Now, as I walk out and see all the pissed-off faces, human and Fae, a completely different part of me gets picked up and shifted sideways without me even trying—in fact, I’m pretty sure I’m resisting—and I don’t like it one bit, because all the sudden I’m seeing my world with what feels like totally different eyeballs.
I don’t like these eyeballs. They see things wrong.
The Fae hate me. A lot of the humans do, too.
Ryodan’s men want me dead and I have no idea why he’s keeping me alive.
TP—oh, feck it—Mac, the best friend I ever had, Mac—who made me a birthday cake and hung with me and treated me cool, and sold a piece of her soul to the Gray Woman to save me, hates me, too. She wants to kill me because I killed her sister on Rowena’s orders before I ever even knew Mac existed.
Jo’s life dangles on a thread held by my completely unreliable hands.
And I have a thought that I’ve never had in my entire fourteen years of life (and I’ve had a lot of thoughts!), and it’s a little muffled (probably because I’d rather not hear it) and it goes something like this: Geez, Dani, what the feck have you done?
I’ve always been a speedboat blasting across the whitecaps, thriving on sensation, wind in my hair, salt spray on my face, having the time of my life. Never looking back. Never seeing what happens around or behind me.
These new eyeballs see my wake. They see what I leave behind when I’ve passed.
Boats capsized. People flailing in the waves.
People I care about. I’m not talking about Dublin, my city that I always keep cool and impersonal with no real face. These people have faces.
We pass Jo. She’s already dressed and at her new post, paired with another waitress, being trained. She does look good in the uniform. She gives me a look as I pass, part exasperation, part plea to behave. Her trainer stares daggers at me. I wonder if the waitresses I killed were her friends.
“They shouldn’t have eaten so much Unseelie,” I mutter in my defense.
I try to shift back to the way I was before I got off the elevator, back to Dani “the Mega” who doesn’t give a crap.
Nothing happens.
I try it again.
Still feeling the breeze from that guillotine.
One of Ryodan’s dudes, Lor, hands me a flashlight. “Gee,” I say, “thanks. A whole flashlight against a city of Shades.”
“They moved on. Mostly.”
I roll my eyes. “ ‘Mostly’ might be okay with you ’cause, like, they don’t eat whatever you dudes are. Why is that?”
Lor doesn’t answer me, but I didn’t expect him to.
The second we reach the door, I freeze-frame.
I can outrun anything.
Even myself.