Stay (13 page)

“Let’s get out of here, Sully!”

So that was tall and ugly’s name.

The two of them took off running back down
into the darkness of the tunnel.

“Are you okay?” Tuck held out a hand to help
me up.

I got to my feet, rubbing the back of my
head. “Yeah, I think so.”

“What were you doing out here by yourself?”
He didn’t sound like he was scolding as Kailen would have. He just
sounded concerned.

“I just needed to think. I was standing over
by the base of the falls when they snuck up on me, I’m sorry.” I
shook my head at myself. How could I be so stupid?

“Well, the next time you need to think, at
least let one of us know.” He gave me an encouraging smile and
draped his arm around me as we made our way back to the path.

“Where did you get that sword?”

“I took it off a guard that I found lying in
the tunnel.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal.

“Can you use it?” I raised a brow and a
devilish grin stretched across my face.

He looked offended. “Of course I can use it.
I started out in the same place you did. Well, maybe not exactly
the same, but I have had my share of fighter training. How else
could I have survived down here this long?”

I thought about that for a minute. “Can you
teach me to use it?”

He looked at me hard for a long time. “Yeah,
I can teach you. After today I think you definitely need it.”

Chapter 13

Tuck helped me back to the cavern. It was
slow going with my twisted ankle, but we finally made it.

Kailen was still inside cooking the fish on
the fire when we arrived. He had never even thought about coming to
check on me. My feelings were hurt again. Tuck didn’t mention my
ordeal to him and neither did I. I hoped that he would never find
out. I had already had about all that I could take of his crazy
mood swings.

I pulled myself away from Tuck and managed to
walk on my own over to a large boulder. I did my best to make sure
that I didn’t limp. I sat down on the cool stone and tried to
steady my nerves after all that had happened.

When the food was finished, it was Tuck that
brought me my share. “Tomorrow when Kailen leaves to gather more
supplies I will start teaching you how to fight.” He whispered as
he said this, so he must have been getting the same vibe from
Kailen that I was.

I nodded in agreement. Kailen was leaving? He
hadn’t even mentioned it to me. Not that he had said anything to me
since our argument the day before, other than to yell at me. I
still could not understand what had gone so wrong. Maybe he was
bi-polar. Could fairies be bi-polar? Undoubtedly.

It had only been a few days since we shared
our first kiss. I thought that maybe he really cared about me. I
was certainly starting to feel something for him. I know that he
was concerned that there would be no place for him in my life if I
ever took over as queen, but that was just crazy. Maybe I needed to
find a way to talk to him.

After we cleaned up the meal, Tuck went to
lie down on his blanket on the floor. I had to take my chance while
I had it. Kailen was stirring the coals around in the fire pit as I
approached.

“Kailen?” He didn’t bother to look up.

“Kailen, what’s going on? Why are you
ignoring me? I don’t know what has happened between us, but I can’t
stand this.” I pleaded.

He turned from me and walked over to the few
cooking utensils that were stacked close to where we normally
ate.

“Kailen!” I caught him by the arm.

“Callie, just let it go.” He jerked his arm
from me.

“Kailen, what in the hell is going on?”

“I should never have kissed you, Callie. I
had no right.” He turned away again.

“What do you mean? I thought that you felt
something for me that night above the tunnel. What possibly could
have happened since then to change your mind?”

“Callie, you are going to be a queen. I am
just a carpenter from a village of outcasts. This could never work
between us. I don’t even think that I want it to. It’s better to
end it now before we get caught up in something that we’ll both
regret.”

“This is really stupid Kailen!” I
yelled. I just couldn’t take it anymore. “If I am going to be
some
queen
, then I have the
right to be with whoever I choose.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Callie. The nobles
of Petrona would never approve. They wouldn’t respect you. I
couldn’t have that.”

“So you are just going to push me away.
You’re not even willing to try?” I was exasperated. “You’re being a
real jerk Kailen.”

He just stood there and glared at me for a
moment. I huffed in frustration and when he didn’t speak, I turned
and walked away.

I laid down on my blanket and cried myself to
sleep for the second night since coming here.

By the time that Tuck woke me up the next
morning Kailen was already gone. I looked over to see that even his
bedroll was missing.

“Is Kailen coming back?’” I asked Tuck as he
straightened out his sleeping area.

“Yeah, but it will be a few days. He is going
back to Drake to get a bunch of stuff so that we can start making
this place more livable.”

I hadn’t realized that he was going to be
gone that long. He didn’t even have the decency to mention any of
this, or to even say goodbye. I had to stop letting him get to me
like this.

Pushing him from my mind, I turned back to
Tuck. “What are our plans for today?”

“Today, we teach you to fight.” He said with
a grin.

Tuck stood in the center of the room. He had
been trying to teach me to fight using my legs. “Aim for my hands.”
He held his palms out to me.

I spun around with my leg in the air and
kicked him hard in the hip. It was all that he could do to keep
from losing his balance.

“Nice try, but next time aim a little
higher.”

I tried again and this time I hit my target.
It felt great. I was finally getting the hang of it. I dared Sty,
or anybody else for matter, to mess with me again.

Tuck took me through exercise after exercise.
I practiced kicks and punches until I didn’t think that I was going
to be able to lift my arms or my legs again, ever.

“Okay Callie, that’s enough for today. You
did good.” He gave me an evil grin. “Tomorrow we really fight.”

I looked at him in alarm. “You me I actually
have to fight you? Like, for real?”

“Yes.” He laughed. “You have to learn to
block a hit, and how to counter attack once you have been
blocked.”

“Alright.” I said with a sigh.

Tuck just laughed some more. “Right now, you
need to learn how to fish.”

I let a long groan.

“You need to be able to survive without me
around, Callie.”

“Are you planning on going somewhere?” I
asked.

“No, but you never know. Plus, you can keep
me company while I try to get us something fresh to eat. That jerky
stuff is disgusting.”

“Well, you are right about that.”

We headed out to the river. Tuck pulled some
string and a few hooks from his bag. He looked around on the floor
for a moment and then he pounced.

“What are you doing?” I was getting a little
nervous.

“Getting us some bait.” He smiled as he held
up a big brown beetle.

“That’s really disgusting.” I scrunched my
nose.

He baited the hooks and we spent the next
couple of hours trying to entice the fish.

“You know Callie?” He had just finished
pulling his third fish from the water. “It’s really going to be
great when you get to be queen.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You really seem to care about everyone. It
really seems to bother you when someone is not happy. It would not
be about the power or control to you. You would have everyone’s
best interest in mind, no matter what you tried to do.”

“The only reason that I am even considering
it is because that’s what my parents wanted for me. And after
seeing the people of Drake shunned from the city, and you living
out here the way that you were, I knew that I needed to do
something.”

“Things just haven’t been the same since your
parents left.” He looked thoughtful for a moment.

“What was it like?”

“Once Lilith forced herself into the role,
she started making all of these crazy rules. They made it
impossible for the poorer people to sell their merchandise. Then
she started adding these crazy taxes. The ones that couldn’t afford
to pay were kicked out of the city.”

“Wow.” I said as I shook my head in
disbelief.

“Some of the people that had been outcast
tried to revolt. There was a great war between the outcasts and the
Guard. Many Fae lost their lives, my parents included. They just
didn’t have the training or the resources to take on the queen’s
henchmen. Most of the remaining outcasts settled in Drake or roamed
the tunnels. I’m not even sure what happened to the rest of
them.”

“That’s really sad. It helps me to understand
why I really need to do this, but I am afraid that there will have
to be another war. I just don’t know if we will be able to get
people to fight with us again. They have already lost so much. What
if we don’t win? What if I can’t overthrow Lilith? Won’t that make
things worse?”

“We will just have to win, Callie. Everything
depends on it.” He looked more serious that I had ever seen him
look.

I never realized that getting Lilith out of
Petrona would mean so much to so many Fae. I was willing to bet
that there were plenty of people still living in the city that
would stand beside us as well. Now I really knew that I had to do
everything I could to prepare for a fight.

Tuck managed to catch a few more fish before
we made our way back. We cooked them and went to bed early. I
needed as much rest as I could get. My body was worn out from
everything that I had put it through lately and I still had a lot
left to learn.

The next day I found myself toe to toe with
Tuck. I tried hard to get a hit in on him but he blocked me every
time. When I wasn’t paying attention, he would get a good hit in on
me. I flinched with the pain of each blow, but he wasn’t really
hitting me hard. I am sure he could have done a lot more damage
than that.

It didn’t take long for my reflexes to kick
in. Soon, I was giving him a run for his money. He came at me with
a jab and I blocked him with my left hand as I landed a blow with
my right.

I learned to roll away and get back on my
feet quickly. I even learned to use my wings to fly at him to land
a blow. I was quite proud of myself.

“That’s it, let’s call it a day.” He was
wiping sweat from his brow.

I bent over with my hands braced on my knees
and panted to catch my breath. “Sounds good to me. What should we
do the rest of the day?”

“I think that we are going to take a little
trip ourselves.” He winked as he said it.

A trip? I was really starting to get excited.
“Where are we going?”

“There is somebody that you need to meet.” He
would not say anything further, which left me anxious but thrilled
all at the same time. I trusted Tuck, and I knew that whatever he
had up his sleeve had to be good.

We gathered a few things to take with us.
Since we were setting out so late, we needed to be prepared to
spend the night away from the cavern.

Once everything was ready we headed out
past the waterfall, but we didn’t climb back up to the tunnel.
Instead, we followed the river downstream. We walked for a long
time, and soon I started noticing pieces of wood tacked up all over
the place. They had warnings painted in sloppy red paint. Things
like
beware
and
turn back now
were positioned every
few feet.

“Should we be down here?” I asked getting a
little nervous.

“Yeah, you’ll see.” Is all that Tuck
answered.

I trudged on, but I couldn’t help but get a
little nervous about all of the warnings. The passage began to get
wider and I began to notice random pieces of junk piled up along
the walls. There were old wooden crates and broken chairs. I saw an
old broken bicycle and even an old stove like the one that I used
to have back home. Pretty much anything that you could imagine.

I noticed the golden glow of candle light up
ahead of us. I started to slow my pace but Tuck just motioned for
me to keep up.

“There it is.” He started to trot ahead of
me.

“Hello?” He called. “Mr. Biggins?”

I heard someone stirring as we approached a
room built into the side of the wall. A short stocky man with short
tattered black pants and a dirty tan button down shirt and bare
feet stepped out of the doorway. He squinted his eyes at us. Then
his face revealed a glint of recognition.

“Tuck? Is that you?” He asked as he came out
into the passage.

“It’s me.” Tuck held out his hand and Mr.
Biggins took it in his and shook.

“I have brought someone to meet you. This is
Callie.” Tuck gestured to me.

Mr. Biggins squinted again as if he were
trying hard to get a good look at me.

“Well you don’t say. Miss Calliope Rose.” He
said in awe as he shook my hand as well. “What a pleasure.”

“How do you know my name?” I had never laid
eyes on him before. I was sure that I would have remembered
him.

“Well, you have certainly grown since the
last time that I saw you, but I could never forget a face like
that. You look just like your mother.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled.
He knew my mother. That could not be a bad thing, could it?

“Come in, come in.” He motioned for us to
enter his room.

Inside, it turned out, was some sort of a
workshop. There were tools and scraps of metal and wood strewn
about a long table. In the back of the room was a small bed, a few
chairs, and a few shelves covered in various half completed
projects it appeared.