Refuge

Chapter 2-3

“You don’t know trolls, Roland. They have very different ways, and the elders are really strict. If they told Remy to stay away from me forever, he would obey them.”

He sighed again. “Sara, I might not know troll ways, but I saw you with Remy. Meeting him is not something I’ll ever forget. No matter what happened back then or what orders he got from his elders, that troll will never stop being your friend.”

Roland was usually playful and goofy, and sometimes I forgot how insightful he could be. “I think I just needed to hear it from him. Thanks for doing this for me. You’re the best.”

“I know. I get that a lot.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Good to know some things will never change.”

He laughed with me. “What can I say? Women love me.”

“You’re hopeless, you know that? One of these days, you’re going to meet someone who doesn’t fall all over you, and I hope I get to meet her.”

“I have met her, and she broke my heart back in elementary school.”

“Oh, don’t start that again.” I closed my eyes, still embarrassed by his and Peter’s recent confessions that they both had crushes on me when we were kids.

“I bet your face is red right now,” he teased.

“Stop it or I won’t tell you about what happened today.”

“More exciting than my day?”

I told him all about the hellhounds, the menagerie, and the wyvern. He whistled and told me I had to send him some pictures. “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do that, but I’ll ask. Maybe you can come visit me and see them yourself.”

“Yeah, a werewolf visiting a Mohiri stronghold, that should go over well.”

“You never know. Stranger things have happened.” I picked at the label on a bottle of Coke on my desk. “So, any special plans for the big birthday next week?” I felt a pang of sadness at the thought of not being there for his eighteenth birthday. It is a huge milestone for a werewolf because they are considered an adult at eighteen, and they are included in hunts and start doing patrols with the other adult wolves. It was bittersweet for both of us. We were excited for his coming of age, but sad that we wouldn’t be able to celebrate his birthday together. My own birthday was a little over a month away, and it was hard to imagine him and Peter not being here for it.

“No big plans. I think I have to work the next day anyway.”

“You have a job? Who are you, and what have you done with Roland?”

He groaned. “And what’s worse is I’ll be working for Uncle Max at the lumber yard. Every weekend.”

“Didn’t you always say you’d rather work at a fast food joint than for Maxwell?”

“I have no choice. I gotta make some cash if I’m ever going to get some new wheels, and the lumber yard pays good money.”

Guilt settled over me. Roland’s pickup had been ripped up by a pack of crocotta trying to get to me. He loved that old truck.

“I know why you’re quiet all of a sudden, and you better stop it,” he ordered. “That was not your fault. Besides, one of the guys in the pack might sell me an old Mustang he has in his shed. It needs some work, but my cousin, Paul, said he’d help me fix it up. You remember him; he’s the mechanic. I just need to get enough for a down p*****t and it’s mine.”

I smiled at the excitement in his voice. “I wish I was there to see it. You never did finish teaching me how to drive.”

“Forget it! I saw what happened to the last car you drove.”

“Hey, that was so not my fault, and I got away from the bad guys, didn’t I?”

“They must have lots of cars there you can practice on, and they can afford to replace them.” He made a sound like a snort. “I bet Nikolas could teach you, if you don’t kill each other first.”

My hand jerked, almost knocking over the bottle of Coke. I pushed it out of my reach and glared at it. “I haven’t seen him since he dumped me here and took off.”

Roland was quiet for a moment. “I’m sure he has lots of work to catch up on and he’ll be back soon.”

“He can stay away for good for all I care.”

“Come on, you don’t mean that. Nikolas is not such a bad guy, and coming from me, that’s something.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” My face heated up, and my palms prickled as resentment flared in me at hearing my best friend defend him. I knew I was overreacting, but I couldn’t stop the angry hurt that came every time I thought about Nikolas leaving the same day we got here. After everything we went through, he couldn’t even be bothered to say good-bye.

A soft hissing pulled me from my silent rant. I looked at the Coke bottle a few inches from my hand, and gasped at the brown soda bubbling up as if it had been shaken. My hand closest to the bottle was crawling with blue static, and sparks leapt from my fingers to the bottle that looked ready to explode.

I jerked my hand back and tucked it under my other arm, and almost immediately, the soda began to settle down. What was happening to me? Whatever it was, it was getting worse.

“Hello? You still there?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I tried to keep the tremble from my voice. “I got distracted for a minute. I need to tell you something.”

“Okaaay,” he said warily. “You haven’t been selling troll parts on the black market have you?”

“Roland!”

“Sorry.”

I sucked in a long, slow breath. “You know how my friend Aine said my Fae powers might start to grow? I think it’s happening – or something is going on anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s like my power is on the fritz or something.” I described the little flare-ups I’d been having, including the strange cold spot in my chest. “I almost made a bottle of Coke explode a few minutes ago, just by touching it.”

“Hmm.” He was quiet for a minute. “Maybe it’s tied to your emotions.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t been very happy since you went there, and you got mad when I mentioned Nikolas. Faeries are supposed to be, like, happy all the time, right? Maybe being negative screws with your Faerie magic.”

I snorted. “Great explanation.”

“No seriously. Or it could be hormones. It’s not that time – ?”

“Stop! Do not go there if you know what’s good for you!” My face really was flaming now.

Smothered laughter reached my ears, and I called him a few not-so-nice things, which only made him laugh openly. The thing about Roland is that it’s really hard to resist his laughter.

“Feel better?” he asked when we’d both finally stopped cracking up.

“Yes.” I wiped my eyes. “You’re an ass.”

“But you love me anyway.” His voice grew more serious. “I’m sure this thing with your power is nothing. You’ve been through a lot lately, and it’s probably messing with you.”

“Maybe you’re right.” What he said made sense. This had only started up since I came here. I wasn’t miserable, but I wasn’t happy either.

“Of course I’m right. I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

“No, you have that huge ego, too.” I felt lighter than I had in days.

“Well, my job here is done.” He heaved a weighty sigh. “Now I have to study. We have a chem test tomorrow, and I still have to graduate from high school.”

Chemistry was Roland’s worst subject. It used to be mine, too, and we used to help each other cram for tests. Chemistry was one thing I did not miss. “Good luck on the test, and thanks again for going to the cave for me.”

“Anytime. No, scratch that. Please don’t ask me to do that again,” he pleaded. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

I hung up and rubbed my damp hands against my thighs. The static was gone and the Coke was back to normal, but that didn’t lessen my anxiety. My power was acting weird, and I had no idea what to do about it. I wished Aine was here, or Remy. He was so knowledgeable and would have helped me figure this out. I let out a ragged breath. I missed him so much.

“Enough of that.” I pushed away from the desk and glanced at the clock. It was a little early for dinner, but I had to get out of this room and stop wallowing in self-pity. I grabbed my laptop, tucked it under my arm, and headed down to one of the common rooms. There were three such rooms where people could hang out and watch TV or talk. They had wet bars if you wanted a drink, and no one seemed to care how old you were. Roland and Peter had been so envious when I told them that part.

TV sounds drew me to one of the rooms, and when I peeked in I found a single occupant, a blond boy named Michael, who I’d met on my second day here. Michael was fifteen, and he was quiet and reserved compared to the other kids here. He was a bit of a computer geek, too, and he spent most of his free time on his laptop, gaming and talking to his friends online. On my third day here, I was struck down by a vicious migraine, and it was Michael who had come to my room to see how I was doing and to ask if I needed anything. The healers said my headache was probably brought on by stress, but it was so bad that even the gunna paste had no effect on it. I lay in bed suffering for the better part of a day before I remembered the tiny vial of troll bile I’d brought with me. I’d planned to destroy it, but thankfully I never got around to it. A single drop of bile in a glass of water was all it took to rid me of the horrible pain.

Michael was sitting in an armchair, engrossed in his laptop as usual, when I took a seat on the couch. “Hey, Michael.”

“Oh . . . hi, Sara,” he stammered, smiling shyly. Poor guy, I didn’t know how he would ever make it as a warrior if he didn’t get over his nervousness. I almost rolled my eyes. Like I had room to judge others. I was probably the worst trainee in Mohiri history.

“What are you up to?”

“Not much, just talking to a friend.” He leaned on the arm of his chair and his face lit up. “Did you hear that they wiped out a huge nest in Las Vegas yesterday?”

“How big was it?” The last time I saw a vampire, he had twelve of his friends with him. I couldn’t imagine facing more than that.

“I heard it was thirty suckers, and it only took two units to take them all down. Of course, that’s because Nikolas Danshov ran the mission. He probably took out half of them himself.”

My mouth went dry. “Nikolas was there?”

His eyes practically glowed from excitement. “Yeah. What I wouldn’t give to see him in action. They say he can take out half a dozen suckers at one time without breaking a sweat.”

“Yep,” I replied absently, remembering Nikolas facing down a dozen vampires and easily disposing of three of them.

“What’s he like? You know him right? Everyone says you even fought suckers together.”

I held back a sigh. It had taken less than a day here to learn Nikolas was something of a superhero among the younger Mohiri. “Nikolas is an amazing warrior.”