Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
HOLLY
What the actual fuck had she gotten herself into? Twenty-four hours earlier, she’d been exhausted from drifting back and forth between shopping malls, high-rise buildings, and the airport, looking for a place she could steal an occasional meal and find a safe spot to catnap.
Now she was well-rested, well-fed, and leading an attack on a horde of elf pirates with two children and two very short, purple-spotted adults. Oh, and, apparently, she had magic.
Holly didn’t know what had inspired her to follow Mal. He hadn’t been kind or encouraging in any way. He’d even ditched her the second he’d gotten the chance, so why had she hunted him down and shoved herself into his life?
It wasn’t something she could explain. Maybe it was because she’d never asked him to help, but he’d done so without asking for anything in return. Mal didn’t seem to like her at all, but he’d still helped.
It was miles beyond the fake smiles and deceitful words the grown-ups around her used like weapons to pin her into a little box so they could check her off a list and move on to the next troubled teen.
In all truth, Holly didn’t think it was anything specific Mal had done. All she knew for certain was that the moment she’d laid eyes on him, her heart had shouted, Mine! Since it had never happened to her before, she ran with it.
Holly followed her heart’s call all the way to a dilapidated boat that had no business floating. When she barged inside, her heart bellowed MINE!! with everything it had.
It was a done deal for her. Clayton and his stupid heart, open for anyone to take advantage of.
Merry, cautious, but wanting desperately to be loved.
Tommy, loving everyone on the boat with his whole chest every second of every hour.
And Eira and Grampy. Apparently, they weren’t human at all, but they’d dragged her into their home and loved the shit out of her without question.
As she’d fallen asleep in the little bed Eira had offered her freely, Holly felt something inside her sink down into the bones of the boat and settle deeply.
This was hers. Nothing and no one was ever taking it from her.
And Mal? That fucker wasn’t shaking her, ever. He was stuck with her. He was an asshole, and he needed another asshole to manage him. Clayton seemed up to the task, but Holly would make sure Mal didn’t run roughshod over him.
Holly swore she would be the last person to ever take advantage of Clayton’s goodwill.
“Eira,” Holly called through the open door on the deck leading to the living area, “how are those crumpets coming?”
“They’re right here!” Eira appeared at the door, pulling herself through with one arm while cradling a plastic container full of blackened, questionable breakfast goods.
When she finally made it out, she ran toward Holly as fast as a person could across a boat deck that had tipped twenty degrees to the right.
Shortly after Clayton and Mal had left, the boat had been stolen away while Holly had been telling Grampy how to make jam and crumpets. They didn’t have butter or rings, but Grampy had jumped on making them regardless.
When the boat had made an alarming moan and tipped over on its side, everyone dodged shifting furniture and scrambled awkwardly to the deck to see what had happened.
Everyone but Grampy. He’d stayed in the kitchen and continued to cook, seemingly unaware that anything had happened.
Holly stood on the deck, frozen in terror, staring at the impossible scene before her.
Where there once were poncy little boats bobbing in a fancy marina, there were now cave walls and something horrifying beyond all reason lurking in the shadows.
While Eira did her best to herd the children back inside, Holly watched as dozens of elf-pirates threw themselves at the boat, only to bounce off something invisible and fall flat on their backs.
Something waterlogged and ancient slithered along the cave floor and whispered incoherently.
When she tried to listen, she found her body straining toward the creature.
She had a foot on the railing, ready to leap over the edge of the boat, when the creature hit the invisible boundary.
There was a brilliant flash of blue light, and the creature sizzled and shrieked in pain.
It skittered off to the dark edges of the cave, but Holly knew it was still there.
It hadn’t deterred the pirate elves. Wave after wave of them came, and time after time the invisible barrier held them back. But it was evident that after each successive wave, the elf-pirates didn’t bounce off quite as hard the next attack, and that the barrier was slowly creeping toward the ship.
“Don’t you dare fail,” Holly had growled at the barrier. “Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.”
Her nails had dug into the railing, and blood dripped down, covering the wood as she willed the barrier to continue to hold. And miraculously, it stopped shrinking.
Grampy came out to offer her a snack, seemingly unaware of the battle around him.
Holly took one look at the disaster on the plate in front of her and cringed.
His attempt at making her jam and crumpet recipe was a thing of nightmares.
She’d thanked Grampy and ‘accidentally’ knocked the plate overboard directly into the face of an elf-pirate.
The ensuing scream caught her attention, and she saw the jam-covered crumpet eating away at the man’s face.
“Holy shit, Grampy,” she’d yelled. “Give me everything you have. Make as many as you can! Don’t worry about the baking time, we’re not looking for perfection. Just get them out here as fast as possible!”
Then she’d rallied Eira, Merry, and Tommy to her side and had them carefully launch every item of food Grampy made at their attackers.
Like hell those bastards were destroying the only family she’d ever known.
It didn’t matter that she’d known them for less than a day.
Holly knew down to her soul that this was her family.
It was her one shot in life to find home, acceptance, and love, and she would die before letting anything happen to it.
So with the aid of Grampy’s toxic cooking, they were able to slow down the assaults on the barrier while Holly used whatever the hell magic she had inside her to shore it up.
Both children had magic too, though Tommy’s seemed to be a surprise to the boy. He’d been with Merry as she’d been carefully floating the toxic food out of harm’s way before dropping it on the bad guys.
Tommy had been clinging to her, tears streaming down his face, shouting, “Go away! Just go away!” at their attackers, when suddenly one of the attackers began to cry. Then another, and another.
As Tommy yelled at them, the elf-pirates closest to him melted down like toddlers needing a nap, running away and shouting, “Meanie!” and “I’m telling!”
Tommy turned to Merry with wide eyes and said in a whisper, “I finally got magic.”
Merry had given him a quick hug and went back to chucking food at the bad guys.
With Tommy’s newfound ability to project his emotions and Merry’s ability to fling the corrosive food far and wide, they made for a devastating combo.
Clayton’s pantry was loaded to the brim, so they would have ammo for ages.
As long as Grampy kept cooking, and the children could hold out, they would be able to mitigate the damage the shield was taking.
And since Holly had a lifetime worth of rage and neglect to vent, she was pretty sure she could hold up the barrier until help came.
Help needed to come soon, though. Holly was beginning to regret all the coffee she’d had at breakfast.
Merry took the plastic container from Eira and sent her back for more ammo. When Tommy tried to grab a handful, Holly grabbed his hand before he could touch the hazardous treats.
“Merry’s got this,” Holly said. “I need you to go over there and start crying your heart out.”
Tommy was a sweetie-pie, but his inability to focus required Holly to work constantly to keep him on track. Honestly, what would they have done without Holly?
Tommy gave her a solemn nod and hurried to the bow of the boat. As soon as he got there, he opened his mouth and began to wail. Immediately, Holly's eyes began to water, and her heart twisted in anguish, so she shouted, “Focus, Tommy. Point your energy at the elf-pirates!”
“Sorry, Holly!” Tommy closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and howled again.
Holly’s tears dried, and her heart was her own once more. The elf-pirates, however, were not doing well.
In the distance, there came crying and wailing from grown men and women.
Some stomped their feet and refused to fight anymore until they had a snack.
Holly heard one say, “I’m not fighting until I get my red shirt.
Where’s my red shirt?!” Another elf-pirate cried for his mom to take him home because he wasn’t having fun anymore.
“Nice job, Tommy,” Holly shouted. “Keep it up!”
Beside her, Merry concentrated as misshapen balls of food floated out of the container. They wobbled, but Merry’s control was improving by the minute, so when she began magically flinging them toward the elf-pirates, each strike was met with multiple screams of agony.
“How long have you been able to do this, kid? You’re amazing,” Holly said to distract herself from the pounding against the shield.
“Today,” Merry answered with a small, proud smile. “Well, I’ve had magic for a couple of decades. I lost control of it for a while, but today it started coming back to me.”
“Decades?” Holly snorted. “Sure, kid. Whatever.”
Merry gave her a knowing smile but didn’t argue.
“Really? You’re older than I am?” Holly wasn’t stupid. If Mal was a monster and magic was real, why couldn’t a little girl be a few decades old?
Merry put a finger to her lips. “It’s a secret. The grown-ups don’t know. Tommy and I couldn’t tell them everything about ourselves because we didn’t think they’d believe us.”