Page 79 of Into The Green

"Did they see you?" I asked, charging toward the window and peeking out of the the tiny spots I kept clean to look through.

"Did who see me, Cece?"

"The redcaps," I said, small-eying him.

"The redcaps are here?" he asked, looking confused, pulling the door closed and moving inside.

"Mostly at night, but sometimes during the day for reasons unknown."

"They followed you from the work camps all the way here?"

"Why the hell else would I be living in an old iron train car with no plumbing or electric or... anything?" I asked, sitting down on the bed I had made by flattening out several seats of the car. "You're not dead," I said, my voice a little hollow.

"No, I'm not. You're not dead either," he said and I heard his footsteps moving toward me. His hands landed on my knees as he squatted down in front of me.

"Jasper, where have you been?" I asked and I could hear the tears in my voice. I knew they were in my eyes too.

"Looking for you. This whole time, honey, I've been looking for you."

I swallowed hard, believing him, wondering what took him so long to find my jasper breadcrumb trail. "Doyle? Jade? Onyx?"

"Doyle is with Jade and our mom at Baba Yaga's. Jade is..."

"Yeah," I said, nodding, not needing it repeated.

"She's getting better day to day though." He paused, squeezing my knees. "Honey, tell me about the redcaps."

"I don't know honestly," I admitted. "They were at the work camps. They chased me so I used the light Baba Yaga gave me to get to the human realm. I ended up in nowhereville Pennsylvania and some nice people fixed me up and..."

"Fixed you up? What happened?" he asked, voice strained.

"Nothing. I had some cuts on my arms from the trees. Just some stitches and they braced my ankle, gave me clothes and food and a train ticket back home. You know," I said, looking up into his eyes that had been haunting me, eyes I was sure I'd never see again, "you might have mentioned that time moved differently. I about had a heart attack when I saw months had passed. My piece of shit super gave all my old stuff to Corbin so I had to go there and get it back. And then, well, I went to Jade's new age shop and..."

"Bought everything in the fucking store?" he asked, lips twitching as he looked around, taking in my piles of books, my talismans, my gemstones.

"Just about. This has been a sucky couple of months, but at least I learned some useful stuff."

"Back to the redcaps... what are they doing when you see them?"

"Sometimes, actually... most of the time, they seem to just be watching me. At night, though, they close in more and start that freaking chanting."

"Chanting? What do they say?"

"It's mostly gibberish to me. The same as the nightmares."

"They haven't tried to touch you, grab you, nothing?"

"I've kind of..." I trailed off, a little embarrassed to admit that I had hid away like a coward.

"Cece, they're redcaps. They're Dark and fucked up fae. No one would think you're chickenshit for hiding away in your little iron fortress. You are new to all this and were completely alone. You did what any sane person would do."

"What do you think they want with me?"

"It's the powers most likely. Whoever they are working for knew about them when you were a baby and I'm sure it's gotten back to them how much stronger they are now, how they've evolved."

"But why would they care?"

"You saw what my parents did to the draca. Some fae collect other fae with useful powers. And yours, especially for a Dark fae with a lot of enemies, you could be very useful."