“Give me your hand,” she said, reaching out spindly fingers with cracked nails. On her back, a pair of shriveled wings rustled, small bits of silver and gold falling to the grass near her heels.
“Girl, I hope you know what you're doing,” Caley said, putting her fingers in her blonde hair and staring down at the pair of us like we were crazy. Maybe I was crazy? I wasn't sure. There had to be some reason I'd been tied up, some reason I couldn't remember who I was. But I did know this—I could help the dryad. That was something I was sure of.
My hand was a pale blue color when I reached it out toward the girl, such a different shade than all the people I'd seen clustered inside the hospital. They ranged from dark brown to pale white, but none of them were blue.
“Thank you,” the girl said as her fingers wrapped around mine, her words ringing with so much truth that I felt my heart skitter and jump. “Thank you.”
Light flickered at the places our fingers touched, dancing like sparks across our skin, but then … something went wrong.
The light shimmered, darkened, went out, and then I felt it, like a knife in my side.
“Oh fuck,” Caley gasped as the dryad girl drew her hand away from me, watching in horror from eyes like starlight. “This isn't good at all.”
I grasped my side, fingers digging at the fabric of my loose cotton dress. Through a small hole in the fabric, I could feel it oozing hot and fresh—more blood. Too much. It was wet and warm and red, sticky against my fingers.
“You need to run,” the dryad said, standing up and backing away from me like I was cursed. But it wasn't me that she was scared of—it was something else. “You need to go now.”
Truth, truth, truth.
Both women were speaking with truth … and fear.
I didn't know why, but I believed them: it was time to run.
I stood up, but Caley grabbed me by the arm before I could get very far.
“You better come with me,” she said, her voice soft but her eyes bright.
I thought about it for a minute, but where else did I have to go?
Nowhere.
I had nowhere and for the moment, I was nobody.
I decided to swallow my fear and follow along for the ride, the sunken cheeks and shimmering eyes of the dryad haunting me long after we left the parking lot.
The girl I'd been fucking was now fast asleep and drooling all da hell over my pillow. I stared at her for a couple o' moments, smoking my cigarette, and then stepped out into the hall and shut the door to da damn room.
“You aren't leaving another one in dere for me to clean up, are you brother?” asked Donal as I made my way into the common room and paused, staring the vice president of the club down for a long moment. He was my superior so it woulda been prudent to look away, sure, but I was a dumbass on a good day, me.
“I'm just on my way to see Meme,” I said with a shrug, and heard Donal cursing under his breath.
“I'd just as soon eat her as I'd feed the bitch!” he called after me as I stepped outside, boots loud against the wood of the dock. An eerie fog hung over the water, broken up by clusters of Spanish moss and gnarled oak limbs.
I cracked open the old freezer next to the building's grubby exterior and pulled out a container of chicken, popping the lid and grabbing a raw leg.
“'Ey Meme!” I shouted, tossing the container back into the freezer and grabbing a bag of marshmallows to take wit' me. “Come 'ere, girl!”
I moved down da length of the dock and paused, knowing I looked like a fuckin' asshole and not carin' one bit. I made quacking sounds to try and draw da gator to the dock and then tossed a few 'mallows out there for her to munch on. Whenever I tried to bring girls out 'ere to impress 'em with da gators, they always asked me how I knew da damn things liked marshmallows. But what kind o' stupid question is that? Everybody know gators like marshmallows.
After a few moments, I saw her, gliding through the water toward me, her dark green head just barely visible in the fog. If I wasn't fae, I probably wouldn't come out here alone in the dark like dis. Meme was small for a gator, but there were others out dere in the swamp—I knew because the club often used 'em to dispose of bodies.
“Hey girl, where you been?” I asked, using the pole at the end of the dock to hook the chicken leg to. I dangled it out over the water and watched as Meme lifted her long, ugly snout out to grab hold of it. With a crunch of bone, she disappeared under the dark waters again.
I stood there for a few, takin' drags on my smoke, when the sound of a car drew my attention back toward the hard packed dirt of the parking lot. We didn't exactly get a lot o' visitors out 'ere in da bayou.
“Looks like even if we stay outta trouble, trouble finds us, eh, Meme?” I tossed a handful of marshmallows into the water and headed up the length of the dock and back inside. I stepped in through the rickety old screen door just in time to see Caley dragging this thin, frail wisp of a girl into the common room.
“She's got iron in her side, I think,” Caley was saying as she helped the girl into one of da old couches. I saw right away that there was blood—fae blood, sure—but the stink o' iron was unmistakable.
“And you brought her here, why?” Donal was asking, looking more annoyed than anything else as he stroked a hand down the dark, thick length of his beard.
“Arlo said Fionn needed to see her,” Caley began, ruffling up her hair and lookin' like she was in serious need of a nap or some shit. I just hoped all this raucous didn't wake da girl I left in the dorm room.
“Well, Fionn ain't here,” I said, moving over to stand next to the wilting fae on the club's couch. Her skin was a pale blue, almost white, but she was clearly still entertainin' some sort of broken glamour. I could smell it on 'er almost as bad as I could smell da iron. Who knew what she'd look like without it? I wouldn't be gettin' human girls for my bed if I wasn't wearin' one, that's for damn sure.
“I found her outside the diner,” Caley said, huffing out a breath and wiping sweaty palms on her uniform. “I don't think 'Lo knew she was fae or else he wouldn't have suggested I take her to the hospital …”
“You took her to da damn hospital?” Donal roared and then closed his eyes for a long moment. “May da goddess help you, you stupid girl.”
“The glamour's faded a lot since I got her there,” Caley said defensively, wrapping her arms around herself. Guess the girl couldn't help herself—she was half-human after all. “She wasn't this color and she didn't smell this bad until after …” She paused and leaned in close to Donal and me. “Someone is missing this girl bad. That iron in her side, it's got a dampening spell. That, and when she used her magic, I could feel it—some sort of signal went out.”
I turned my attention back to the frail, wispy thing sitting on the couch.