GROUNDED

My mind refused to wrap around the truth. I had freed Reth. The potential ramifications of that were overwhelming. I couldn't think about them right now--I couldn't think about anything right now. Lend got up from the ground.

I rushed over to him. “Are you okay? I'm so sorry. I screwed everything up. I screwed it all up.” I started crying again.

Lend wrapped me up in a hug. “You didn't. If it wasn't for you I'd be dead.”

I let my head rest against his shoulder. He was so warm; a wholesome, comforting warm, not like Reth's. I needed to be in someone's arms. We had gotten away, we were safe for now, and it hit me hard. The mixture of grief for Lish and relief that I had escaped and saved Lend was overwhelming.

After a few minutes Lend pulled back. “You're shaking. It's freezing out here.” He looked around. “I think I know where we are. Good call telling Reth to bring us to my home.” I was sure I hadn't made any good decisions with Reth, ever, but at least we had a chance now. Lend took my hand. “This way.”

I took a step and gasped. I had forgotten about my leg; the cut in my thigh from Lish's aquarium glass hurt now that all the adrenaline had worn off. I put my hand down, then looked at it in the fading light.

“What's that? Are you bleeding?”

“I cut my leg in--when Lish was--” Trying to hold back the tears, I stopped.

“Can you walk? It's not far.”

“I think so.”

Lend let go of my hand, putting his arm around my waist instead. We walked through the trees, the final remnants of day snuffing out and leaving the pale light of the full moon. After a few minutes, my leg stinging and throbbing, I saw lights through the trees.

“There it is!” He sounded excited and anxious. I wondered what kind of place Lend lived in. I always pictured something like the Center, filled with paranormals. When we got close enough to see I was shocked. It was a normal, beautiful two-​story white house, complete with wraparound porch. I hadn't been inside a real house in eight years. Lend opened the door. “Dad? Dad!”

“Lend?” A man rushed down the stairs right by the front door. He was good-​looking for an older guy, maybe in his late forties, with dark hair and dark eyes--obviously who Lend had patterned his favorite face from. “Where have you been?”

“I--It's a long story. She's hurt. Can you look at her leg?”

Lend's dad--he had a dad, and it filled me with a sense of almost bitterness--noticed me for the first time. “Of course, but you're going to tell me everything while I do. You are in deep, deep trouble.” Contradicting this statement, Lend's dad caught him up in a big hug, practically lifting him off the ground. Lend had to let go of me, and I felt uncomfortable watching their reunion. “Don't you ever scare me like that again.”

Lend laughed, a dry exhalation of air. “I don't plan on it. Her leg?”

His dad turned to me. “Where are you hurt?”

It was all too much, too strange. Lend in this setting, this welcoming, warm home, Lend with this completely normal man who was his dad. No glamour at all, nothing beneath his kind face. It felt like I had entered another world; I knew I didn't belong and that the Lend who lived here could never be mine.

“Is it that bad?” he asked, his face growing even more concerned as he looked at my expression.

I shook my head hastily. “No--I--my right thigh.”

“We've kind of been through a lot tonight,” Lend said gently.

His dad knelt on the wood floor next to my leg. “I'm just going to take a look, see how bad it is.” He pulled my leggings out, stretching the slit more. “Okay, not too bad. I'll go upstairs and get my kit. It needs to be cleaned and then I'll give you a couple of stitches, no big deal.” He smiled reassuringly at me. Then he gave Lend another stern look. “Get her some dry clothes, and be ready to explain everything.”

“Don't worry--he's done tons of stitches.” Lend smiled and followed his dad upstairs. I stood there in the entryway, feeling like an intruder until Lend came back. He handed me a bundle of clothes. “They're mine so they'll be a little bit big, but they should be okay.”

I frowned as I took them. “Why do you have clothes?” He could just make them with his various glamours, after all.

“I usually wear them, believe it or not. Most of the time I don't need to change form; I wear this face almost all the time.”

That made sense. After all, his glamour clothes looked perfect but had a strange texture. In public it would be better to wear things that felt normal. He showed me to a small bathroom, and I locked the door.

I pulled off my boots--my stupid pink boots that would forever remind me of the horrible burning girl now--then took off my tank. I didn't want to see it, but my wrist was like a beacon, burning even in the well-​lit bathroom. It was brighter than ever. I didn't look at my chest, yanking Lend's soft T-​shirt on so I wouldn't have to. Then I peeled off my leggings, mopping up the blood that had dripped down the side of my leg as best I could.

I tried not to get blood on Lend's drawstring shorts as I pulled them on. Then, to my horror, I realized I hadn't bothered shaving that day. Not only were my legs brilliant white and too skinny, they were also prickly.

The fact that I was worried about what Lend would think of my legs struck me as the most ludicrous thing imaginable. I had just lost my best friend, barely escaped having my life sucked out by a psychotic burning girl, committed treason, and nearly gotten the guy I liked killed by a crazy faerie. What were hairy legs compared to that? I started laughing and then crying, doing both in an awkward, gasping mess that made my head hurt.

Lend knocked on the door. “Are you okay?”

Taking a deep breath, I tried to stop. I opened the door, holding up the shorts on the side where I was cut. “Yeah.” I sniffled but held back from full-​on sobbing again.

“He'll do it in here.” Lend put his arm around my shoulders and led me into a well-​lit kitchen, painted in warm yellow. I sat in a chair and his dad knelt next to it, cleaning my leg with a warm cloth.

“I'm David, by the way.”

“Evie,” I answered. After he finished wiping away the blood, he put something on the wound that stung. I drew in my breath sharply.

“Sorry about that. Don't want it to get infected. Now you'll feel a couple of small pricks; I'm just numbing the area for the stitches.” I tried not to flinch, focused on holding still and not shivering. “Where have you been?” he asked, and I looked up, wondering why he was asking me.

Lend answered. “It's kind of a long story.”

“Talk.” His dad was still working on my leg but his face was set.

Lend sighed. “I broke into IPCA's Center.”

Stopping mid-​stitch, David looked up, horrified. “You what?”

I was confused, too. Lend always made it sound like he had been sent there.

“I had to!”

“I--” David took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “You had better wait until I'm done, then.” He went back to the stitches, finished, and taped a gauze pad over the top. He stood up and put away his supplies, then folded his arms and glared at Lend. “Now, start from the beginning and tell me the whole story, clear up until the end where I ground you for the rest of your life.”

Lend hung his head. “I heard--I listened in to your meeting, when you said that the answer was with IPCA, in the Center. And I knew no one else could do it. I thought I could. So I went to a graveyard and put on a zombie body, shambled around. It took a couple of nights, but an operative finally showed up. So I, well, I hit her.” He looked ashamed at that admission. “Then I called for pickup. When the faerie came I walked through with her. I got to the Center and ran into the director.”

“Raquel?” David asked, and I looked at him, surprised. How did he know her?

Lend nodded. “I took her communicator and face, then found her office. I was searching for information when--when I got caught.”

David's eyes went wide and he looked down at Lend's bare ankle. “How did you get out?”

Lend smiled at me. “Evie got me out. Of course, she's also the one who caught me. She can see me--the real me, all the time.”

His dad looked at me, wonder and fear in his eyes. “You're IPCA?”

I shook my head. I wasn't anything. There was nowhere in the world I belonged now. My home was gone, my best friend was dead, and I could never go back to Raquel after what I had done. I bit my lip, holding back the tears. “Not anymore. After tonight, I don't think there's even going to be an IPCA.”

“Well, from one former employee to another, I don't think that's a bad thing.”

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