The Shattered Dark (27 page)

Naito struggles, trying to get at Lee. He hasn’t been this animated since Kelia died,
and it’s as if he’s unleashing all his bottled-up rage and pain at once until, all
of a sudden, he stops.

Cautiously, Aren loosens his hold. “Are you done?”

“How did you get here?” Naito demands, his chest rising and falling as if it can barely
contain his fury.

“Nice to see you again, too, brother,” Lee says, running a hand over his jaw and working
it back and forth.

Naito’s nostrils flare. I swear he’s about to launch himself at Lee again, but then,
his forehead creases. He looks from Lee to Paige, then back to Lee again.

“Son of a bitch,” he says. “He did it.”

Lee’s face hardens. He sticks his hands in his pockets but doesn’t break eye contact
with his brother.

“Did what?” Aren asks.

Naito remains focused on Lee as well. “He was trying to find a way to give normal
humans the Sight.”

Lena, who’s been watching the interaction between the two humans with a mildly curious
expression, suddenly appears to be
very
interested.

“What?” she demands.

“I should have realized it in Germany,” Naito says. “Or in Montana. I thought my father
had a lot of humans with him, but I didn’t think…”

Lena takes a step toward him. “What do you mean?”

“Nakano gave them the Sight?” Aren asks, turning to look at both Paige and Lee.

“
Lee
gave me the Sight,” Paige says. “I’ve never met his dad.”

Lena grabs Naito’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

He jerks his arm free. “I didn’t know. I thought most of them were firing blindly
whenever they saw the underbrush move. That’s what they’ve always done.”

“Lena.” Kyol speaks her name softly but firmly. A muscle in her cheek twitches then,
all the emotions she shouldn’t be showing in front of her guards—anger, worry, fear—vanish.

“How does he give people the Sight?” she asks, her voice cool.

Naito slides his hands into his pockets and says, “He was working on a serum.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us about this before now?” Lena is still calm but just
barely.

Naito shakes his head, more in disbelief than in response to Lena. “I never thought
it would work.”

I glance at Paige. Well, clearly it did work. Paige’s life has been turned completely
upside down, all because Lee wanted to find me.

Lena’s mouth narrows into a thin line as she looks at Paige. I know why she’s worried.
If the remnants know what we do, they’ll try to get the serum. They might already
have it. If they do, they have the ability to make an army of Sighted humans with
who knows how many shadow-readers
among them. Our illusionists will be useless. We’ll be unable to fissure to safety.
In short, we’ll be screwed.

“Do the remnants know about this?” For some reason, Lena’s asking Paige, not Lee.
Maybe it’s because Paige is my friend and, therefore, more likely to help us than
the son of a vigilante, but Paige meets Lena’s gaze, and says, “I don’t know.”

She’s lying. One of her ex-boyfriends discovered her tell a few years back. He was
a wannabe pro poker player, and he noticed she always jutted her chin out after a
bluff. It’s jutted out now, just the slightest bit.

“How do we get it?” Lena demands.

“You captured a fae yesterday,” Paige says. “Tylan. I want to talk to him.”

Lena raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

It’s the wrong tone to take with Paige. She squares her shoulders and doesn’t look
away. She has no clue how dangerous Lena is. She has no clue how dangerous all the
fae are.

“Let me talk to him, and I’ll consider telling you where the Sight serum is,” Paige
says.

“Paige.” Lee takes her arm, whispers something into her ear. I can’t hear it. The
fae have better hearing than I do, but by the way Lena leans toward them, I’m not
sure she picks it up either.

“We don’t need her to tell us where it is.” Naito’s voice is cold. He meets Lena’s
gaze. “Send me back to Earth. I’ll get it.”

In my peripheral vision, I see Aren shake his head. Naito sees it, too. He rounds
on the fae. “You should want him dead as much as I do.”

“We’re not protecting your father,” Aren counters. He doesn’t back away even though
it looks like Naito’s one second away from ripping out his throat. “People make mistakes
when they’re angry and mourning.”

Naito’s eyes are hard. “I won’t make a mistake.”

There’s a harsh laugh from my right. Lee. His jaw is swelling, but it doesn’t seem
to be bothering him anymore.
He glares at Naito with eyes that are just as dark and angry as his brother’s.

“Dad was right,” he says. “You’ve gone native, and you aren’t coming back. You’re
turning your back on your family.”

“My
family
”—Naito practically spits the word—“turned its back on me first. I know why you’re
here, Lee. I was born with the Sight. That made me Dad’s favorite. Now, you can see
the fae, and you have Dad’s blessing to kill me. You’ve been dreaming about this day
for years, haven’t you?”

Before Lee can answer, Paige’s eyes go wide. She turns on him. “God, tell me that’s
not true.”

Lee grimaces. That hits me as odd. There’s major family drama going on here, and Naito’s
tone has been scathing this whole time. Lee hasn’t flinched once. But at Paige’s comment?
I don’t have much evidence to go by, but I’d bet everything I own that Lee has a thing
for Paige. It’s not a surprise. I can’t exactly explain what it is about her, but
she’s the type of girl that all guys want. The way she presents herself draws attention.
She’s the life of the party, the girl you call if you need a friend to hang out with.
In short, she’s fun. I wish I could be half as lighthearted as she is—I was back in
high school—but the last decade of my life has been spent reading shadows and seeing
fae. Seeing so much death and violence kind of puts things into perspective.

“Paige, you don’t understand,” Lee says. “My father lost his arm—”

“‘I haven’t seen my brother in years.’ ‘I need to know he’s alive.’” Paige’s mocking
imitation of Lee is actually pretty good. “I was helping you because I thought you
cared
about him.”

“That’s enough of this,” Lena cuts in, descending to the middle step of her dais.
She looks at Naito. “You know where your father is keeping the serum?”

“I can find out.”

“I’ll have Trev fissure you home,” she says. “But you have to promise not to go after
your father on your own. We need the serum first.”

We need more than the serum, actually—all his father’s notes and research, his backed-up
documents, hell, maybe even his scientist—but something in the way Lena’s talking
about all of this bothers me. It’s like she’s hinging all her hope on winning this
war on getting the serum. Or, more specifically, getting more Sighted humans.

“You know you can’t actually use it, don’t you?” I say.

Her head tilts ever so slightly. “We don’t have enough humans to watch all portions
of the wall and palace.”

“I know, but who are you going to give it to?” I ask. “Most humans have no clue the
fae exist.”

“We’ll introduce ourselves,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not.

I shake my head. “You can’t interfere with people’s lives like that. They shouldn’t
be made to fight a war for you.”

She exhales sharply. She’s annoyed with me, but I don’t care. I won’t let her do this.

“I won’t force them to help us,” she says. “I’ll ask. And with their help, this war
shouldn’t last much longer.”

“So what are you going to do? Give the humans the Sight, then dump them back on Earth
when you’re finished with them?”

Aren steps forward. “Maybe we should talk about this later. We’re all tired.”

“I’m not,” Paige says. “I still want to talk to Tylan.”

Lena levels a cool gaze on my friend. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. We’ve
captured a lot of remnants in the last week.”

We’ve killed a lot of them, too, but I’m glad Lena doesn’t go there.

I cut in. “They can stay for now in a room near mine—”

“
Two
rooms,” Paige interjects.

“Two rooms near mine,” I amend.

Lena’s eyes narrow. “She can go when she answers my questions.”

Questions, not question. Lena will turn this into a full-fledged interrogation if
I don’t get Paige out of here now. It’s my fault Paige is mixed up in all of this;
I have to keep her safe. And more, I want to talk to her. Alone. I need to
convince her that the rebels aren’t the bad guys. I look at Aren, hold his gaze long
enough for him to know what I want.

“Let them go,” he says to Lena. “McKenzie will talk to them.”

I move too quickly to grab Paige’s arm. My ribs protest, but I grit my teeth and pull
her toward the exit before Lena gets it into her mind to object again. I half expect
her to order us to stop or to put up a wall of air to prevent us from going any farther.

When we’re almost to the end of the hall, Paige leans toward me, and says quietly,
“I don’t like her.”

I give her a tight smile. “I didn’t either.”

“So why are you helping them?” she asks. “They kidnapped you, didn’t they? Because
you’re the best shadow-tracker or something.”

“That’s what the remnants of the Court told you.”

“Yeah. And they promised me they’d free you. It was one of those if-I-help-them, they-help-me
things. I wasn’t even sure you were alive, but…” She shrugs. “You are. They didn’t
lie about that.”

“They just lied about me being a prisoner, still.”

“I’m not sure if they knew what your status was.”

Oh, they definitely knew. They’ve tried to capture and kill me enough times in the
past couple of weeks that there’s no denying it.

We turn down a hall, and I catch a glimpse of Lee behind us. He’s quiet, walking with
his hands in the pockets of his jeans. From his conversation with Naito, I take it
he’s anti-fae like his father, and I wonder if it’s hard being here around the people
he hates. I wonder if it’s just Naito he’s come to kill.

Lena must be concerned about that, too, because farther behind us is Trev. He doesn’t
exactly look happy to be stuck with this babysitting duty. I actually don’t blame
him. It seems like he’s always getting put on the crappy assignments.

“The Court fae lied to me when I worked for them,” I say. “They let me believe they
were capturing the fae I tracked for them. They didn’t. The king was brutal in how
he tried to
win the war. He manipulated things to keep himself in power. Lena isn’t like that.
She’s been very open about what she’s done and what she plans to do.”

“What about Aren?” she asks. “He’s the Butcher of Brykeld, right? You acted like you
hated him at Amy’s wedding.”

I try to suppress a grimace but fail. I know how my relationship with Aren will sound,
and, sure enough, Paige stops.

“Oh, God,” she says, eyes wide. “McKenzie, tell me you didn’t fall in love with your
kidnapper. Is that why you switched sides?”

“No!” The word comes out harsher than I intended, but she’s been aware of the fae
no more than two weeks, and she’s acting like she knows everything. “I told you why
I switched.”

“I thought you were smarter than that,” she continues, as if I didn’t say anything.

“I am,” I snap back. Then I draw in a breath, trying to stay calm. If she’s half as
tired as I am, she’s probably on a short fuse, too. I don’t want to fight with her.
I want her to see that the rebels are okay and that I am okay. Then I want her to
stay out of this war.

“I’m trying to be,” I say, softening my tone. “I’m taking things as slow as I can,
but Aren…” This is awkward, talking about my love life. I’ve never done this before.
“I don’t really want to take things slow.”

“You’re not sleeping with him?”

I shake my head.

“Because,” Paige continues, “if you
are
sleeping with him, I want details.”

I almost laugh. Paige doesn’t exactly agree with my relationship with Aren, but she’s
not holding it against me. Her ability to accept me for who I am, no matter how crazy
I seem…that’s why she’s been my friend for so long.

“This lightning”—she holds up her hand, waits for a chaos luster to strike across
it—“I bet it makes just kissing a fae explosive. By the way, I totally get why you
never let me shake Kyol or Aren’s hands.”

I smile. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Something inside me loosens. It’s nice to talk about
something other than false-bloods and war, and that little part of me—the one that
was so much bigger a month ago—that wants to retire resurfaces. I’m trying to get
a job so I can support myself and have something that makes me feel human, but balancing
two lives never worked in the past. I don’t know why I think it will work now. I could
leave the Realm and the war behind. Lena would flip, but Aren would understand.

We enter a residential wing of the palace. My room is here, though I still don’t use
it very often. I prefer to stay in Vegas because I usually get more sleep there.

I stop suddenly. I share my Vegas hotel room with Shane. How the hell could I have
forgotten about him?

“What?” Paige asks.

I look over my shoulder at Trev, ignoring the sharp pain in my side when my torso
just barely turns. “Did Shane make it out of the club?”

A long pause, then, “Lena has someone looking for him.”

They don’t know where he is. Damn it, I should have stuck around, looked for him before
I left, but the club was crazy, and I’d caught a glimpse of Paige. Then the police
officer was there…

Shit. Shane was briefly in the building with the dead humans, too. His fingerprints
might be there. He might be in a British jail.

But that’s a better option than the alternatives. If he was trampled by the crowd
or captured or killed by the remnants, I’ll feel at least partially responsible. He
wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me.

“McKenzie?” Paige says.