Nos finally had the bravery to answer. “You cannot trust Serrik.”
“I never said I did,fuckface.” Ava turned to snap at him, glaring a hole through his mismatched features. “Right now, I’m dealing with the news that I’ve been played byallyou shitheels. Every last one of you.” She paused. “Except the neurotic one. Yet. I don’t know what her deal is.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Bitty mumbled.
“I know. Sorry. I’m just pissed.” She turned back to the food. Taking the squish-pans off, she flipped the sandwiches and put the squish-pans back on. “I’m being turned into a thing!A thing for all of you to fight over. And I want out. I was hoping that using that shard would give me more options, but it only gave me less, because now there isn’t—” Her voice cracked. Fuck.No. No, no more tears.With a frustrated growl, she leaned her hands against the countertop and lowered her head. “There isn’t a way out.”
Not unless I kill Serrik. And I don’t even know how to do that. Or where to even start.
Silence. Nobody spoke.
“Nobody’s giving me a way out where…I get to choose my own future. My own path forward. Because all of you,every single last one of you,are trying to make decisions for me. Lying to me, keeping things from me, manipulating me into the toolyouwant to wield. And I’m sick of it. Fucking sick of it. I willstart tearing this place apart—I will kill us all, if I have to, I don’tcare—” She didn’t know if she actually had that power. She didn’t know if she could start ripping gashes in the Web. But it was a threat she was willing to back up at this point. She was grasping at any straws she could. She was trapped. Cornered. And out of options.
She was done.
Fork.
In.
Done.
Taking the squish-pans off the sandwiches, she fetched four plates and a spatula. One sandwich per plate, she put them down on the table a little louder than she probably meant to.
Sitting down in front of her sandwich, she started to eat. Food, glorious food.
Bitty was the only one to start eating with her. She released a grunt and spoke through a mouthful of food. “This is amazing! I love grilled cheese!” She started to gobble it up.
Ava laughed. It was exhausted, it was beleaguered, but it was a laugh, nonetheless. “Let me know if you want a second one.”
“We only want what’s best,” Ibin started as a way of explanation.
“See, that’s the thing. Everybody does. You all just have different opinions on what ‘best’ means. For you, it’s…I don’t know, live here in this torture prison for all eternity, or something eats you? For Serrik, it’s genocide.” Or world domination. Which was now solidly on the list of his motives. And as for the looming third party—the one she hadn’t met yet, but she knew was inevitably going to involve himself? The Unseelie King?
Total destruction of everything was on that guy’s list.
The Web, andmaybeBook, didn’t seem to want anything at all. But she didn’t know if she believed them. They might just be better at hiding their intentions.
As for what she wanted?
She didn’t know.
She just knew what she didn’t want.
She didn’t want to become something other than herself.
She didn’t want to die.
And she didn’t want to be anybody’stool.
How she got those things? Fuck all if she knew.
Ibin was staring down at her sandwich. She was eating it, though much slower than Bitty, who had polished off hers and was now going about making herself another. It seemed the little fae was a quick study and was repeating the steps perfectly.
The pilot-turned-stork sighed. “I don’t want to die, Ava. And I don’t want to see my whole race wiped out of existence. Or the chaos that’ll bring with it. Because I don’t trust Serrik that his designs end there.”
“Neither do I, honestly.” She could say that much. But she had to be mindful that Serrikwaswatching. She had to pretend he was in the room, a silent observer. Because for all intents and purposes, he was. “Because I can’t trust anyone at face value. And I don’t want your people to die, Ibin. I don’t wantyouto die. But I don’t want to die either. And I don’t wantmypeople to die, when Valroy eventually escapes some clause of some contract and goes apeshit all over Earth and Torg-nab-whatever-the-hell your world is named.”
“Tir n’Aill,” Nos exhaustedly corrected her.
