Fort Morgan by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

rape
trial,” Tanesha said.
    “ You mean, the one our
moms helped catch?” Jeraine asked.
    Tanesha nodded. Jeraine turned to Jill.
    “ Why do you think it
relates?” Jeraine asked.
    “ It’s just something that
seems to fit,” Sandy said. “I don’t know if anyone actually said it
or . . .”
    Everyone fell silent again. For a few
minutes, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the
fire.
    “ Why us?” Heather asked in
such a low voice that everyone’s heads came up to see if she’d
actually spoken. “Delphie?”
    “ I don’t know,” Delphie
said.
    “ You must know something,”
Heather said. “They wouldn’t have taken you otherwise.”
    “ I know what you know —
the serpents are fighting for their survival,” Delphie said. “They
hoped to take over the fairy world by infiltrating Queen Fand’s
court. They wanted to control us.
But . . .”
    Delphie stopped talking. Even in her
silence, or possibly because of it, she held their rapt
attention.
    “ Why us?” Heather asked
again, this time in a louder, more insistent voice.
    As if to say, “You’re right, that’s the
question,” Delphie nodded.
    “ Okay,” Jacob said. “We
don’t know why. What do we know?”
    As if he’d held a match to dry kindling,
everyone started talking at once. They talked without stopping or
even noticing that anyone else was talking. It was as if all of the
unsaid words needed to be said at that very moment. Jacob held his
hands up, palms facing them, to get them to stop. No one stopped
talking. They continued talking all at once until they were done.
The room fell back into a heavy silence.
    “ We know
that . . .” Delphie started. She looked around the
room and smiled. “We know that we have each other.”
    “ Is it enough?” Sandy
asked.
    “ It’s more than enough,”
Delphie said.
    “ Are they calling Sandy
and the others back to them to destroy them?” Aden
asked.
    “ No,” Delphie said. “I’d
be surprised if the serpents have given them much
thought.”
    “ Then why do we feel this
way?” Jill asked.
    “ Because you do,” Delphie
said. “If your friends at Pete’s had been at the Sea of Amber and
seen all of those people freed, they might feel the same
way.”
    “ So they feel like they
have to fix things because they were there?” Jeraine
asked.
    “ No,” Tanesha shook her
head. “We feel this way because . . .”
    “ We killed those
serpents,” Jill said.
    Heather and Sandy nodded. Jill’s words held
such finality to them that the men’s heads moved up and down in an
unconscious nod.
    “ You’re going to destroy
the serpents,” Aden’s voice rose as if he were asking a question
but his face indicated he was stating a fact.
    “ No,” Heather said. “We
are not going to destroy them.”
    The room fell silent and everyone turned to
look at her. She gave a slight smile and looked at each of her
friends.
    “ We are not going to
destroy an entire species,” Heather said.
    “ We’re not?” Jill
asked.
    “ No.” Heather shook her
head.
    “ I thought we
were . . .” Tanesha started. “You’re
sure?”
    Heather nodded.
    “ Then what the fuck are we
doing?” Jill’s voice rose with frustration. She immediately shook
her head. “I’m sorry. The boys are babies, and Katy and Paddie
and . . . I can’t . . . I
just . . .”
    “ Alex Hargreaves said that
the serpents hold grudges,” Heather said. “Remember?”
    Sandy, Tanesha, and Jill nodded.
    “ We’re going to end the
grudge,” Heather said. “For us and for Alex. She and her people
have done so much for us. If we do this for anyone, we should do it
for them.”
    “ But how?” Tanesha said.
“If we capture them, we’d have to guard them. I don’t want to spend
my life guarding some dumbass serpents! I have med school to
finish.”
    “ If you destroy them, you
run the risk of them tearing the fabric of the world,” Delphie
said.
    “ Fabric of the world?”
Jeraine asked.