Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) - By Devon Ashley Page 0,64
darkness under my eye. He sighs as he wipes his thumb clean. “Forgive me. But I never told you something.”
“What?” I ask fearfully. My mind races with endless possibilities. Was he really spying for Finley? Have I been scheduled to die? Is he faerie elite and never told me? Whatever it is, I don’t like the way he can’t look me in the eye.
“I told my father about you and the other pixies, and how you’re all here without formal charges.”
“Oh,” I say with complete surprise.
His mossy green eyes look up to mine, but they don’t shine the way they normally do. “He already knew, Rosalie.”
“What? Why would he know that? How could anyone know that and be okay with it?”
“Because a lot of the upper officials think our species is better than the rest of the fae. In their eyes, they don’t really see anything wrong with pixies making our dust. Even involuntarily.”
“WHAT?” I scream, my arms flailing up and down. “How could they think that? They wouldn’t think that if we made a couple of faeries our slaves for the heck of it!”
“No, you’re right. They wouldn’t. Which makes me worry that even if I can find something in the law books that proves what they’re doing is wrong, it may not be enough to get them to stop. But I’ll keep looking. I promise. We’ll find a way to get you out of here one way or another.”
I nod weakly, and return to my somber thoughts. Jack picks up the tin container with the yellowish powder and begins smearing it above my eyebrows. “What’s that for?”
“I figure it’s worth trying. I’m hoping this color on your reddish skin tone will make you appear sickly. And if you can keep up that look you’re giving right now, you’re golden.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I hadn’t told you yet because I knew it would do this to you. Maybe it was selfish of me not to tell you, but I’ve become accustomed to your smiles and I don’t like seeing you this way.”
I force a tiny smile but release it pretty quickly. He smears the powder down the outside edges of my eyes, along my cheekbones and a little across my chin.
“Am I ugly yet?” I ask.
Huffing, he replies, “Hardly. Not even makeup’s going to achieve that.”
I try to smile over his praise, but my emotions have temporarily deadened inside.
Something doesn’t feel right. Though I’m stuck living in a dark hole with zero exposure to nature or the outside world, I feel as though I’ve developed an internal clock in terms of my time with Jack. When I’m awake, I can usually pinpoint his arrival time pretty closely, and even when I’m asleep, I still tend to wake in time to catch his arrival. My internal clock woke me up several hours ago, but Jack has yet to bathe these walls with a much needed glow. I have no reason to believe my mind is mistaken, but nonetheless, it feels odd that he’s not here. Has my greatest fear come true, and Jack’s been permanently kicked off pixie-sitting me? Maybe Finley figured out he was never going to break me, and told him to beat it – leaving the breaking and beating to him from now on.
I shiver in the darkness, the thought of Finley weighing heavy on my mind, amplifying my fears with each passing minute that Jack doesn’t show. Though another round of sixty-eight breaks to my traumatized wings completely terrifies me, it doesn’t compare to the horror of losing Jack. Even if the only relationship we can ever have is right here in this hole, with me as his captive, I’d rather have this than nothing at all. I know it’s silly to have a crush on a faerie, I do. But at this point, his friendship means everything to me. Even if that’s all it could ever be. I can’t lose that. Not now.
Tears descend out of nowhere, flooding my face with multiple slippery streams. I let them flow freely wherever they lead, my head resting sideways on bent knees. My heart aches – like really aches. It’s a heaviness I’ve never felt before, suffocating almost. My mind drowns me with dreadful thoughts of a love lost that I never had the chance to experience. How cruel a heart can be when it doesn’t get what it wants. Why add physical suffering when the emotional pain is already so severe? Where’s the logic in that?