God, thinking about having to break the news to her makes my knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. Driving on autopilot, I make it home in record time.
Shuffling upstairs, I make the quickest pit stop to wash the rest of the filth off me before finally laying eyes on my little one. Slowly, I breathe a sigh of relief that she is exactly where I left her.
Creeping over to the bed, I gently lift the quilt before sliding in and pulling her close. Her little mewling sound sends goose pimples across my body as she twists and nuzzles herself into the crook of my arm. Finally, I can breathe.
She really is magic. She thinks I call her Tinkerbell because her name is Fae, and in a way, I do. But the truth is, I callher Tinkerbell because she glows when she’s happy, because she moves like light caught in glass, because she’s small enough to underestimate but sharp enough to draw blood when you do.
I call her that because even though I don’t believe in fairies, I do believe in her. If you look at the old stories, the real ones, fairies weren’t soft or fragile. They were ancient, dangerous and capable of blessing or ruining your life depending on how you treated them.
People think magic is gentle. It isn’t. Magic is power that doesn’t ask. That is exactly what Fae is to me. She doesn’t flutter; she commands. She walked into fire and offered me her blood without shaking. She stood in front of monsters and didn’t bow. She thinks Tinkerbell is a joke.
It’s not.
It’s a warning.
Because in every story, if you hurt the fairy… the world burns for it. I have never believed in magic. Until she looked at me like I was worth bleeding for.
CHAPTER 30
FAE
The campus looks exactly the same. That’s what unsettles me the most. The grass is still cut too short. The stone buildings still glow pale beneath the thin spring sun. Students drift between lectures with headphones in and coffee in hand, laughter spilling out of them like last night never happened. Like they weren’t kneeling in a crypt or forced to bleed beneath crucifixes.
Yesterday, I was strapped to a crucifix beneath Father’s mansion. Today, I have a 10 a.m. seminar. The normality feels obscene.
I adjust my bag higher on my shoulder as I look around. I see it everywhere now; bandages beneath sleeves, fresh white dressings peeking out when cuffs shift. Some are wrapped carefully, others seeping faint pink through the gauze. Each of us is carved in the same place yet marked differently. The male spies are cut with Ravens, the female spies with swallows. Everyone else carries a skull.
It’s another way to segregate my kind. Another way to remind people we’re different.
The fucked-up part is that the Ravens’ segregation makes them even more elite. For the Swallows, it just reminds uswe’re the bottom of the barrel. There are only two male spies this year and fifteen Swallows. Fourteen of them weren’t chosen yesterday.
I am the only one left to be given my marching orders to the compound.
As the cold breeze hits, I remember how I woke up this morning tangled in Roman’s arms, his body was warm and solid behind mine. He kissed the back of my shoulder and pulled me in tight before we showered together. The water was hot enough to sting as steam curled around us. He washed my hair like a ritual, his fingers gentle against my scalp. When I hissed as water ran over the brand, he pressed his forehead to mine.
“They can mark you,” he said. “But they don’t get to define you.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but I want it to be.
After, he redressed the wound with clean gauze and antiseptic and I tried to swallow the pain. When I hissed at the deeper cut, he pulled back and pressed a gentle kiss to it.
“Easy,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
No one has ever said that to me and meant it. I’m still trying to believe he does.
What’s so special about me anyway? It’s not like I can offer him anything. Quinn’s family already has a contract outlining what she can provide him. All I can offer is PTSD and a long list of important men I want to kill.
“Careful, you’ll wrinkle your forehead if you think that hard,” her voice slides over my spine like oil.
I don’t need to look to know who it is. I frown, letting my silence speak for itself as I turn to take them in. Tweedledee from the merry band of bitches stands with her back straight and her head high, posted by the gym like she’s already been crowned. To Quinn’s left is Maya, to her right Rebecca, flanking her like bookends.
All three have their sleeves rolled just enough to expose the fresh carvings on their forearms. I don’t know what they see when they look at the skulls, but the red, inflamed scars send a bolt of revulsion through me.
It’s people like this who make the institution tick. The ones who blindly follow because daddy protected them from the monsters. The ones who scream not all men when a victim speaks up. The ones who coddle their abusive sons and call them misunderstood.
They’re the kind who spend their lives being manipulated and still die praising the men who hurt them.
Roman would give her crumbs and she’d lick them up and say she was full.