Into the Dark: The Shadow Prince Part 35

"I'm a Lesser. I was born to serve." He sniffs and rubs his nose in his sleeve. "Working in the palace was a lot better than working in the Pits, though. I've been there since I was seven."

"You work in the Pits. With those awful Keres?"

"Thanks to Haden."

"Haden?"

"I bet he didn't tell you that part of the story, either. . . ."

"What story?" Haden asks, sliding into the booth across from me. "What are you two talking about?"

"I was just about to tell Daphne what you did to me two years after your mother died," Garrick says.

He has no inner song, no tune coming from him, but I can tell he's trying to upset Haden from the very loaded glare he throws his way.

It works. Haden goes ashen and a nervous little melody, like the tapping of anxious fingers against a table, comes off him. "We don't need to talk about that," he says.

"But she should know," Garrick says. "If you're going to give her your woe-is-me, disgraced-prince sob story, you really should tell the whole thing."

"This is not the time or place," Haden says, almost as if it were an order.

"But she wants to know," he says. "Don't you?" He turns that pointed glare on me. I can't deny that I am dying with curiosity now.

"Tell her how you couldn't stand having me around after I witnessed what you did when your mother died. Tell her how you lied just so you could get rid of the walking, talking reminder of your shame.

Tell her how you had me banished to the Pits. Tell her how two little words could have saved me from seven years of living a nightmare, being clawed at by every terrible thing that lives in the blackest part of the Underrealm, fighting for sc.r.a.ps, and praying to the G.o.ds that I'll make it one more day. Or when things are really bad, that I won't."

My breath catches when he says this. I look at Haden for his reaction.

From the dark tones coming off him, I expect him to lash out at Garrick, to order him to be quiet, but instead, he lowers his head, as if resigned to letting the truth come out.

"Tell her," Garrick says. "Or do you want me to?"

Haden sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. "When Garrick was seven, two years after my mother's death, he was found with one of my mother's pendants in his possession. It was made of rubies and shaped like a pomegranate. It was her favorite. He was banished to the Pits for stealing it from the palace."

"But I didn't steal it," Garrick says. "She gave it to me. You knew that. You knew she gave it to me, but you told them that I took it."

"Haden?" I ask. "Is that true?"

"In a way. He would have taken it if she hadn't given it to him."

"But she did give it to me-"

"Because she caught you trying to steal it." Haden looks at me like he wants me to understand. "My mother and I walked in on him going through her stuff. He was supposed to be cleaning, but he pocketed the pendant right as we walked into the room. She saw him do it. We both knew she did, but instead of demanding it back or calling for the guards, she told him he could have it. I asked her why, and she said that Garrick was only different from me and Rowan because his mother wasn't able to protect him the way she had for us. She said that if letting him have the pendant would help his life be a little better, then the least she could do was let him have it. She said that we should show compa.s.sion and mercy for everyone."

"A lesson you forgot as soon as she was gone. As soon as it was convenient for you." Haden lowers his head again. "I made a mistake and I've felt shame for it every day of my life."

"You turned him in for stealing it?" I ask him.

"After my mother died, my father chose a new Boon from the harem to become his queen. He wanted to give her the pomegranate pendant, but when it came up missing from my mother's possessions, the Court originally concluded that I was the one who stole it. When my father demanded to know what had happened to it, I told him that Garrick had taken it-and when they found it on him, they didn't believe that she had given it to him. . . . I didn't corroborate his story."

"How could you do that to your own cousin?" I ask.

"We're not cousins," Garrick says. "We're brothers."

"Half brothers," Haden says quickly. "And I did it because I hated Garrick at the time. He was right; he was a walking reminder of my dishonor. A walking reminder of what my life would have been like if my mother hadn't protected me with that oath. It hurt me every time I looked at him, and so I wanted to hurt him back." He sits up and looks Garrick in the eye. "I didn't know how bad it would be. I didn't know they'd banish you to the Pits. I thought maybe a few lashings . . . I didn't know." He pauses for a moment and then says, like it's the most painful thing he's ever had to say, "I'm sorry." I hear the shift in Haden's tone and I know he's being sincere-I can hear the remorse coursing off him-but Garrick treats him like he's just spat in his face.

"Take your apologies and shove them up your a.s.s," he says.

"Garrick, please," Haden says.

Garrick looks at me. "Be careful, Daphne. Haden's selfishness and his obedience are a dangerous combination. He'll do anything to try to win his honor in his father's eyes back. If he's willing to let a little kid be thrown into a Pit full of monsters because he didn't like seeing him around, what do you think he's going to do when he doesn't get what he wants from you?" His words strike a dissonant chord inside me. His view of Haden doesn't match the remorse that I hear in Haden now. They just feel wrong to me.

But then again, I barely know Haden at all.

Whatwould he do if I couldn't convince the Oracle to change his mind? What would he do when I continued to say no? Because I'm sure as h.e.l.l . . . or Hades . . . never going to say yes to helping him.

"Watch your back, Boon," Garrick says. "Because n.o.body else is going to do it for you."

"I'm not a Boon," I say through gritted teeth.

A very round woman appears at our table with a loaded tray. "Well, howdy, folks," she says. "I've got chicken noodle soup, sodas, a salad, cheese fries, and cheeseburger! Whose poison is whose?" She looks down at us and her grin fades. "Oh no, oh dears, you're not all headed to a funeral, are you?"

After the waitress leaves, Garrick grabs his bowl of soup and Pepsi and moves to the next table over like he can't stand sitting close to Haden anymore. But instead of eating, he lays his head on the table and moans, as if his exchange with Haden has zapped up all of his strength. I keep a close eye on him in case he decides to make a run for it anyway.

"You know," I say tentatively, "if you stopped treating Garrick like a Lesser and more like your brother, he might start to forgive you."

He nods like he might actually consider the idea.

Haden and I sit across from each other in awkward silence for a few moments, but the smell wafting up from my cheese fries and bacon cheeseburger reminds me of how insanely hungry I am. I pick up a fry, and a long string of gooey, melty cheese trails behind it. I catch the slight curl of Haden's lip while he watches it.

He pulls his own plate closer to him and starts picking the croutons out of his salad.

"You seriously got a salad?" I ask him, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yes?" he says, and pushes the glorious pile of grated cheddar cheese off the lump of iceberg lettuce on his plate. "Is that a problem?"

"We're at a greasy spoon. You should at least have the decency to get something greasy. That's their specialty. This," I say, pulling his plate away, "doesn't even fall into the proper definition of salad.

This is just lettuce."

"I like lettuce," he says, but the grimace on his face betrays how he really feels.

"How do you maintain all that muscle if you eat like a rabbit?"

"We eat different things in the Underrealm."

"He doesn't like anything," Garrick says from the adjacent table. "He's the pickiest eater this side of Tartarus."

"You mean you don't like bacon cheeseburgers?"

"I've never tried a bacon cheeseburger."

"You've never . . . ?" I place my hand over my heart like this news wounds my soul. "We are changing that right now."

I take a knife and cut my burger in half. I shove a rebellious piece of bacon back under the sesame bun and present it to him like it's precious cargo. Which it is. I don't take sharing my bacon cheeseburgers lightly.

"I can't," Haden says, trying to nudge my hands away.

"I will be morally offended if you don't at least take a bite."

"Just eat it so she'll shut up!" Garrick says. "I've got a headache." Haden takes the half of burger from my hands and holds it gingerly. "If I'm going to eat this thing, you have to do something for me first."

"What?" I ask reluctantly.

"Tell me how you did what you did to that Keres. How did you know how to make it go solid enough for me to kill it?"

Garrick nearly knocks his Pepsi off his table. "You killed a Keres?" he says. "That's impossible!"

"Not with Daphne's help, apparently."

"What did you do?" Garrick asks. He almost sounds angry.

"I . . . screamed at it," I say with a shrug.

"What?"

"But how did you know to scream at it like that?" Haden says. "Plenty of people have probably screamed at a Keres before, but I've never heard of one becoming solid as a result."

"I don't really know," I say. "I was just scared and tried the first thing I could think of; I didn't really know what would happen." I take a sip of root beer. "It was like how I calmed your cat that one time.

You know how I told you that I hear the songs that living things put off? People or animals or even plants? Well, when I was a kid, I figured out that if I imitate the tone an animal puts off, they're more likely to listen to me. I use it all the time on the strays my mom brings home. Some of them can be pretty wild until I give them a good talking to."

"So you were trying to charm the Keres?" Haden asks. The grease from the burger is starting to run down his fingers but he doesn't seem to notice.

"I mostly thought I'd imitate the screeching noise it was making and see what happened. It actually seemed to make it angrier. I'm just glad you were able to kill it before it attacked me." I point at the burger. "Now, are you going to take a bite of that before it gets cold?"

"Do I have to?"

"I answered your question, so yes."

Haden bites off a small corner and starts to chew.

"So?"

"It's . . . actually, it's . . ." His eyes widen and he drops the burger on top of his salad and stands up.

His gaze goes out the window and then darts to the trucker at the bar. He scans the whole restaurant quickly, as if looking for someone.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"That green car out there," he says, pointing to a BMW at the far end of the parking lot. There are only two other vehicles in the lot. A big rig and Haden's Tesla. "It was behind us most of the way here."

"So? They probably just made a pit stop, too."

"Then where are they? There's n.o.body else in here."

"Maybe they went across the street to that . . . abandoned gas station?" I start to see Haden's point.

"You think they're following us?"

"There's one way to find out." He tosses a wad of cash on the table. "Grab your food to go. Come on, Garrick."

"Harpies," Garrick mumbles.

I take two big bites of my burger and a swig of root beer and then follow Haden as he leads Garrick by the elbow out to the Tesla. We're all trying to look as nonchalant as possible as we buckle in.

Haden pulls out of the parking lot and around to the road behind the diner, then pulls over to the side.

"What are you doing?"

"Just give it a minute."

About forty-five seconds later, the green BMW pulls out of the parking lot and starts in the direction we went. This still seems like a coincidence to me, but it's enough to set Haden off. He slams his foot down on the accelerator and whips his car around so we're blocking the BMW. The other car comes to a screeching halt. Haden bursts out of the driver's side door.

"What are you doing?" I call after him.

Wisps of blue light crackle between the fingers of the hand he holds behind his back. Someone gets out of the green car but I can't see who it is until Haden has him by the throat. His camel brown fedora falls to the dusty ground.

"Tobin?" I jump out of the car.

"Why are you following us?" Haden shouts. A sphere of blue light swirls in his hand above Tobin's nose. "Who sent you?"

"No . . . no . . . n.o.body," Tobin stammers.

"Let him go!" I shout. "It's just Tobin. And . . . Lexie?" I see her now, cringing in the pa.s.senger seat of the BMW.

Haden lets go of Tobin but he still holds the bolt of lightning in his hand. "Why are you here?"

"You kidnapped one of my best friends," Tobin says. "Why wouldn't I be here? And what the h.e.l.l is that?" He points at the crackling blue light in Haden's hand.

Haden extinguishes the bolt of lightning and shoves his hands behind his back like it was nothing.

"Kidnapped?" I ask Tobin. "Why did you think I was kidnapped?"

"You disregarded my texts about the list so quickly, I thought something must be wrong. I thought I'd walk past Haden's place to see what he was up to . . . and I saw you leaving with him."

"And of course your brain immediately went to kidnapping."