Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 2)

As much as Mina wanted to laugh at the display of a frightened Ogre, she couldn’t forget his game and how he had tried to scare her on the bus. She decided that he could worry a little more. She moved down the river away from him and began to peel off her outer jacket, as it was making her cold.

Nevertheless, her movement caught the Ogre’s eye. He growled angrily, and started stomping through the water toward the embankment. He was easily over nine feet tall and looked strong enough to bench press a truck. But something about his current demeanor made him seem more childlike, instead of deadly.

He was pouting. By the time he was within a few paces of her, the giant Ogre had disappeared to be replaced by a wet and tired Jared. He flung himself next to her on the ground.

“You could have shouted to me that you were okay, instead of sitting here all safe and sound, making me look like a fool.”

“You are a fool,” Mina replied as she tried to untie the wet shoelaces so she could get out of the wet socks.

“Point taken, but I thought you were dead.”

“And I thought you were dead, so I think we’re even.” Mina’s fingers were numb and like ice, she started to shake from the cold. She got one shoe off but was struggling with the second.

“Here, let me.” Jared reached for her shoes to help her.

“Don’t touch me!” she screeched, and hit him with her destroyed sneaker. Her teeth were chattering now, and Jared moved closer to her.

“I won’t.” He froze inches from her, his hands up in the air, as if he was waiting to be arrested.

“What happened to the bus driver?” Mina sniffed, using her sleeve to wipe pathetically at her nose.

“Uh, I tricked him into getting off, a few stops ago, and I took his place.” Jared slowly sat down on the ground across from her and folded his hands in his lap.

“And you can just do that? Change into his form and take his place?”

Jared looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I can, it’s that easy.”

“How did you find me? I mean, how did you know I was on the bus to begin with, and how did you…?” she trailed off, losing the ability to form coherent thoughts.

“You really think it was that hard to figure out you would ditch me as soon as we stopped? I saw it in your face. You’re like an open book, and terrible at lying. As soon as I heard the car door close, I went out the back door of the shop and watched you get on the bus. It wasn’t difficult to follow and take the place of the driver, with a little bit of Fae magic.”

“Then why the show? Why the whole over-aggressive Ogre thing?” Mina argued.

“I didn’t think you would believe me if I told you that I’m not a bad guy. I mean look at me. I wanted to prove to you that I was the good guy. At first, I was going to scare you as the Ogre, and then run in to rescue you at the last minute as me. I was trying to prove a point that not all Fae are bad.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and didn’t make eye contact. “I wasn’t planning on letting you see me change, but things got out of hand pretty fast, and I had no choice if I was going to try and save you.”

“So you were going to try and scare me off as an Ogre and then rescue me… from yourself?”

Jared looked down at his feet; he was still dripping wet and hadn’t even attempted to try to dry himself off.

“Pretty much. I wanted you to trust me.”

“By lying to me and deceiving me further?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yeah, that was stupid. What can I say, I’m a guy and we don’t always think things through.”

Mina rolled her eyes. “You can say that again, but this doesn’t let you off the hook. All you’ve proved to me is that you’re a prankster and a liar, and I still can’t trust you.”

“So I will have to prove it in a different way.” Jared smiled crookedly.

“No more half brain plans.”

“Hey, my plans aren’t always half brain!”

Mina just looked at him squarely, and he chuckled. He picked up something off of the embankment and handed it to her. It was the Grimoire.