The Changelings (War of the Fae: Book 1) (18 page)

Spike brought his shirt up and over his head to reveal a very heavily tattooed torso.
 
The multi-colored tapestry ended at his wrists and neck, exactly where his shirt would be when it was on.
 

We saw plenty of ink, but no injury.
 
No scar.
 
No marks.
 
So unless Spike was able to spontaneously heal himself of an arrow wound to the heart in five minutes, leaving no trace and perfectly formed tattoos behind, well, he wasn't our man ... or our vampire ... or whatever that thing was.

I waggled my stick at him.
 
"Go ahead, put it down.
 
We've seen enough."
 
More than enough actually.
 
Yummers.

Spike put his shirt back on, pulling his sleeves down to cover his tattoos.
 
"Well, that was fun.
 
Now it's your turn, Jayne."
 
He smiled at me, nearly downing me with his combination magic smile and now, as I'd just discovered, gorgeously tattooed self.
 
He was like my hottest bad boy fantasy fused with the niceness of Tony.
 

Why, oh why, was I meeting him right before I was going to die?
 
Where is the justice in life?

"Where's Jared?" asked Chase.
 

I turned, walking back to join the others, catching Becky's eye.
 
She was fanning herself, and not because it was hot in the forest.
 
She gave me a look and I knew exactly what she was thinking.
 
Holy hotness.
 
Spike was something else.
 
He could suck on my neck any day of the week and twice on Sundays – so long as he didn't drain the life out of me, of course.

I closed my eyes for a second and gave myself a mental shake.
 
I had to get my head back in the game.
 
There was no use fantasizing about Spike while sitting on death's doorstep.
 
There would hopefully be plenty of time for that later.

Spike walked over to us, answering Chase's question while tucking his slingshot into his back pocket.
 
"I have no idea where Jared went.
 
One minute the three of us were walking down the path, the next minute that ... thing ... was on me.
 
I got one good punch in before he knocked me on my ass.
 
I was about to get jumped on again when Chase shot him in the back – by the way, thanks for that, Chase – and then I got the hell outta there.
 
I figured Chase had done the same thing.
 
I just ran until I couldn't hear anything anymore.
 
I waited a bit, got a little lost, and then found my way back."

"Did you see which direction Jared went?"

"Nope; I don't even remember seeing him when that guy was around."

"Uh-
huh
... he wasn't even around, eh?
 
Interesting ... ," I said knowingly, looking at Tony and then Finn.
 
They both shook their heads at me.

Spike noticed.
 
"What?
 
What'd I miss?"

Finn sighed.
 
"Jayne and Chase think Jared may be in on this thing with Dardennes and them."

Spike considered it a second.
 
"Nah.
 
Not Jared ... he's a good guy."

I just raised my eyebrows.
 
I'd already said my piece on this.
 
We'd find out soon enough which side Jared was on.
 
He could run, but eventually, we'd catch up.

"Well, I vote we stay here and wait until morning.
 
I can't see a damn thing out here.
 
With my luck, we'll just get farther and farther away from the waypoint," said Becky, sinking down to sit on the forest floor.

I looked around.
 
It didn't seem all that dark to me, but everyone else agreed with Becky.
 
I didn't argue because I'd had enough excitement for one night and this seemed as good a place as any to spend the night – except for the fact that it was the very spot where Chase had been attacked.
 
I decided that if he didn't have a problem with it, I shouldn't either.
 
"You cool with this, Chase?"

He shrugged, which I guess meant he was okay with it.

We all gathered around the flattest spot we could find.
 
Even though the night wasn't extremely cold, we huddled close together.
 

"Should we build a fire?" asked Becky.

"I dunno if we should or not," said Finn, looking to the rest of us for our votes.

I yawned.
 
"I'm tired enough to just fall asleep right now, fire or not."
 
I had fished out one of my meal packets and was getting ready to tear it open.

"You might wanna conserve as much of that as you can," said Finn.

I thought about it, looking over at Tony for his input.
 

Tony nodded.

I dumped out the bag's contents – something in foil, something else in foil, and something else in foil.
 
Stupid.
 
Who packs rations without labels on them?
 
I opened up one of the small ones and some crackers fell out.
 
I picked them up and ate them slowly, savoring the familiar taste.
 
They reminded me of Townhouse crackers, which I usually ate with thin slices of mild cheddar cheese.
 
I sighed, wishing I had some cheddar cheese.
 
I'd bet my mom had some in our fridge ... at home.

The thought of her and our house made me sad.
 
I wondered what she was doing right now, while I was traipsing around in a nightmare forest a million miles away.
 
I wondered if she was worried about me.
 
She probably wasn't as concerned about me as she should be, which was a small comfort.
 
I'm not sure why.
 
I guess I was just glad she wasn't thinking about me being mauled by vampires and shit like that.
 
I had never texted her to tell her I had left.
 
Things were definitely complicated between us right now, but I still felt bad about not telling her where I was going.

Tony nudged me with his foot.
 
"Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"Nothin'," I said.
 
I didn't want to talk about my problems in front of everyone.
 

Tony let it go.
 
He just put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed.
 

I was so glad he was here with me.
 
Then again, a part of me wished he were really, really far away – far away from this seriously next-level screwed up shit.

"I'll take the first watch," said Chase, sitting with his back to us, looking out into the center of the clearing.
 

"How're we gonna work this?" asked Finn, kneeling and sitting back on his heels, his bow leaning up against his thighs.

"I'll do two hours, then we switch; each of us does two hours 'til the sun comes up.
 
If you hear or see anything questionable, wake everybody up."

"Anybody know what time it is?" asked Spike.

"Prob'ly about eight or nine, I'd guess," said Finn.

"Someone's gonna get lucky and miss out on guard duty," said Spike, winking at Becky and me.

"I don't expect to miss out on guard duty, guys," I said.
 

"Me neither," said Becky.

"Don't worry, girls, you'll get your chance," assured Finn.
 
"You can go first tomorrow night."

"Maybe we can finish the whole thing tomorrow," said Becky.

"That's not very likely," came a voice from the trees behind us – Jared's voice.

I grabbed my stick and stood up.
 
I saw Chase reach behind his back and slowly pull his gun out of the waistband of his pants, keeping it hidden down by his side.
 
None of the other sitting ducks did anything.

"Hey, Jared, where've you been?" asked Becky, jumping up to run and give him a hug.
 
He didn't stab her with his spear, so I guess that was a good sign.
 
He also didn't bite her neck – another point in his favor; but he'd be stupid to do that while everyone was watching, so I still wasn't convinced.

I walked over with the point of my stick facing out.
 
"Lift up your shirt, Jared."
 
I wanted to see if he had a little boo-boo over his heart.

He just looked at me, no expression on his face.
 
He moved to the side, as if to step around me and get closer to the group.
 
Becky was hanging onto his arm, giving me a worried look.
 

"Don't go any farther, or you and me are gonna have a problem," I said, menacingly.
 
Everything he was doing right now was only making me feel more secure in my suspicions.
 
The time for playing nice was over.

"What?
 
Are you gonna stab me with your stick?"
 
He smiled at me, as if trying to disarm me with his niceness, but I wasn't having any of it.

"Lift up the shirt, or feel the pain of my stick in your stupid guts, Jared – it's that simple."

Tony's voice came out two octaves higher than normal, "Jayne, stop!
 
It's Jared!"

Chase showed up at my side.
 
"Do what she says, Jared."

I glanced sideways at Chase and then looked quickly back at Jared.
 
I was grateful for the support, but I didn't want to take my eyes off Jared for even a second.
 
I saw how fast that vampire thing had moved.
 
Actually, technically speaking, I had
not
seen how fast it had moved because it moved too fast to
be
seen.
 

Without lowering my weapon or dropping my watch I said, "Thanks for speaking up, Chase.
 
I thought I was going to have to do this on my own."

Spike strolled up and stood at my other elbow.
 
"Well, what the hell.
 
I had to do the striptease, Jared.
 
It's only fair if you have to do it too."
 
He didn't cock his slingshot, but it's not like it would have been very scary if he had anyway.
 

"Striptease?
 
Are you guys drinking out here or something?"
 
Jared laughed, looking from person to person while giving all of us his most charming, innocent smile.
   

Mr. Innocent, my ass.

Chase pulled his gun out of hiding.
 
"Just do it, Jared, then we can move on to other things."

"Let me get this straight.
 
You want me ... to pull up my
shirt?"

I nodded silently.

Jared sighed.
 
"Whatever ... "
 
He let his spear drop to the ground next to him, and reached down to pick up the bottom of his shirt.
 
"This is ridiculous, you know."
 

We all watched as more and more of his torso was revealed.
 

I don't think I've ever seen anyone that white before.
 
He was glowing like the moonlight out here.
 
"Holy shit, man, does anyone have any sunglasses?" I asked.
 
I could already see that his chest was a smooth as a baby's butt – no stab wounds anywhere.

Jared's face was still under the lifted shirt.
 
"Can I get dressed now?"

Chase put his gun back in his waistband, walking away.

"Yes, please," said Spike. "I'm getting snow blind from looking at you."

Everyone giggled.
 
Then we all started laughing.
 
Hard.
 
Apparently, trying to stay quiet when you laugh, while also worrying about being killed by a vampire, is impossible.
 
Pretty soon we were all grabbing our stomachs and moaning.
 

"Stop ... stop laughing ... my stomach ... ," said Becky.

Even Chase was smiling.
 
His eyes were looking bluer too.
 

"Chase, your eye color is coming back," I said.

Tony squinted in the darkness, trying to see Chase's eyes.
 

Finn tried to do the same.
 
"How can you see that from here?" he asked.

I shrugged.
 
"It's as plain as day.
 
The moon is lighting him up like a candle."
 

Tony looked around and up into the sky.
 
"No, it's not.
 
It's pitch black out here ... now that Jared's pulled his shirt back down."

"Oh-ho!
 
Zingah!!"
 
I shouted, laughing my ass off all over again before collapsing in near exhaustion.

Eventually we all quieted down, once the adrenaline had left our systems.
 
I knew now that Jared wasn't the vampire.
 
I still wasn't totally convinced he wasn't somehow in on it, though.
 
His lame excuse for where he'd been mirrored Spike's, but it was less believable since he had been gone for so damn long
and
neither Spike nor Chase remembered seeing him there in the clearing during the attack.
 
Still, it was a good feeling to have everyone together again, to see Chase's eyes returning back to their usual blue, and to have some kind of a plan.
 

We decided we were going to sleep under the trees at the edge of the clearing tonight and get up bright and early to kick this test's ass tomorrow.
 
Then we were going home.