Unfamiliar Self [Book Three]

Chapter Eleven | Truth or Trust

The young man smiled at me and said with a short wave of his hand, "H-Hey, Foxy."

I took one step towards him. My hands unconsciously balled into fists as I tried to blink away the rain building around my eyes. Why did it have to be him? Why her? Why couldn't we just be left alone?

"You-"

My arm was grabbed from behind and twisted behind my back in the span of a second. In the next, a kick was thrown into my knee and I was face first in the mud. I didn't have to see to know who it was. I could feel it in the familiar, bony grip on my arm. In the point of the knife pressed against the back of my neck.

"Kat," I hissed in pain. I chocked out water and mud as I tried to turn my head to see her. "What are you doing?"

"It isn't her." Maple's voice drew me to her. She hadn't moved an inch, but she was smiling wide as she tapped her temple. "That one was me."

Her fire burned over her like a protective dome. The hissing from contact with August's rain almost made it impossible to hear her, but I didn't miss a single word. I dug my fingers in the ground as I held her glare with one of my own.

"What are you doing here, Maple?" I fought for a minute against Kat's hold, but it only burned my shoulder more. I wasn't about to try and fight off my friend and risk hurting her, and I had already dislocated that shoulder enough to last a lifetime. "Leave her alone!"

"I think that's enough from you." Maple lost her smile and she took a step towards us. Her fire trailed out and danced dangerously close to my face. "Speak up again and I'll just have Kat stab you a few times. I know neither of you wants it to come to that."

I didn't look away from the dark pits of her eyes. It was a void that perfectly reflected her soul. She wouldn't hesitate to make good on her promise. If her goal wasn't to outright kill me, then maybe it was better to play along until I could get an opening-or make one.

"Good boy," she said with a giggle. A renewed smile on her face, she switched her gaze to the one who held me down. "Now, the reason that we're all here. Kat, I think you have a few things to tell me."

"We encountered Gust and Lilly two weeks and three days ago. One week ago we had a run in with your mother's familiar, Tusk," Kat answered at once. Her voice was monotone, like she was reading off a list of the morning's chores.

Maple stared, open-mouthed at her familiar before bursting out in a high-pitched laugh that made me flinch and August practically jump out of his mutilated clothes. "Tusk? Really? That thing is still alive?" She rubbed both hands over her face as she titled backwards, her laughter slowly dying away. When it was gone, she straightened, removed her hands, and I was all at once taken aback by the fresh tears rolling down her face. "That's too bad. And you said you saw my-Gust? You saw Gust and Lilly?"

"Yes," Kat answered. It was still dead-pan, but I did not miss the crack in her voice.

Neither did Maple, by the crooked grin breaking through her tears. "That must have been quite the surprise for you, Elizabeth."

"No, I never saw them." I could feel Kat's eyes on me now. The one green eye practically burned into the back of my head. "Foxy did."

Maple's grin morphed instantly into a scowl as she stared back down at me as well. "Of course he did. You just can't seem to stay out of my family's business, can you?"

We glared at each other for a moment before I asked, "You going to let me speak again, 'Master'?"

"Don't push it, fox" the young girl snarled. She knelt to the ground, right in front of my face. I could more clearly see the burns still on her arm and leg. The ones the witch, Dr. Garcia, revealed. "Tell me everything you saw. Everything. Down to the last detail."