40. There’s No Candy in that Van
There’s No Candy in that Van
SNOW
"Nothing was on the camera at all? Like static?" I ask Red and Brexley as I walk them home after our shift. Not that Brexley isn’t fully capable, but I can’t afford to let anything happen to Red.
And Ryder insists on staying close to Rap after Queenie’s unexpected visit, saying he has a bad feeling.
Rap tried to put him off, but he was like a dog with a bone. He simply straightened, crossed his arms, and said he would sit outside her door whether she liked it or not. Rap narrowed her eyes at him, but he was unmoved by her death glare. So she caved.
Downtown Boston at three in the morning looks scrubbed clean of people. The office towers rise dark and glossy over us, all those black windows stacked high enough to blot out much of the sky.
Traffic lights change for no one. A delivery vehicle idles at the curb with its hazards blinking orange against the wet pavement. Steam curls up from a nearby grate and drifts across the sidewalk in thin white ribbons.
Red shakes her head even as Brexley tucks her in under his arm closer.
"Ted’s brother, the hacker, JJ, he says it looks normal, but the time when Ryder says Ariel left Poison Apple, the street just looks empty.
He swears he saw you out there waiting on the street, but again, it just looks like an empty shot of the street. "
"How?" I ask, the distress in me twisting tighter, like a wet rag wringing me out.
JJ, Ted, and Kai have been tearing this city apart with no clue where our friends went. Almost like whoever took them is so powerful they can tamper with the entire city.
Or just be the most powerful mage this world has ever seen...
"We don’t know," Brexley says darkly. "JJ insists the recordings haven’t been tampered with, but I have some contacts looking them over now."
"You’re sure JJ would know if someone messed with the footage?" I ask.
Red answers, but the words don’t fully land.
Something across the street catches my eye.
The delivery van idles across the street, tucked along the curb between two brick apartment buildings with black iron stoops and dark windows. A resident permit parking sign hangs above it. No loading zone. No restaurant entrance. No open lobby with someone waiting for a package.
Just sleeping apartments, overflowing trash bins, and one white truck with its hazards blinking orange against the wet pavement.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
Red keeps talking. Brexley responds in that low, dark voice of his. Their words blur together as my focus tightens.
No logo on the side.
No company name.
No dented bumper, no smeared dirt along the wheel wells, no taped up taillight or stack of boxes visible through the windshield. Just clean white metal, blacked out windows, pristine plates, and a faint blue permit sticker tucked into the corner of the glass.
It’s parked too far from the curb, taking up more of the narrow street than it needs.
My steps slow.
Red and Brexley keep moving beside me, then a few paces ahead.
I drift off the sidewalk and cross the street without saying anything. Steam curls up from a grate, wrapping around my knees as I move through it. The damp air coats my face. My boots touch down silently on the slick pavement.
An uneasy feeling builds in the pit of my stomach as I draw near to the vehicle.
Behind me, Red laughs.
"Snow, you’re so fast. How did you get over here?"
I freeze several feet from the van. Then slowly, I force myself to turn my head.
On the other side of the street, I’m standing in front of Red and Brexley.
White hair. My face. My blue eyes. The black catsuit I usually wear when I’m out at night, but I’m still in my Lost Girls outfit.
A growl rips out of Brexley even as Red’s smile falters when she looks over her shoulder and sees me.
Brexley’s arm locks across her middle, dragging her against him. Brexley bares his teeth.
"That’s not Snow."
Brexley lunges.
For one frozen blink, all I see is my own face staring down the mouth of a wolf.
Then Brexley’s body splits and reshapes midair, muscle and silver fur ripping out of him in a brutal rush. His jaws clamp around the other me’s forearm.
The scream that tears out of The Seven comes from my mouth.
"Brexley, stop!" I shout.
The other Snow buckles, white hair flickering black, then brown, then white again. My face warps across his features like a reflection slapped by rain.
The van door slides open.
Three men pour out in dark tactical gear.
Not HAM jackets. Not drunk assholes looking for someone to hurt.
Professionals.
Their boots hit pavement in a synchronized rush, and every one of them heads straight for Red.
Oh hell no.
I throw myself into the first man before he clears the curb. My shoulder slams into his ribs. He grunts, but he stays on his feet. A baton cracks against my wrist before my dagger reaches his thigh.
Pain bursts up my arm.
My dagger skitters over the wet pavement.
The second man moves past me.
I hook my foot around his ankle and yank. He hits the ground hard enough to make his teeth click. The third one steps over him, eyes locked on Red.
Behind them, Brexley snarls through a mouthful of The Seven’s arm.
The illusion drops.
My face disappears.
The Seven staggers into himself, green eyes flashing bright red, fire lighting them from within.
Four.
His mouth opens on a ragged sound as Brexley’s teeth sink deeper.
"Let go," Four snarls.
Brexley’s answer is a violent shake of his massive head.
Blood spatters the pavement.
Fire blooms along Four’s bitten arm.
Flames crawl over Brexley’s muzzle. Silver fur blackens. The smell of burned hair and meat punches through the diesel and wet street.
"No!" Red screams.
Still, Brexley does not let go.
I drive my elbow into one man’s throat and spin, but a hand grabs my hair from behind. My scalp lights up. I throw myself backward, skull cracking into a face. Cartilage crunches. The grip releases.
Red staggers toward Brexley, hands out.
Wind sweeps down the narrow street.
Trash lifts. Steam tears sideways. Red’s hair whips around her face as pale light gathers around her, thin at first, then thickening into the shape of a wolf.
A white wolf's head.
It climbs into the sky with a deafening yowl, and then it dives back down, headed straight at Four, mouth wide open.
Oh fae lords. No.
Sound drains out of the street. My pulse floods in to fill it, banging in my ears, my wrists, the split skin above my eyebrow. Copper coats my tongue from the headbutt.
The spectral jaws seal over Four's upper body in a silent, crushing eclipse.
The air buckles. Red's forbidden magic pours through him, pale light threading into his chest, hunting for something deeper than flesh. It finds it. It wrenches.
Four's body jerks.
His mouth opens on a sound that doesn’t belong to a human throat.
It’s layered.
Too many voices trying to scream at once. Seven men screaming through one mouth, and the sound tears directly into my soul. My knees soften. Ice pours through my belly and drowns the fire that lives there.
The wolf doesn’t bite down and release.
It devours.
Light streams from Four's chest in ragged strands. It burns red first. His fire. His rage. The heat that rolled off him every time he called me baby.
And with it—
Him.
I'm running. I never chose to. The pavement slams up through my heels, an arm hooks my waist and hauls me off my feet, and I claw at it, screaming something that starts as his name and shreds into nothing.
Four’s face changes. Confusion first. Like he doesn’t understand why it hurts. Then realization crashes in. His eyes snap to Red. There is no anger or reproach, only terror.
"No—" he chokes, voice breaking apart as the light tears deeper.
The red in his eyes flares, bright as fresh blood.
Then it fades, a dying light. The last of it rips free in a final, violent surge, and something inside him goes with it.
Not just power. The whole person connected to it. Four's body arches, sags, folds.
His mouth hangs open, his face slack and utterly lifeless.
Four is gone.
My scream comes out with no sound in it.
My mouth is open, my throat works, and nothing crosses the air.
The arm around my waist lets go, and the ground arrives without my permission.
I'm on my knees, skin scraping across the hot asphalt, begging him to come back.
Needing him to call me baby one more time.
My chest locks, and I can’t breathe.
Then a twitch, a blink. Color returns to The Seven's cheeks as a pale, near white color floods his eyes. One.
He stares at Red like she ripped something out of him with her bare hands.
Brexley releases him and drops to all fours, smoke rising off his muzzle.
One hand presses against his chest. His fingers curl into the fabric there, clawing for something he can’t reach.
A man near the van lifts his gun. The barrel points at Red.
"Do not fire," another man barks. "They need her alive."
The guy with the gun doesn’t lower it. His arms shake. His eyes are huge above the black mask.
Red’s white wolf fades around her, dissolving like a shower of shattered stars.
I scream the same time the gun barks.
One vanishes. He appears in front of Red with a wet, ugly sound as his body jerks. Blood blooms dark across his side.
"Never, ever hurt them," he says to the men, even as he stumbles.
Red’s mouth opens.
A second van screams around the corner, tires skidding over wet pavement. Its side door is already open before it stops.
Two more men jump out.
Brexley turns toward them, jaws bloody, eyes blazing blue-white.
A dart hits his shoulder.
Then another.
He rips one out with his teeth and takes a stumbling step toward Red.
A third syringe sinks into the thick muscle of his neck.
His front legs buckle.
"No!" Red finally screams.
I slam my heel into the instep of the man behind me and twist free, but something punches into my upper arm.
A syringe.
Cold spreads under my skin.
I grab the barrel before the plunger sinks all the way down. The man tries to shove it in deeper.
I headbutt him.
His grip slips.
I rip the needle from my arm and drive it into the meat of his bicep.
"Have some," I hiss, and slam the plunger down.
His eyes widen. Then his knees fold.
The street tilts.
Shit.
My arm drops first, dead weight swinging from my shoulder. My tongue fattens against my teeth. Wet sand pours down through my legs and packs into my bones.
I stagger, still upright, still moving, still trying to get to Red.
Across the street, one of the men looks at One where he’s bleeding against the pavement.
"Should we help him?"
Another man hauls Red’s limp body toward the open van. "Not our assignment."
One lifts his head.
White eyes find mine through the steam, the flashing hazards, the blood.
Pain twists across his face.
Then the van door slams shut, and they are gone with Red, leaving Brexley unconscious on the ground, One bleeding, and me half drugged and unable to stand.