask.

“I won’t let him hurt any of you.”

The rest of the afternoon was crazy
hectic. Since the girls were just “witnesses” to the accident and not visibly involved,
the police let them leave to go on with their business.

Mina wasn’t really in the mood to eat
anything, and she honestly didn’t want to search for a dress anymore, but Nan
dragged her along against her will.

“Fine,” Nan said. “If we can’t go to the
café, then we shop. Shopping is the cure for everything. Plus, I’m not letting
you out of my sight until you tell me everything…and I mean everything.”

Ever frowned. “Well, I don’t
think—”

“Nope,” Nan interrupted. “We’re going to
Lacey’s Boutique. I’ve made up my mind. It’s across town. Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, Ever and Mina got back on
the next bus while Nan grilled them.

Once Nan learned that Ever was a pixie,
she couldn’t stop talking to her about it. Mina didn’t mind shopping for
dresses with Ever. In fact, recently, she had enjoyed the Fae girl’s company.
Maybe they’d bonded over their grief at losing Jared or something. Still, she’d
obviously done something to anger Ever again…which had never really taken a
whole lot of effort.

“Do it again,” Nan whispered
encouragingly to Ever. Nan had quickly bonded with Ever and had even gotten the
pixie to show off a few of her gifts. Something that Mina had never even
thought to ask about.

“Sure, pick someone.” Ever leaned back in
the seat and put on a pair of white skull sunglasses—feigning sleep. She
looked relaxed in her dark denim jacket over her striped pink tank and black
skinny jeans. Her army boots were laced with skull shoelaces, and her nails
were painted an awesome crackle black color.

Nan sat next to her wearing red skinny
jeans and a chevron striped shirt with bangles up her left arm. Her blonde hair
flowed down her back, and she looked angelic, with the sunrays coming through
the bus windows making her hair glimmer.

Night and day. Dark and light. Fae and
Human. Her two friends, worlds apart yet so similar. Mina sighed and ran her
hands up and down her sensible denim shorts and Dead Prince Society shirt. This
one was a faded gray with black letters, which were perfect with her gray All-Star
shoes. Mina didn’t curl her hair, but let it hang loose in ponytail over her
left shoulder.

“Um…that one.” Nan gestured with her head
toward the front of the bus where a gentleman in a suit sat reading a paper.

“You sure?” Ever pulled the glasses down
to zero in on her target.

“Yep,” Nan answered.

“Child’s play.” Ever flicked her finger
toward the man and then quickly turned away.

Not Nan. Nan leaned forward and watched
as the newspaper flew out of the man’s hands and scattered across the bus
floor. He quickly jumped up and tried to pick up the pieces before they were stepped
on by the oncoming passengers.

“Well, then you pick one,” Nan whispered
trying to not laugh or look in the man’s direction.

“Fine, but see if you can catch me doing
it.” Ever smiled and waited for the new passengers to enter the bus and find
seating. When the bus had closed its doors and pulled off again, she picked her
victim.

At first Mina couldn’t see what Ever was
doing. But then she saw that a plump red-haired woman reading a very large
hardcover book was having issues turning the page. The exasperated woman
gripped the back of the book and tried to separate the page she’d just finished
from the ones in the back. It held.

She picked at it with her nail. Still
nothing.

The woman put the book on her lap, and
all of a sudden,
all
of the pages started
flipping. They stopped at the last page.

She stuttered out in surprise but looked
relieved that the pages turned. Until she realized she couldn’t get the book to
open from the beginning.

“She doesn’t need to be reading those
kind of books anyway,” Ever said. The woman exited the bus at the next stop,
and the girls watched her throw the book in the nearest dumpster. “That’s
right. The end.” Ever smiled.

“That was so cool!” Nan fawned a bit, and
Ever shrugged her shoulders.

“It seemed kind of mean,” Mina said.

“Eh, it’s not that great a book. I’ve
read it. She’ll thank me for saving her five hours of her life. The main
character dies in the end.”

The bus dropped them off three blocks
from Lacey’s Boutique. And Mina had just explained about the Grimoire and the
curse.

Nan frowned, “So does it strictly deal
with the Grimm tales?”

Ever nodded her head. “Most of the time,
yes. They’ve gotten harder over time, though, because they morph as they unfold.
Truthfully, I’m not sure even
if
Mina
finished the tales that the quests or demands would stop.”

“Why would you say that?” Mina asked,
feeling sucker punched. She hadn’t expected someone to come right out and say
there was no way to beat the curse.

“Well, because I remember where I come
from. I know what it’s like on the Fae plane. I knew him before he was—”
she made a splitting motion with her hands. “When that happened, I chose to
follow his good side here.”

“Ever, can you tell me about it?” Mina
asked.

Her teary eyes flashed in anger, and she
shook her head at Mina.

“Pretty please with pixie dust,” Nan
begged. Mina was irritated when Ever gave in to Nan’s request.

“Back then he was just Teague. He was
betrayed by someone he cared about. The betrayal tore him apart on the inside.
It brought out the worst in him. He was extremely powerful, and the Fae feared
for their lives. He was obsessed with opening gates to the human world and
sending the Reapers. Then he turned them on his own people.”

Nan shook her head. Mina wondered if this
was hard to believe.

Ever’s eyes looked sad. “Even the Fates
didn’t know how to make the pain stop. Truthfully, I think his heart was
already in two before the sprite split him.”

“Well,” she continued, “all this happened
right before the Grimm Brothers made their appearance on the Fae plane. The
King and Queen had their hands full with keeping Teague from destroying the
kingdom and then to add a portal between the two worlds? It spelled bad news
for both sides. They just came up with the quests to distract the brothers from
their larger problem: what to do with Teague and Jared.”

“So they never intended to keep their
promise,” Mina deduced.

“I don’t know what they intended. I’m not
a Royal, okay? I only know this…because I was living at the palace at the time.”
Ever was clearly irritated, rolling her eyes. “I just know that the sprite
split him into two parts and bound them to two books or something. They sent
the Grimoire and Jared to the human plane with the Grimm brothers, without them
ever knowing what they had. And they kept Teague in the Fae plane. Teague and
Jared could travel back and forth between the worlds, but only a Grimm could
return the book to the Fae plane.”

 
“I didn’t know that’s how it happened,”
Mina said.

“Of course you wouldn’t know. You’re not
a Fae, and even most Fae don’t know all of the deets, okay? But Teague figured
out that the more quests the Grimms did, the stronger he became. He’d make the
Grimms fail on the quests, so the curse would move on to the next one. As much
as he loved power, he loved revenge even more.”

“How does Mina stop him?” Nan asked.

“Now that he’s whole again, his anger
burns with a vengeance. I’m not sure there’s anything Mina can do to stop the
curse. He is deadly on both planes.”

“Unless I kill him,” Mina said the words
softly. They hurt like gravel coming out of her mouth, but she had to say them.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Ever stopped
walking and leaned against a building for support. “And I’m scared, because
I’ll think you’ll do it.” Her shoulders started to shake silently.

“You love him,” Nan said, a bit
dumbfounded.

“Duh! And this gimp here ruined it for
me.”

“But I don’t understand,” Nan said
softly.

Ever launched herself away from the wall.
Her fingers flew to erase the tears from her eyes. “Because back then, I wasn’t
what he wanted. I thought he loved me like I loved him. When he was split, I
followed Jared, thinking I’d have a chance here. And sure, we dated for a
while. But he wasn’t happy with me. He was always looking for something or
someone. He doesn’t love me on this plane either.”