It’s almost like foreshadowing that we’re in over our heads and this will all end terribly.
Forty-five minutes later we’re all sitting at the table, tearing into food as soon as we can get our hands on it. We used to give Cambria a hard time about it when we met her, but I understand now. After you’ve experienced being on the verge of starvation, not knowing where your next meal will come from or how long it’ll be until it appears, it changes something in you. You take what you’re given before it can be snatched away, praying it’ll be enough to last you until you get to eat again. You grow accustomed to those hunger pains like an ominous, familiar presence constantly looming over your shoulder.
Lucien pulls a bottle of rum from a bag on the counter and brings it back to the table. Cambria and I exchange a loaded glance, but it doesn’t stop her from reaching for it, not waiting for him to come back with glasses.
“We celebrating or commiserating?” she asks, taking a long pull straight from the bottle.
“Bit of both,” Luce admits, taking the bottle from her lips and pouring glasses of it straight for all of us. “The cabin is Belinda’s son’s, and she agreed to let us use it as long as we need and field things so that he doesn’t make a trip out here any time soon.”
“So we can stay a day or two because it’s still safer than the prison until we figure out how to get that barrier up,” Atlas continues, slamming back his shot and holding his empty glass out for another. “Jer’s been digging, and to make up for the accidental drugging incident, he found out about that bullshit witness protection excuse that you and Luce concocted to get your fake paperwork and decided to help us out by feeding into it to explain all of our sudden disappearances. He spun things so that it made Victor look like he was caught up in it and targeting you. So there are people looking into what remains of Victor’s assets and employees.”
Lucien finishes off his drink just as swiftly. “Everyone assumes the four of us had to bail in the middle of the night as witness protection forced us to move to a secure location because of Cambria. So Belinda’s been keeping things running, thrilled to confirm the gossip.” He takes another drink, taking the heated edge off as he became too animated. “So I gave her a massive raise and instilled her to officially run things in my absence to make things easier.”
Atlas sighs. “Isn’t all he dug up either.” Shooting a nervous glance at Lucien, he explains, “He tracked down the guy Graham went through to get the paperwork set up for him and Lucien.”
I lean forward in my seat as Lucien slams back his drink and takes over the conversation. “Maddox's mom was going through him so she could run from Victor’s dad, but needed somewhere to hide the baby in the meantime. So he gave her our address as a temporary place to hide him since my father still owed him a favor.” He exhales a long, slow breath. “But she was killed before the man could finish working out her escape plan, and my father volunteered to keep the baby. So the guy just handled Maddox’s paperwork on the house and called them even.”
There’s a heavy silence as we all process the story. Honestly, I was half expecting to find out at some point that Maddox was also a fae and never Victor’s brother at all and the whole thing was a convoluted misunderstanding stemming from interdimensional refugees.
Eventually, Atlas rocks back in his chair. “So as much as I don’t want to think about it, I know ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. Are we seriously going to try and round up the feral beasts and save the people that want our heads on spikes?”
“I don’t think of it as saving the fae so much as saving the changelings from their retaliation. Achlys said that they found out if they killed them that the land reacted, which means that they slaughtered Lord knows how many of them before coming to the imprisonment decision. And right now, when tensions are already high, and being able to prove that locking them up isn’t an actual long term solution-” I glance at the fish tank, at how deceptively harmless they appear. “They might very well kill them all and just worry about the fallout later, when it’s too late to do anything about it.”
Cambria sighs. “If we can erect a new barrier around the prison to keep the fae out, it won’t matter if everyone still wants to kill us. We can grab as many changelings as we can and hole up there until the rest of the world forgets about us again or they kill each other off. But it might be the closest solution to ‘opting out’ of this whole bullshit as we can get.”
Lucien tips his head from side to side slowly as he weighs things in his mind, considering. “We can set up a ring inside of a new house here, like a basement portal, and just move directly from the prison to a secure location here so that we can keep a steady stream of supplies coming in. It won’t matter if Elorie and everyone want to kill us if we’re on a closed loop system that they can’t get into.”
Tentatively, I voice, “But she’s seen the inside of the prison. So logically, she could use any ring to get into the one we created.”
Cambria rubs her temples and groans. “But we managed to create one that wasn’t there before inside the prison so we could portal in.” She thumps her forehead on the table. “There are too many things we don’t know, and the people that have the answers can only parrot words back at us.”
Giving up, she takes her plate to the sink and I grab the others’ since they went through the effort of actually shopping and cooking. But I’m not worried about tackling the dishes right now; that’stomorrowDorian’s problem.
“It’s not like the fae bothered to get any of your names,” Cambria points out, switching gears. “So as long as we’re careful and keep our heads down, don’t use any of the rings that they know about and create a new one for us to use, they can’t track us down easily.”
My head feels like it’s going to explode from information overload, and I find myself not faring much better than Atlas was earlier. “So if things are good for a couple of days, can we just take a breather? We have a game plan and no one should be able to find us here. Let’s just take a day to decompress before we all burn out before tackling the next thing on our endless list.”
As if he were just waiting for someone else to agree, Atlas heads over to rummage through a bag before withdrawing a deck of cards. “Not a hell of a lot to do out in the woods besides being murdered, so I made sure to grab a couple of things to keep us busy. Figured if they didn’t come in handy here, we’d be grateful to have them at the prison until we get a chance to smuggle over a TV and a DVD player. I didn’t see a fridge there either.”
Lucien pours another round of drinks. “There was a kitchen in one of the tunnels that had some stuff. Obviously outdated and we didn’t want to risk opening the door to see what hell two decades of not cleaning out the fridge resulted in, but something to start with.” We settle in around the table, Atlas shuffling and dealing cards without hesitation.
“What are we playing?”
He grins. “Poker.”
I don’t need to see Cambria’s face to know that her eyes will have lit up with the challenge. “Kicking your ass last time wasn’t enough to scare you off?”
With a wink, he takes a look at his hand. “Bold of you to assume I wasn’t just letting you get me out of my clothes. How else was I supposed to let you know that I liked you?”
The next hour is spent laughing and drinking, and by the time she’s stifling her third yawn, Atlas and I are down to our boxers and Lucien a step above us, still in jeans. “I think I’m going to call it for the night,” Cambria declares, fully dressed and sliding her chair back.
“You’re cheating somehow,” Atlas accuses, resting his arms on the table and leaning forward. “There’s just no other explanation. The cards don’t favor one person that often, it’s just unrealistic. Spill.”
Her eyes twinkle with mirth, but she keeps her poker face on, appearing unfazed. “Nobody likes a sore loser, Atlas. You just need a little more practice; nothing to be ashamed about.”
He narrows his eyes, but drops it for now. I get to my feet and stretch my stiff muscles before following her. I make it halfway towards the bedroom before realizing that only Lucien is following us.
“You coming to bed?”
