44. The Danger of Loving a Mama’s Boy
The Danger of Loving a Mama’s Boy
SNOW
My friends are all here.
Relief hits me so hard my entire body trembles.
Cinder is strapped upright against the far wall, arms pinned at her sides in white restraints, chin tipped forward like she fell asleep.
Goldie is beside her, curls spilling over one shoulder, chest rising in slow, shallow breaths.
Red’s head rests against the padded wall behind her, one cheek smeared with dried blood.
Kiki’s lashes glitter under the fluorescent lights, her body strapped upright in a sequined dress that has no business being in a room like this.
Ariel is there too, strapped in the same way, her copper hair dull under the harsh lights.
Six more people line the wall with them. I don’t know their names. A woman with pointed ears. A man with blue veins glowing faintly under his skin. A kid who can’t be older than eighteen.
No one moves.
No one opens their eyes.
"Are they—" My voice comes out thin.
One’s attention is entirely on me. "They’re alive."
Another wave of relief hits me even harder than the first. My hand finds the edge of a counter as my knees buckle. Cold metal bites into my palm. One starts toward me.
I hold up a hand.
He stops.
One had walked me from a quiet, smoking Poison Apple, the distant wail of sirens promising to arrive soon to take care of Rap and Geanie.
We made the trip in silence.
The building sat on a corner in Beacon Hill, all pale stone, black iron, and glossy windows with the ghost of removed letters on the door.
Brightpath House.
The orphanage where I grew up got shut down years ago. All my organs shrink inside me as One leads me right to it.
Instead of taking me through the front door, he brought me through a side entrance, down a private elevator, and into this room.
Behind One, three people in lab coats continue moving between stations, labeling vials and checking monitors like it's business as usual. Like this is fucking normal.
Well, except for the strategically placed five security men in suits, with pieces on their belts. I immediately received a pat down, and my daggers were confiscated and locked away in a drawer.
"You're here," a female voice edged with excitement and hunger has me turning around.
And right there is Queenie Fairchild. Of course. It makes too much sense. She clearly has it out for magic-kind, but then I remember what One had said.
"But I thought you were taking me to your..." I trail off as his face says it all.
His mouth tightens. A muscle jumps in his cheek.
His eyes cut to Queenie for half a second, and suddenly each weird little piece snaps into one horrific puzzle.
Mother.
Oh.
Oh my fae fucking lords on a hot dog stick. No fucking way. No fae fucking way.
Queenie Fairchild is The Seven’s mother.
My stomach lurches with a sick feeling so intense I press a hand against it to hold everything still.
So much of what they’ve said sharpens into view. The number one human rights supporter has a child who suddenly developed powers so strong and so early she’d do anything to fix him. My gaze sweeps wildly about the room.
Even experiment on him, until it fractured him.
The self-hatred and loathing he’s been taught is so much more than someone’s beliefs.
She stands for the very concept of magic-kind not belonging.
And her dirty little secret is she birthed one of the most powerful, unique mages in the entire history of the world.
Even as my anger burns hot and bright that The Seven took my friends, a wave of understanding crashes into me.
It wasn’t some everyday bigot whispering poison in his ear. This was Queenie Fairchild, the poster woman for every smiling, polished argument that magic-kind didn’t belong in this world.
No wonder he hates everything about himself. The Seven has absorbed and mirrored her sentiments for so long, how could he begin to break away from that?
One searches my eyes as if desperately trying to read my thoughts. One of the few abilities he doesn’t possess.
A lump forms in my throat, and I press harder in my stomach to keep from reaching out to him. To keep from shaking him in a desperate attempt to make him see the glass cage he’s been brought up in.
His mother told him point-blank she didn’t, couldn’t love him like this.
In pieces. A beautiful kaleidoscope of pieces, personalities and powers.
But I do. I love them all so much it hurts, and the hurt drives deep to the bone knowing how much of his life has been spent being hated by someone so close.
"You can't even begin to know how long I've been looking for you," Queenie says, "only to find out you've been right here, in Boston, all along."
I force myself to break from One's intent gaze to look at the woman who has caused so many hurts I can't even begin to count them.
"What are you talking about?" I ask. "Why would you be looking for me?"
What? Did I screw up some kind of tax refund for the home by bailing?
"You are the key to everything," Queenie says, her fingers pressing into a countertop hard enough to make them white.
Her eyes go round and her expression is so hungry when she looks at me, I want to shrink from it.
"I thought we had to keep testing, keep trying new things, but here you've been.
Walking around with the answer inside of you. "
"Mother," One says, "she's not magic. We don't take humans. We need to let her go."
Queenie's head jerks toward him. "I said to never call me that."
He doesn't physically move, but every part of him seems to cringe. His jaw tightens. His eyes drop half an inch before he forces them back up.
My hand curls into a fist.
"You do what I say, if you know what's good for you. This girl holds the key to everything." She points at me, then her eyes follow. "The one who got away."
"You don't talk to him, or any of them like that," I growl, stepping in front of The Seven. Or I guess The Six. Grief fights my anger.
Queenie stares at me, then looks past my shoulder as if One and I have made some private joke at her expense. His breath catches close behind me.
"Any of them?" she repeats. Her mouth twists. "There is no them. There is only my son and the affliction keeping him from me."
"Snow," One says in a low voice. His fingers close around my elbow.
I look back. His white eyes search mine, then flick to his mother before he gives me a small shake of his head. Like the fight isn’t worth it. He releases my arm, and I instantly miss his touch, but we aren’t here for this.
I don’t understand why I’m here. Why my friends are strapped to a wall.
"After you received the treatment like the other children, and then disappeared," Queenie continues, "we figured you ended up dead in a ditch somewhere. Never in a hundred years did I think you’d be walking around, made perfect. Normal. Human."
"And to think, you don't even remember," she continues, awe making her words slow. Though we always knew that could be a side effect of the drug. But you had the affliction. The abomination in you, and I cured you."
"You're saying I had magic?" I can't help but roll my eyes. "Lady, you are ten pounds of crazy in a tiny Ziploc bag. I think I would have remembered if I was a mage."
On the bright side, I don't think they let crazy people join the senate. She's definitely out of the running after this. As soon as I escape and take all my friends with me I'm going to—
She picks up a remote and a screen on the wall flickers to life with a black and white image. It takes a minute for me to recognize what I'm looking at because it's a different angle from what I saw.
"Rosie," I croak, stumbling forward a few steps. My fingers press to my mouth as I drink in the sight of my friend again after so long.
On the screen is an image of my past so vivid it feels like only yesterday. Rosie and I sit in the living room of the home, her unicorn pencil case between us, an apple floating above it.
They watched us.
My skin crawls as I search the ceiling in my memory for the camera I never knew was there. I should be disgusted, but I’m drawn closer by the sight of her. I never had a picture of her. Nothing to prove she existed beyond a battered pencil case and memories that faded a little more every year.
I had forgotten the way she scrunched her nose when she smiled. I had forgotten how tiny she was.
Now she’s moving in front of me again. Breathing. Smiling at me.
A sob catches in my throat, painful and precious all at once.
"Your power came on so suddenly, so unexpectedly," Queenie says softly, "so you probably barely had time to process it. Maybe that's why your brain chose to block it out, but again, I'm guessing it was a side effect of the drug."
I barely hear her words. On the screen, Rosie reaches for my hand. I remember the warmth of her fingers. The way we had to bite back our giggles so we wouldn't wake anyone.
A second apple rises into the air.
"There, you see it?" Queenie hisses, studying the screen. "The second apple, that's you."
My brow wrinkles. "That's Rosie’s power."
This woman is officially out of her mind. Even as I think it, the screen repeats the scene of the floating apples, something deep inside me niggling and gnawing. My fingers close into my palms as I see it through my mind's eye the same time I watch it on the screen.
Rosie lifted the apple with her powers, and it was so cool, I wanted to be just like her.
Something unlocks in my mind, and suddenly the memory opens to me as I remember the feeling of just...doing what she does.
"You’re what’s called a mirror mage," Queenie says. "You could mirror the magic of anyone around you."
And then I remember. I would levitate things because Rosie did. Not long after, I could heat my soup at the dinner table when it was served cold. When I looked around, it seemed only Dwayne’s soup was hot too. I’d just done what he had done.
"You were a mage," One says. The words come out slow and careful, like he’s testing each one before he trusts it.
I face The Seven.