Page 92 of Fire of the Fox

Bassel’s brow furrowed, and he asked, “A Water Fae healed you? Who? Was it your friend?”

That was a great lie, one that would go over a lot better than the truth, but I didn’t want to lie. Not to them.

I shook my head. “No. I, uh, ran into one while I was out. He healed me when he saw me.”

“He?” Akira asked. I looked at him sideways. “Who is ‘he,’ Bria-chan?”

I bit my lip and looked anywhere besides at Rune. “Um, do you remember those two guys from the club? It was one of them. Blake. He’s Water Fae apparently.”

“You ran into him again?” Rune asked, urgency laced in each word. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, and his eyes were ablaze with raw outrage.

I nodded.

Akira set my suitcase down and raced toward me, his face now pinched with worry. “Maji ka! Are you okay? Did he attack you again?”

“No, no. I mean, he shut me in his store’s bathroom with him, which is when he healed me. But he didn’t, you know, do anything like before. He isn’t actually like that.”

Rune narrowed his eyes, searching my face. “Why do you seem defensive of him?”

“I’m not defending him. He showed some different colors today, that’s all. I mean, he healed me after all, and he apologized.”

“Ha!” Rune fumed. “An apology? That somehow makes it better? That makes what he did okay?”

I narrowed my eyes. “No, Rune, it doesn’t. He knows that, and I know that. But he was sincere, and he helped me.”

Rune’s eyes went dark, and he took measured steps across the room until he stood directly in front of me. He towered over me with his chest rising and falling in furious breaths. “He was going to let his friends murder you, Bria. He beat you for the fucking fun of it. I don’t give a shit what he did to help you. He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. No Water Fae does.”

“So that’s it?” I yelled. The others were quickly backing away from us, sensing the rising tension of a heated argument. “You’re pissed because he’s Water Fae, not because of everything else he did. His past actions were wrong, but it isn’t about that, is it? It’s about him being Water Fae.”

“Of course it’s about how he treated you! Him being Water Fae is just the cherry on fucking top of reasons why he’s nothing but a piece of shit.”

I scoffed. “Watch it, Rune. My best friend happens to be one of those things you’re calling a piece of shit.”

Akira cleared his throat and grabbed Marlow and Bassel. “We’re gonna give you two some privacy.”

Akira quickly ushered them out the front door, leaving Rune and me to our venomous stare down. Rune’s jaw clenched so tightly, I was surprised his teeth didn’t break.

The amount of frustration pumping through my veins made my breathing come out fast and heavy. Rune was so blinded by his hatred for an entire group of people that he refused to even consider that there could be good amongst them. Not Blake, not Dax, not Dallas.

“You can’t lump all Water Fae together as evil. I know they’ve taken a lot from you, but to say they’re all evil is ignorant.”

“You know nothing,” he fumed. “You aren’t part of this world, so how could you possibly understand?”

I inhaled sharply. Those words cut deeper than expected. True, I wasn’t a part of this world, but I was a part of his world. Or so I thought. To have that door slammed in my face was almost like a physical punch to the gut. He was shutting me out, all because he was angry and refusing to see the truth.

He shoved his hands in his hair and paced a few steps away. We were both silent for a long time until, finally, he grabbed his car keys from the entryway table and said, “I think I need some air.”

He walked past me, slamming the door on his way out.

My feet were rooted to the spot where I stood. This had turned into such a mess. It was impossible for me to really grasp what he and his kind had been through, but Blake’s words also made it hard to see all Water Fae as evil.

We wanted no part in that fight, but I guess citizens don’t really get a say when their leaders decide they want war.

How many other Water Fae felt the same way? How many had lost their families in a fight they didn’t even want any part in? That wasn’t evil. No matter what Rune said, I couldn’t be convinced that Water or Land Fae were malicious with no ounce of goodness. Not when I knew Dallas was one, and not after hearing what Blake had to say. It just didn’t work that way, not in that world or the human one. There were always two sides to a story, and to generalize an entire group of people was wrong.

I took all my belongings and dumped them in Rune’s room. After a few seconds of tortuous silence, I realized it was uncomfortable being alone at his place after having fought. I didn’t really know where to go, so I sat in my car, parked outside his house. The late October nights were chilly, so I had the heat turned on and music playing.

There was no point in fighting with Rune over Water Fae. It was something he’d have to figure out and come to terms with on his own, which would probably be best anyway. After all he had gone through, it was no wonder he regarded Water Fae negatively. I hoped one day he could see they weren’t all like that because I knew Dallas wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

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