Page 39 of Summer Solstice

She turned her horrible, glowing eyes on Taliyah, and barred her teeth in a vicious smile. “Especially you, failed hope of your people. Your family died so that you might rise, and you threw it all away like a spoiled child. The blood of your subjects stains the earth because you don’t feel like taking up your duties.” Alecto sneered. “Pathetic.”

Taliyah stared at her, stunned, her gun dipping towards the ground like she’d forgotten she was holding it. I could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, panting, like she’d been running. Maverick stepped in front of Taliyah, stretching up to his full, impressive height like he was trying to block her from view. Power crackled around his hands, wreathing him in purple as he snarled.

Alecto laughed. “Are you her knight, then? Where was all this protective rage when your own sister died, alone and afraid on a dirt floor?” She took a step forward, and spoke in a whisper that somehow carried more clearly than a shout. “You are a monster. Your family was right to throw you away.”

Maverick staggered like he’d taken a good, solid punch to the gut. His face was as pale as chalk.

I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees as I realized what Alecto was doing—how she was playing on each person’s own sense of shame and guilt, turning them into weapons. My limbs were shaking hard enough to almost send me back down to the ground. “Stop it.” The words came out an airless wheeze.

Other people were pouring into the woods, coming to help, but it didn’t fill me with any kind of hope. What would Alecto do to them? I didn’t want them to suffer because they were trying to help me.

And then Wanda was there, her face tight with anger, her magic spreading out into the night like the shadow of a comet, dark tendrils writhing against the ground. Lorcan was at her side, fangs bared, his eyes a brilliant shining green, like a cat’s. The rest of the members of Scapegrace stood alongside them.

Roy towered over everyone by almost a head, and I saw the flash of Fifi’s pale hair. Darla clung to Henner’s arm, obviously frightened, but there to help in any way she could. Even Stanley, pawing at the ground like he was going to charge, still in his Stomper’s Creamery T-shirt.

All the friends I’d made since coming to the Hollow, all the people I cared about were all here, ready to fight, ready to stand up for me. I just prayed that someone had thought to keep Finn away. If he got hurt, I didn’t know what I’d do.

Chapter Sixteen

I was so scared that my whole body felt like it had been plunged into an ice bath. It took me two tries to push myself up and off the ground, and my knees threatened to buckle at any second.

Because, in spite of the small army of supernatural beings standing tall and looking ready to fight, Alecto didn’t seem worried. She looked them all over with a vicious kind of amusement, like she was planning how to tear them apart and enjoying the thought of it.

Taliyah still looked shaky, standing close enough to Maverick that her shoulder bumped him. They both looked like they’d been gutted, pale and sweating, and I knew Alecto had done something to them. She’d dealt them a wound that would be slow to heal, or maybe just reopened one that had never healed in the first place. She’d used their own guilt against them like a knife, and she was going to do the same to all the people I loved, just because they were trying to stand up for me.

“Poppy!”

Andre was suddenly coming up right beside me, his arm sliding around my shoulders, lending me support. His free hand cupped my face, and his skin was almost burning hot against my numb cheek.

“Are you alright?” He searched my face, his accent more clipped than usual. Then he turned to face Alecto and whispered, “what is she?”

My mouth was drier than sand, and I had to swallow a couple times to get enough moisture back that I could speak. “Alecto. She’s a Fury.” My throat squeezed, convulsing. “She’s here for me.”

Andre’s face went tight with anger, and he pushed me behind him with a sweep of his arm.

I stared at his back, surprised and close to tears. I knew he wanted to protect me, they all did. But they didn’t understand that Alecto was here because I’d subconsciously summoned her—that I was the person responsible for her. My friends wanted to keep me safe, but I wanted them to be safe, too. I couldn’t let the Fury rip into them, using their own vulnerabilities against them.

To hear her rip into Wanda, or Andre, I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t. It was my fault, and mine alone. So, I lurched out from behind Andre, ignoring it when he shouted after me, and stumbled through the crowd of people to face Alecto head on.

“Leave them alone.” I’d meant the words to come out strong, a shout of defiance, but my voice broke on the last word. “It’s me you’re here for, not them. So, leave them out of this. I’m the one you want.”

Alecto smiled, her head tilting to one side in a shockingly girlish gesture. She hummed. “True. I’m not here for them, not yet. But I have come to see your punishment doled out.”

A sob caught in my throat, choking my breath. My eyes burned, and tears I couldn’t hold back any longer carved a path down my cheeks through the soot and the grime.

“Poppy?”

My heart stuttered for a beat, and I whipped around at the sound of the voice.

Marty pushed through the crowd, shaking off the hands that tried to hold him back. Marty wasn’t a supernatural, but he was a Null, which meant that magic didn’t affect him. He was also a pretty big guy, so other than Roy putting him in a headlock, there wasn’t any real way to stop him from making it to my side.

He stared down into my bruised, dirty face with something like horror, only glancing up at Alecto when her wings fanned the air.

“What in the heck is going on here?”

Alecto laughed, the sound razor sharp and barbed at the edges, and I flinched under the lash of it.

“Well, isn’t this perfect? Your victim is here and now you can witness her punishment.”