Carrie Jones - Entice

The ache in my heart weighs too much, so I take a shower, let the warmth fall down on me. Then I shove on some shorts and a T-shirt and wrap a bathrobe around me. I don’t put socks on because the heated floors feel nice. It’s the only thing good I can feel.

There’s a smell coming from the bedroom area. A rustle of trouser leg moving against trouser leg.

I stop.

Someone unknown waits. More than one someone, it smells like. I start humming like I’m just combing out my hair, but my toes flatten on the floor as I look around the foggy bathroom area for a weapon. A hairbrush? Oh, man. The knife is still in my backpack, which is flopped on the floor by the bed. For some extra protection, I swallow one of the anti-iron pills from a bottle on the sink and then grab the towel holder that’s been drilled into the wall. I tug. It doesn’t move. Both hands grip it. With all my strength, I yank it out. The bolts clatter to the floor.

It’s enough to alert the intruders.

Three large men in crisp European-fancy suits rush around the corner. They stop and stare at me. One of them is Vander. I take a second to scream, “Astley!”

Then they charge. I brandish the towel bar like it’s a sword and I scream like a banshee, hoping it’ll be enough to push the pause button on their attack. They just keep coming. Only two can move in front, though, because there isn’t enough space between the walls. I attack the one on the left, hitting at him with the bar. The skin on his face sizzles as the iron makes contact, and he growls, losing his glamour and revealing his blue pixie self.

He swears at me and I swing again, popping him in the chest, but the other one tackles me. The bar sizzles between us. He screams but doesn’t let go as Vander gets into the action and yanks me backward by the hair. His thick arms lift me up and against him. One arm holds me at the waist. Another holds something sharp at my throat. A knife? It must be. The other two haul themselves off the floor as Astley flashes into the room. His face is twisted with anger. He has a dagger in his hands.

“Let her go, Vander,” he orders. “I am king of the birch and stars. You are my subject and I command you to release my queen.”

Vander barks. I think it’s a laugh, but I don’t know. The sharp blade on my throat presses so tightly against my skin that it’s actually cut me. The pain isn’t so horrible, but I can smell the blood, and the sight of it seems to be making Astley twitch.

“You can’t order us around, King. We belong to another,” Vander says.

The wound on the other one’s face is still sizzling. That will scar. He says, “Put down your weapon or Vander kills her right now.”

“He will kill her either way,” Astley says, as calm as anything.

I gasp. That is not a cool thing to say. My heart lurches. I trusted him. He said he needed me, and now what? He can just throw me away? I clutch at the fabric of my robe, willing the lump in my heart to vanish, but it doesn’t. Then Astley’s eyes meet my eyes and he looks a bit to the right. It’s just the slightest of looks, but I catch it. He wants me to jump out the monstrous window. We’re five stories up. I can’t fly. But he can. Will he catch me? For a second I wonder if this is all some weird setup to kill me too. Kill my dad, kill me, get rid of the bloodline. But that’s so elaborate and this is Astley. I trust Astley, I tell myself. I do.

“I’m going to throw up,” I whisper amid the standoff.

“What?” Vander growls the word.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” I say again. I force myself to hitch at the stomach. I can’t really throw up, but I can pretend I will. Betty once told me during her weekly “how to survive predators” talks that pretending to throw up can sometimes stop muggings, even rape. Let’s see if it can stop pixies and murder. A choking dry heave sound erupts from my throat. It’s enough to make Vander give me a little slack. The knife is not so sharp against my throat.

“What should I-?” he starts to say.

But he doesn’t finish, because I’ve elbowed him in the gut and launched myself sideways into the window. My shoulder smashes through it. Pain prisms out and down my arm, up my neck. My body follows my shoulder through the broken glass and into the cold air. No words escape my lips as I fall through the snowflakes, rushing toward the ground.

I should close my eyes.

I don’t.

My body tilts sideways. The bathrobe unties from the movement. The fabric billows above me. I lift out my arms, wonder if I look like a falling angel. The rumbling of the cars below gets louder. I’ll land on one or on the hard pavement. My body will flatten and break. Hopefully, it will be quick. Hopefully.

I close my eyes.

Hands clutch at my robe, hauling me off my straight-down course. Astley. I try to grab at him. He smashes me to his chest, cursing quietly, as my fall down becomes a movement sideways and then up.

“Astley!” I sob.

“We are always saving each other,” he whispers into my hair. “Hold on.”

And we take off into the night sky.

I’m completely frozen by the time we get to the airport. We land in a horrible thud behind a big truck. Astley apologizes, rubs at my arms, and helps me retie my robe around my waist. I’m shuddering so horribly that I can’t do it myself. He rushes inside to the duty-free shops to get me better clothes and a coat and shoes.

“I shall be as quick as I possibly can,” he assures me. “Huddle down by the tire. Make your body a ball. It will help.”

Our cell phones, our suitcases, our bags are still at the hotel and our flight doesn’t leave until morning, but we’ve decided the airport is the safest possible place. It’s full of people. It’s warm.

“What about our passports?” I ask.

“I have them on me. I have kept them on me the entire trip. I am paranoid about passports.”

“Good thing.”

His eyes are so sad. “Yes. Good thing.”

He leaves and a plane rumbles above me as I wait. I push my back against the tire, not wanting anything to sneak up on me. I’m so tired, but it isn’t until we’re inside and I’m dressed and my shoulder is bandaged that I fall asleep, in one of the airport chairs. Astley’s arm is wrapped around my shoulder for warmth or reassurance or something, and I don’t move it away. I don’t know why. I just can’t. I need it there.

T ensions rise in the small Maine town of Bedford as another of its young people goes missing. This time it’s a girl. She was reportedly last seen walking out of the YMCA and entering the woods. -CNNS N EWS

The entire plane ride back I have a hard time talking or even thinking. The plane blows reconditioned air into my face, stale and ugly, the same thing over and over again, and it reminds me of my life. I try to help: people get killed. I try to be a hero: people die. Astley puts his arm around my shoulders again, and I don’t object, because I know that he knows how it is too, what it’s like to see people die for you, to have that burden. I reach up and try to shut off the air, but the fan is broken. It just keeps rushing out. Eventually, we both give in to exhaustion and keep still, our heads leaning against each other as we rush through the air.

When I finally get home, Betty takes me into her arms and whispers, “I knew no good would come of this.”

“He died, Gram,” I murmur into her shoulder. She smells of wood smoke and fur and spaghetti sauce.

“I didn’t think he had it in him,” she admits crossly.

That hits me wrong and she knows it, because she hugs me tighter.

“At least your mom can finally rest easy.” She pets my back a couple times like she’s a football coach or something, awkward and aggressive, and then tells me to go take a shower; she’s going to make some cinnamon toast. But when I go upstairs, I fall into bed and sleep kidnaps me before I can even take off my shoes.