Fairy Bad Day(76)

“We’ll figure it out,” Curtis said in a tight voice, his jaw clenched. But before they could move, Loni suddenly came hurtling toward them, her heart-shaped face unnaturally pale.

“Emma, we’ve got trouble—big, big trouble. Oh, hey, the fairies are still here. Don’t tell me that they’re going to glamour me again.”

“They’d better not.” Emma shot Rupert a stern look and he sulkily put away his bag. Then she turned back to Loni. “They’re actually here to help. And we know all about the darkhel. He’s managed to get everyone on the list. He probably took half of them last night after I thought I had injured him. It was a ruse. You were right when you said there was a reason that he came to tell me about the wards he’d destroyed. It was to distract me. He totally played me and I fell for it.”

“What?” Loni’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“You didn’t know?” Emma said in alarm. “I thought that’s why you were here looking so freaked out?”

“No.” Loni shook her short spiked hair. “I was actually here to tell you that your dad and Olivia are here.”

“What! My dad? But that’s not possible. He’s at a wedding in New York.”

“He changed his plans,” Loni informed her, her voice still shaking. “But, Emma, here’s the thing: I’ve just been talking to Olivia and she’s starting to freak out. One minute your dad was standing next to her and then he just suddenly disappeared. Right into thin air... and we can’t find him anywhere.”

The world went quiet and a tingly sensation went racing up and down Emma’s leg until soon the only thing she could hear was her heart pounding as she realized that there was one question she had never bothered to ask herself.

Why had her mom been caught up in this whole thing in the first place?

After all, she was a dragon slayer, so fighting darkhels wasn’t part of her job, unless . . .

She felt the color drain away from her face.

“Emma, are you okay?” Curtis asked from beside her, but she hardly heard.

Unless she had a very good reason.

Like protecting her husband from being killed.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN





Emma felt sick. How had she been so stupid? In the distance, Loni, Tyler, and Curtis were arguing over the best and fastest way to get to the mall, but Emma hardly heard them as the truth hit her like a sledgehammer. The darkhel was going to kill her father. The thought was unbearable. She had already lost her mom, and now she was going to lose her dad too?

“Emma.” It was Curtis’s voice that finally snapped her out of her daze, and she looked up to see that Loni was escorting a sobbing Olivia toward them. No points for guessing that Loni had given Olivia the Cliff’s Notes version of what was happening. “We decided that the quickest way to get to the mall was to get Olivia to drive. Do you think you can talk her into it?”

For a moment Emma just stared at him blankly, but before she could answer, Olivia finally caught sight of her and flew into her arms.

“Is it true?” she sobbed. “Is something really going to hurt Bill?”

“Absolutely not.” Emma shook her head as she tried to hug Olivia around her pregnant belly.

“Because it’s all my fault. When Bill told me it was Induction, I refused to go to the wedding. I’m so sorry. And then when that thing took him. . . . I couldn’t even see it.” Olivia was becoming hysterical now.

“Olivia,” Emma pleaded. “I know you’re freaked out, but if we have any chance of helping him, we need to get to the mall. Can you take us there? Please, Olivia, we need your help.”

“D-did you say we need to go to the mall?” Olivia stopped crying and ran a hand across one of her watery blue eyes.

“That’s right. The dar—the thing that’s got him has gone there,” Tyler explained. “So we need to get there pronto. By the way, what are your thoughts on busting through the boom gate? Because I have a feeling that’s the only way we’re going to get past security.”

“What?” Olivia looked at them, a horrified expression on her face as she started to sob again. Emma quickly shook her head at Tyler, who immediately mouthed a silent sorry.

“It’s okay. He didn’t mean that; it’s just that technically we’re not supposed to leave campus, but let’s just go to the car and we’ll figure something out,” Emma explained as they led Olivia as quickly as possible toward the parking lot. They finally reached the Volvo and everyone piled in.

At that moment the three fairies came flying into the car window.

“Boy, that was fun. Did you see his face when we picked up his coffee cup and he thought it had disappeared.” Trevor chortled before his face fell. “You know that’s the kind of stuff I will really miss if our dark brother opens the gate.”

“Which is why we’re not going to let him,” Curtis informed them in a tight voice.

“Is Curtis talking to someone?” Olivia put on her seat belt over her swollen belly and looked confused.

“Yes,” Emma said. “It’s just the fairies. And I know it’s weird that you can’t see them, but if it’s any consolation, they’ve put so much glamour powder around Burtonwood today that practically none of the sight-gifted can see them either. Not to mention—” Emma suddenly sat up bolt upright. “Of course—that’s it.”