Solstice (Midsummer #3)

17. Carter

17

Carter

W hen Siobhan grabbed me and told me to get us out of here, I didn’t immediately understand what she meant. Once I climbed into the driver’s seat, I got the picture. It was too dark to see, the thick clouds of Alberich’s energy blocking out all the light.

“Go!” Finn snarled from the passenger seat.

Go where?

I didn’t have a goddamned clue. I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel and slammed my foot on the gas. The SUV lurched forward, only to slam into something hard. Metal crunched and I grimaced, fear slicing through me that I might be the next person to get sucked out the window.

Poor Theo.

“Ivy!” Siobhan yelled from the back seat.

I glanced in the rearview mirror, watching as one of the dark swirls choked the life out of my Weeds.

“Don’t worry about her,” Finn said, snapping my attention up ahead. “Drive!”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What was I supposed to do?

Close your eyes, the magical part of me said, the one that told me which cards to pick in a poker game. Intuition could be an asshole sometimes, but I didn’t have any better ideas, so I listened to it. I closed my eyes and put my foot on the gas, and when it told me I should turn left, I did. The tires hit a rough patch of asphalt, gaining traction, and we surged forward. I white-knuckled that steering wheel the whole way, and when I felt like I should head straight, I went with it. It shouldn’t have been possible, but fuck it. A lot of stuff that had happened to me shouldn’t have been real. I stopped questioning it years ago.

The delay cost us. A heavy weight hit the side of the Range Rover, sending it up on its side for a gravity-defying millisecond. I opened my eyes and met the gaze of a fairy dressed in black with a hood over its head perched outside the passenger side window. Finn wrestled with it, trying to get it off, but it was too quick for Siobhan’s friend. As the tires slammed back down on the earth, the dark fairy sliced through Finn’s chest with an enormous smoky sword before falling off the vehicle.

I gasped, and Finn let out a monstrous yell, grinding his teeth together as he grimaced. When he sputtered up blood, I reached out to touch him to make sure he was okay.

“Get off me.” He glared, his eyes gone completely white, glowing with the intensity of his rage. He emanated a powerful physical fury, vibrating in the front seat.

“Drive!” came Siobhan’s panicked shout.

Another fairy ran next to us on my side, just as fast as the SUV, gaining on us. Finn groaned and shook next to me, his form pulsing so fast he’d gone blurry.

“What’s happening to him?” I struggled to form the words, adrenaline racing through my veins. I could barely focus. If he went nuclear in the passenger seat, he was going to take all of us out with him, especially me.

“Go, Carter. Go!” Lex slammed his hands on the back of my seat.

Close your eyes, the voice said again. Don’t worry about them.

This time, I had to force myself to listen, maneuvering around things I couldn’t see, speeding through invisible streets at almost fifty miles an hour. As long as we were driving without hitting stuff, a win was a win.

“How’s Weeds?” I shouted. “Is she okay?”

“We’re okay,” Siobhan said. “Just keep going.”

We weren’t out of the woods yet, but we still had our favorite ginger and as long as we were still alive, we’d make it through this together. I snuck a glance at Finn who had one hand on the dashboard in front of him and the other to the wound on his chest, his eyes clenched shut. He took deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, no longer glowing or vibrating. I figured that was good news for us.

Here, my intuition said. Stop here. Be quiet.

I cut the SUV to the right and slammed on the brakes, shutting off the engine.

“Carter, what the—” Lex said.

“Shut up,” I hissed, ducking down in my seat. “Everyone just shut up for a second.”

No one argued, and everyone except for Finn sank under the window line to wait this out with me. I didn’t like the rattle in his lungs when he breathed. Not that I was a fairy expert, but it sounded wet and desperate, like he couldn’t get enough air on his inhales.

The darkness started to dissolve, slowly creeping away from us like a retreating tide, revealing brick buildings on either side of the vehicle. A dumpster sat to the right, and several trash bags lined the other side. I’d hidden us snugly in an alley between a gas station and a gun store, the rest of the street dark and empty.

Time ticked by at an agonizing rate, dragging on as my pulse pounded in my ears. Any second, I expected a fairy to step out from behind the corner to tear us to pieces, and I’d have to figure out how to use the horseshoe up my ass to talk us out of this nightmare.

That never came. I didn’t know if it was because they couldn’t find us or my gift had gotten us out of it, but after fifteen minutes of silence, I sat up and restarted the car.

“They’re gone,” I said, knowing it in my gut. My fairy gift told me so, and it had never steered me wrong.

Siobhan sprang into action, jumping over the second seat and into the first, straddling Finn’s lap so she could examine the wound on his chest. Likewise, I turned my attention to the back. Lex had already climbed into the third row, finding Ivy with her eyes open and rubbing her head.

“You okay, X?” he murmured.

She nodded and sat up. “What happened?”

“You scared the shit out of us, Weeds,” I said.

“One of those fairy assholes got ahold of you.” Lex ran his fingers over her neck, tracing the spot where she’d been strangled. It was red now, and she winced when he brushed a tender spot. “Are you okay?”

Lex brought their foreheads together, and I thanked the sweet Lord she was still alive and we hadn’t lost her. She was a fighter, but seeing her go down like that sparked a panic in my veins. I couldn’t lose her.

I couldn’t.

The mere thought of it made me tremble with rage. I’d often said Lex and Ivy were the same soul in two different people, and I stood by that. He was ice cold and she was fiery hot, and in a lot of ways, I didn’t think they could exist without each other. For me, Ivy was the sun in my solar system. She was the enormous burning ball of light that guided me in my orbit. If she died, I would be a husk of a person. If she were gone, truly gone from this earth, I wouldn’t want to be on it anymore.

Lex kissed Ivy, and I smothered the small flame of jealousy that surged up my spine. I’d always considered Ivy mine, and I still felt that way today, even if somewhere deep down inside, I believed we were all Lex’s. I knew that now in the best and worst possible ways. Ivy snorted out a sad laugh, but a groan and a cough to my right got my attention again.

“All right, all right,” Siobhan said, ripping Finn’s shirt open. “Let me see it.”

“It’s deep,” he groaned, coughing again. This time, ruby-red liquid sputtered over his lips and down his chin.

Siobhan grabbed his jaw and held it up, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Six hundred years, Finn. This is not how you die.”

He tried to laugh but ended up falling forward on her, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Shit!” Siobhan looked at me. “Take us to Ivy’s house. Now.”

I yanked the gear into drive and took off, alarm blaring through me. I didn’t know Siobhan or Finn well, but they’d helped us. Yeah, this shit started because of her, but she’d also said we were important, that we had a role to play. I didn’t want Finn dying on us before he had his chance to do his part.