A Cage Full of Friends
SNOW
After taking Ariel home, I tell her I can't stay in tonight.
If she wanted me to stay for comfort, I'd fail her because I can't keep this raging fire inside.
I can't lie on the couch and cry. I dried out on the stoop outside Poison Apple and now I need to run, jump, punch someone in the fucking face for what happened.
So that's what I do.
I run.
Across rooftops. Down fire escapes. Over alleys that smell like hot trash and old beer.
Past flyers with Goldie's smile, Cinder's smile, Kiki’s vibrant feather boa.
Ariel, Rap, and I had been putting them up, while Ted and Kai have been losing their minds, raging around with a bloodlust I share.
As I speed past the faces of the missing slapped on poles and brick and glass, it feels like the city is wallpapered with everyone I'm failing to save.
The thought punches through my focus, and my boot slips off the ledge.
I catch myself on the gutter, metal biting into my palm.
The medical examiner will tell us what happened. The cops will pull camera footage. Ryder will check traffic feeds. Rap will call every terrifying contact she has, and Ted will keep tearing this city apart with his brothers until someone gives us one fucking answer.
But answers take time.
I am fresh out.
I drop into an alley, landing wrong. The impact jars my knees, my hips, my teeth.
My hands go to my daggers as I cut toward the water. Toward Dry Dock. Toward the last place I know HAM assholes gathered in a big enough number to make a satisfying pile.
I don't care if Dominic and Ted's brother insist they've been tracking HAM's movements and can't find anything pointing to their involvement. It has to be them.
And I plan to bleed them until someone fesses up this time.
A small, wet shriek slices through the dark.
I stop.
Another sound follows. A frantic flutter and more shrieks. Metal scraping brick.
I turn down the narrow alley beside a boarded-up nail salon.
A large wire cage sits flush against the brick, taller than it is wide. Inside it, what looks like a dozen flutterbuns pack the space in a furious knot of wings and fur and noise.
I take two steps closer.
The bait is still visible through the wire: a scattering of Magic Morsel wrappers pressed flat under scrambling feet, the remnants of raw steak tips piled at the center.
A wire funnel is mounted to one side of the cage, the opening wide enough to get a small body through and tapering to nothing on the inside.
The flutterbuns nosed their way in after the smell, and now the funnel just collapses inward when they push at it. One has a wing caught at the wire joint. Two more press their noses through the gaps, fangs out, shrieking.
The sound goes through my skull.
"Oh, faefucks."
One of them slams into the side hard enough that the whole cage rattles. Another bites at the bars, tiny teeth scraping metal. Their little wings beat against each other in panicked bursts, fluff and leathery skin and snapping jaws all shoved together in a miserable heap.
"What did they do to you?" I whisper.
A handwritten sign is taped to the top of the cage. Magical pest removal. Below that, someone drew a little skull with bunny ears.
The fire inside me turns white.
I drop to my knees and grab the latch. It's not a normal latch. A chain runs through three separate loops, cinched tight with a heavy padlock.
I pull my dagger and wedge the tip into the hasp. The blade skids off the metal, throwing sparks. I switch my grip and try the funnel, get two fingers inside and yank. The wire gives maybe half an inch before snapping shut. One jagged edge slices across my palm, hot and clean.
I hiss through my teeth.
Blood wells in a bright line, but I shove my fingers into the mesh again and pull in opposite directions, but the wire cuts deeper and the cage still doesn't give.
The flutterbuns go silent for half a second.
Then all of them launch at the side closest to me.
I fall on my ass.
"Whoa. Hey. Hi. I'm helping, you fanged little cotton balls."
One of them hisses. Another bares its teeth and gnaws on the bar directly in front of my face.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You're scary. I'm terrified. Five stars."
I stab the dagger into the lock again and twist. Something in my wrist pulls tight, hot and sharp, forcing my grip to spasm.
The lock doesn’t give.
A clatter sounds at the mouth of the alley.
My head snaps up.
Voices.
"What are you doing?"
I whip around too fast for my feet to keep up. One boot skids on loose grit, and I flap a hand out to catch my balance.
Two leans against the brick, arms crossed, purple eyes blazing.
"Trying to save the cute bunnies," I say with exasperation. It's pretty obvious what I'm doing.
He looks over my shoulder at the cage, his brows cocked with skepticism.
The voices get louder.
"I wonder how many we caught this time."
"It's never enough, the little fuckers breed like rabbits. Ha, get it, rabbits?"
"Yeah, it's really funny how our city has slowly but surely become overrun by these fae wild creatures since they magically appeared in the winter," the other man's voice is dry in response.
I glance at the cage then the direction of the voices headed toward us, and I pull my daggers. An insistent pounding throbs against my skull. All I want to see is red. Their blood painting the ground. I want the life drained out of them.
"Snow?" Two says, straightening, alarm in his tone.
"It's going to get ugly, so feel free to leave," I say, both daggers in my hands now. "They killed Carolee. They want to kill these flutterbuns, they'll have to go through me."
The voices get closer.
Two looks toward the mouth of the alley, then back at me. "You want a fight."
"I want them to pay." I want them to bleed.
"You don't know they are the ones who...did that to Carolee."
"Of course it's them," I shoot at him. "Who else could it possibly be?"
Two steps in close but doesn't touch me.
A wise decision because I'm feeling out of my mind with anger and if he physically tries to hold me down, I'll turn on him too.
"Six says you are clearly in grief and not thinking straight," Two says.
"He says if you go up against them like this, you're going to get hurt, and I agree with him. "
"I don't fucking care," I say, baring my teeth, counting the seconds until those assholes round the corner and meet their worst nightmare.
Something sharp crosses his face. "Well, I do."
Before I can blink, he bends, gets both hands under the platform frame, and straightens.
The cage comes up off the ground.
All of it. Platform, padlock, and nearly a dozen flutterbuns. Two's jaw tightens. That's the only indication it costs him anything.
My stance falters. "What are you doing?"
"Getting these little guys and you out of danger before you get yourself killed," he huffs out with effort as he hurries off. When the cage almost tilts out of his grasp, I quickly sheathe my daggers and run to help catch the other side of it before it hits the ground.
"Now help me find a place we can release these little guys that will be safe," he proposes.
The flutterbuns hurl themselves at the side nearest me, and the whole thing sways.
"And pick a place that makes it hard for them to turn around and suck us dry for saving their furry asses," he observes.
"They're just scared." Well, they probably want to suck my blood too, but I'm also an emotional eater, so I'm not going to hold it against them. "And I know exactly where to take them."