Traitor (27 page)

“I don’t like it, Ash. It sounds fishy.”

“Well you were the one who claimed nothing with me is simple. Isn’t this par for the course?”

“Well, yeah, it is, but I’m just thinking if your dad is dead…sometimes it’s best to leave some things alone.”

“He’s not a flesh eating zombie, Liam.”

He waved me off. “I’m not saying he is, I’m just saying some things aren’t meant to be. Maybe this is just a case of that.”

I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. My mind was made up, and it didn’t matter what anyone told me. I was going to get my dad back. Instead of arguing with him though, I took another drink of my coffee. The whipped cream had melted into it and left a thin bubbly layer on top. I whirled it in with the little stirring stick, making the coffee a light brown.

“I disagree, Liam.”

We both looked at Aiden. His constant silence made it easy to forget he was here. My heart leapt at the encouragement. “You disagree with who?”

Aiden refused to look at either of us directly. “I think everyone should have the opportunity to have their family, should they want it.”

Liam snorted. “
Should they want it?
You sound like a psychologist.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“That doesn’t make you an expert on what Ashlyn should and shouldn’t do.”

Aiden’s face reddened. “Yeah, well, I’ve been where she’s been, and I understand what her father is enduring. I’d say if she wants to try to get her dad back, let her. It’s miserable there. If I were her dad, I’d want someone to get me out.” He looked at me with fire in his eyes. “Thank you for taking the risk to retrieve me.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I peeked at Liam. He was watching me carefully. There was no way I wanted this to turn into an argument, and that would be what happened if this conversation continued. Instead, I decided on a new line of discussion. I quickly winked at Aiden to let him know I appreciated his thoughts, and then smiled devilishly. “Liam, do you want to know what else happened, or do you want to be my mom a little more?”

He rolled his eyes. “I am
not
your mom. I do pity her, though. You’re trouble.”

I laughed. “Hey, you voluntarily picked me. She’s stuck with me.”

“Touché,” he said, laughing. “Go on, then. What other madness did you bring down on yourself?”

“Well, like you already know, I ran into Jamie. Well, she’s a lot more powerful than any of us knew. Like, way powerful. When Dalbach and I ran into her, she was upset. Ankou has taken her brother. She wants him back. That’s why she’s here with us. She wants to switch sides and get her family back together.”

Liam’s eyes were hard. “Funny how that works. The little git is fine breaking apart our families, but when it’s her own, it’s a different story.”

I shook my head in agreement. “I’m not arguing with you there. Don’t get mad, but I agreed to help her.”

Aiden stood up. “You what? She’s a traitor! A backstabber! Ashlyn, she killed your father – tried to kill you twice!”

“Three times, if you include the egg in the cookies,” I muttered.

“Then three times! How in the heck do you think you can trust her? She’s a ticking time bomb!”

It was my turn to stand up. “And would you rather that ticking time bomb was on our side, or Ankou’s? Because the way I see it, either way something bad is going to happen. We might as well have a heads up on the matter instead of being completely blindsided.”

Aiden sat down quietly. The few people that were in the coffee shop with us were looking our way. Liam was trying hard to be inconspicuous, and with good reason. Aiden and I had made quite a scene. Aiden flashed a swoon-worthy smile at the last two whispering ladies that took over his whole face, then turned back to me. His friendly smile vanished and was replaced with a hard stare that spoke more words than he ever could. His voice came out in a whisper that was strong and fast. “I want to help you, I really do. The thing is, I can’t help you – “ He motioned to himself and Liam, “
We
can’t help you – if you’re going to bring the enemy home with you. That’s just insane.”

The sensible part of me knew he was right, but in my heart, I hoped he was wrong. “Jamie seems genuine.”

“She seemed genuine the last time, didn’t she? Or do you make it a habit to befriend the people that you know want you dead?”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

He didn’t make me say anything. He leaned across the table once more, every line in his face etched deeper and more pronounced than a moment before. The weariness of this fight was already showing. He ran a hand down his face and rubbed his eyes before he pulled away. Finally, he spoke. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me too.”

We sat in silence for a minute. Aiden glanced around once more and sighed. “I need to go get my schedule.” His voice was devoid of all emotion. He was simply stating his escape plan to get away from us.

“They’re in the front office,” Liam started to explain. “If you go in the main doors – “

“I can find my way, thanks,” Aiden said, calm and curt. He made it clear the discussions for today were over.

Liam nodded. “I’ll see you in a little bit then.”

Aiden gave me one last smile, but his eyes remained hard. “Ashlyn.”

Instead of instantly responding, I watched a man carry his guitar case into the coffee shop and start to set up his stage. Looked like there was going to be live music in a bit. I tightened my ponytail just to have something to do. “Aiden,” was all I could come up with.

His features were contorted in what looked like frustration. He stood there, twisting one of the drawstrings of his hoodie between his fingers. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to unravel the whole thing.

He scanned the coffee shop quickly and gulped in a breath. “Liam,” he said, never taking his eyes off me, “can I borrow Ashlyn for just a few minutes? I’ll bring her right back.”

Liam squeezed my knee and smiled at Aiden. “Sure. Just bring her back in one piece.”

“That’s my plan,” he said as he struggled to plaster on a convincing smile.

When we were clear of the coffee shop, Aiden’s head was on a swivel, drinking in his surroundings. I began to think he’d forgotten he’d even hauled me out here when his head snapped back to me. We stopped in front of Giovanni’s pizza, and the scents of freshly baked bread and cheese made my stomach growl once more. “Now would you mind explaining to me why you’ve re-befriended the girl – no, the
pixie
– “ He fashioned his mouth around the word like it was a particularly nasty piece of fish. “That tried to kill you? Killed your father?”

“He’s not dead,” I mumbled back.

He barked out a low chuckle as we began to walk again. We passed stores in silence, as Aiden seemed to try to figure out what to say. A couple kids stood outside of the local bookstore with new comics in hand. They pointed and gasped at the characters in the magazines as we passed. Neon lights in the windows outlined superheroes; one sign had lost power to the left leg of Superman, making him look off-kilter.

Aiden finally spoke as we waited on the light to change and allow us to walk across the main intersection downtown. As the light changed, we began to cross. “That’s what you take away from my comments? You argue if your father is dead or not?”

My voice rose with a passion I didn’t even know was there. When we were across the street I stopped in my tracks, too angry to continue on our little jaunt. “He isn’t dead! You said he was dead!”

People passing by the Christian Bookstore we were standing in front of began to stare. Aiden snatched my forearm tightly and regained my attention with force. I shrunk away, unsure who this person really was. His eyes were fierce.

His eyes reminded me strangely of Memaw’s.

“Listen to me,” he whispered, his grasp on my arm unrelenting. “There are more to the Fae than anyone has told you.”

I couldn’t help it, I rolled my eyes. “You’re not the first to tell me that.”

“Then maybe you should shut up and listen to me.”

We glared at one another. His lips were in a tight line, and stress was etched all over his otherwise flawless face. His eyes were ceaseless in their movements as he watched the cars drive by. The simple, every day life of the inhabitants of Fairborn carried on in front of us, but didn’t include us. We were part of the darker shadows that lurked in the back alleyways in the undesirable edges of town. Aiden’s demeanor confirmed it. It was like he was constantly waiting on an attack. I called him on it. “Were you planning on one or both of us getting assassinated today?”

He stopped his incessant searching and focused solely on me. “If we were on today’s menu, we’d be dead.”

His tone wasn’t joking. Suddenly I began to believe him.

Finally, he relinquished the hold he had on my arm, and blood rushed back to my fingers. I hadn’t even realized my hand had gone numb, but it definitely was. I massaged my fingertips, urging them to regain feeling other than the needle pinpricks that danced under the surface of my skin.

He tugged at the bottom of his hoodie and pulled the hood over his head. His face remained downward, suddenly appearing to be very interested in the cracks of the cement in front of us. I heard him whisper, but his lips barely moved. “Those two men in front of Foy’s Grill, the ones playing chess, do you see them?”

The same two men who had been in the coffee house with us were now who Aiden pointed out a little ways down the block. They sat in front of the restaurant, completely engrossed in the battle they waged on the checkered board. One of them twisted a sad, scraggly beard with a gnarled finger while he used his other hand to toy with his white pawn. The other watched in anticipation, awaiting the decision of his counterpart.

I turned away from them and walked into the overhang of the bookstore to avoid drawing any more stares. “I see them; they’re always there when I come downtown. They’re regulars.”

“They’re not
regular
regulars, Ashlyn,” Aiden said quietly. When he whispered in his milky baritone, it was nearly impossible to hear him. “They’re Changelings.”

I didn’t mean to, but I raised my voice. “What? I thought - “

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you thought. You’re most dangerous when you think,” Aiden said as he pushed me into the bookstore and the bell on the door clanged. The scent of old books and freshly printed pages intermingled inside the shop. “Now, can you try not to think and just let me explain? It’s hard to fill a cup that’s already full.”

“Well, aren’t you just Mr. Philosophical.”

“Only to those who aren’t,” he retorted, his eyes scanning once more.

He guided me to a corner of the store filled with CDs and stopped. “Now listen, because no one else is going to ever explain this stuff to you. All the Fae are bad, understand? All of them.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he plowed on, acting as though he didn’t see the million questions forming on my tongue. “Do you know how the first Fae were even created? They were the offspring of angels and demons, Ashlyn. Demons. Now, do you know of any demons that have ever been on Santa’s nice list?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Didn’t think so.”

He paused only so long as to scan the shop once more. Not a soul was in here; we hadn’t even seen an employee. He picked up a CD, perused the back contents, then sat it back down. No rhyme or reason. The guy was odd. He turned his attention to me once more. “Now, that being said, here’s the skinny. Fae are beautiful because of their angelic side, and they’re horribly vain because of it. When they have children and they’re not up to snuff, they cast them out. They send them off to the human realm, disgusted. Those, Ashlyn, are the Changelings. They’re abandoned by their own race. They’re left to fend for themselves. Eventually, they started to find one another and band together. Ankou united them.”

The way he was talking, it sounded as though he thought Ankou was doing everyone a favor. Thousands of questions cropped up in my mind, but I knew better than to even try to probe right now. Aiden was off in his own thoughts, his eyes far away and unblinking. I forced myself to keep my mouth shut and let him continue.

“Ankou tried to help them, created a place for them. He was a Glaistig.”

My mouth dropped. Aiden’s grew into a smirk. “Oh, was that something your dear Memaw hadn’t told you? Ankou was on their side. The committee banished him after hearing his ideas to provide Changelings with a place of their own. The Changelings embraced him. That’s when he decided they should let the always-beautiful, ever-perfect Glaistig know what it was like to be cast out. That’s when the war started. You see, Ankou was on the ’good side.’ The same side as your friends, until they turned their backs on them when he offered charity to those they found undesireable.”

“How do you know all of this?” I whispered.

“Because I
listen,
” Aiden said emphatically. “What do you think I did all that time in Neamar? They talk, they share their histories just like any other race. They weren’t always as hateful and bloodthirsty as they are now.”

“But they steal kids – “

He held his hand up. “Let me finish. That was Ankou’s idea. He wanted to stir up the Glaistig. Glaistig still lived among humans at that point, and he started stealing the Glaistig children. You see, Changelings are usually assigned a child, and they go in the dead of night. They become magic itself, just a smoke or wisp like you see Roslin or Memaw or even yourself create. They inhabit the very bodies they intend to kidnap. They take the body over. The soul goes to Neamar, where once again their body is formed. The Changeling, it’s just a shell. A complete fake of the person.”

I sucked in a breath. “Then why did Memaw say Ankou came specifically for me?”

“Because he wanted to make sure you were taken. He had special plans for you, and he wanted to make sure they were carried out. I assure you, most people are not afforded the honor of Ankou personally attending the Shift.”

“The Shift? That’s what Memaw calls – “

Once again, Aiden’s face hardened into a cruel smile. It was unnatural on him. “What she calls your gift? That’s because it’s what you do. You Shift. You control the Changeling inside of you. It didn’t take over for some reason. Ankou wants to know why, but obviously you’re a little slippery.” He grinned mischievously at that comment. I couldn’t help but smile as well.