“Victor is family. Sort of. He’s also a protector. He’s going to help us when the time comes.”
“When what time comes?”
She smiles grimly. “I’ll explain it all one day, my angel. One day.”
Sighing, I relax on the bed. “Will they let momma out soon?”
Her eyes well with tears, and she looks away. “Your mother… She wasn’t made for this. I hate… I hate myself.”
I don’t know wha
t that means, and she doesn’t elaborate before kissing my head.
“But you are stronger than her. Remember that. One day, remember that.”
It’s quiet and creepy in the cabin. Two days ago, there were a few other people, but I haven’t seen any of them since. They were only here briefly. Kya has barely been here either.
But she’s here right now, eating quietly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her, noticing how her gaze is steadily on the door but she’s not really looking at it.
“I just realized they might not be able to read some of my coding. It was the way I learned to write in the cages. I didn’t have the typical schooling. Everyone wrote in code to keep the guards from understanding what we wrote.”
“And you can’t just call them?” I ask, trying to help.
“No. They’ll trace the call. They have a dark user, and dark users are badass with tech. He’s not just your average dark user either.”
I’m still catching up on all the terms, but that’s an easy one. Kya has been patient and very understanding. She’s also told me all the nightmares I never had before meeting her.
“And you really think they’d kill you? They love Karma and she’s your sister. They’re not going to hurt you.”
“They love Karma for now, but eventually, when they learn what she needs, she’ll be tracking me down for refuge. They’re self-righteous sons of bitches that forget what we are. They’re idealistic and weak when it comes to reality. Most of them have lost their edge and gotten soft. The rest kill our kind for surviving. They even wanted to go after the jinn.”
I don’t mention that I feel the jinn should die as well, considering they caused the entire community to go crazy just so they could take a few fey.
“We’re a species that evolves and grows stronger at rapid rates. That right was taken away a long time ago, but we have it back now. It’s survival of the deadliest. They’re just too blind to see it. The jinn are too deadly and too crazy to tangle with, but they’ll leave the princess and her crew alone, if they leave them alone. If they don’t, they’ll hunt them down, and Karma will be the first they take. She’ll be the easiest target. She doesn’t know how to use her powers yet. They were still grooming her in the cages.”
My heart breaks for her a little on that last bit. She was a prisoner for so long. I can’t even imagine it.
“Enough of that,” she says, looking up at me. “I still have to figure out what you are.”
I groan while grabbing a box of cereal.
“I’m nobody. I’ve already told you this. We even went over my lineage. There isn’t a drop of fey blood in my family. I would have noticed magic getting used.”
“Not all fey use magic. Your soul is too strong to be human. It practically glows. That’s a lot of power. And no human could have the mind capacity to accept this reality as effortlessly as you have. It tends to break their minds when they take in too much of our truths. You’re one of us. You saw what I had to do in order to feed myself, and you didn’t even act afraid. You didn’t judge me. That’s not human. That’s better than the Scooby gang too.”
She stabs at a piece of egg a little harder than necessary.
“Slade will be back today. Maybe he can help me figure it out.”
My blood runs cold in my veins. “The guy who tortured those two guys?” I ask on a rasp whisper.
“It was one torture and one clean kill,” she corrects. “If Slade tortured someone, they deserved it. He’s usually a quick kill kind of guy. Don’t worry. As long as you don’t piss him off, he won’t kill you.”
Gee, that’s encouraging.
“Zee thought I knew Slade. They insisted I was working with all of you. He said Slade had to have known I was there.”