My Three Little Daisy Buds Part Two
Maria dropped Rose and the twins off at Roman’s house, which was small enough not to garner attention, and in a quiet neighbourhood far enough away from the city’s centre. Roman’s enemies and allies congregated downtown, so he made sure his most personal possessions stayed nowhere near there.
Rose found a pizza in the freezer to make for the twins for dinner. They now had a system where Rose would prepare anything that required the stove or sharp knives, and the twins would help with anything Rose deemed safe. That mostly meant setting the table.
It had been a shock when she had to learn how to feed herself and two five-year-olds over the past couple of months. At home, her parents did the cooking while Rose and her brother annoyed them. With Roman, she quickly realized he was less equipped than she was to care for children. He wasn’t even thirty yet and had made do in the past by buying premade meals or dining at high-class restaurants.
Rose suspected that the twins hadn’t had many good meals in the month and a half they lived with Roman before Rose came along. Not that the meals were much better now, but Rose was trying her best. She was only fourteen, but she already felt years older. Not in wisdom, but in exhaustion.
Would it be better to have Gwyneth here than in a human foster home? Rose really didn’t know, but she knew how humans could treat Supernaturals. That had always been her people’s greatest issue with humans—how terribly they treated anything that was different from them. And Gwyneth probably didn’t even understand what she was, not exactly. Those were dangerous lessons for a young Supernatural to learn by herself.
Even now, Rose worked to stifle Lorelai and Jasper’s flares of magic. Touching a hot pan meant the curtains went up in flames. Accidentally shattering a plate on the floor meant the sink water rose and levitated before pouring all over the kitchen floor. Rose had to quickly undo the damage while dampening the twins’ hold on the magic around them. Soon, her dampening skills would stop the twins before they did anything unusual, and that would eventually teach them to hide it, too. But Rose was all they had from being discovered. She would be all Gwyneth had too.
After dinner, Rose sat down with the twins to do whatever kindergarten homework they had, before getting them ready for an early bedtime. She was ready to sleep too, but before Rose could even make it to her bedroom, the front door opened.
Roman was the type of man who was good-looking and knew it. Rose had seen him use his charms multiple times to get what he wanted, whether it be access to a club he wasn’t a part of or information that he shouldn’t know. But the truth was, even though Roman had the ability to be cunning, he was a big baby underneath all his charm and schemes.
He threw tantrums when he didn’t get his way. He sulked after being scolded by Director Abba.
But Rose realized very quickly that this time was different.
Roman slammed the door shut as he locked eyes with Rose from across the room.
She had never seen him this angry. And never this angry at her.
Before Rose could comprehend anything, Roman was across the room and backhanded her across the face.
Pain blossomed from Rose’s entire head, and tears sprang unbidden from her eyes. The hit was so hard that she stumbled backwards and barely caught herself on the living room couch.
“My house is not an orphanage!” Roman bellowed. “How dare you make a deal with Georgina without talking to me first!”
Then he backhanded her again, across the other cheek.
Rose did fall then, slamming her side into the corner of the coffee table. She couldn’t help but cry out from the pain.
Rose always knew Roman wasn’t a good man, but she never imagined he would hit her like this. Like it was a lesson.
He trained her sometimes, in combat and thieving and weapons and spying and anything else he thought of. Sure, Rose got hurt sometimes, but she never thought he meant to. Not like now.
Through her blurry vision, Rose made out two small figures at the top of the stairs. She didn’t want Lorelai and Jasper to see her like this. To see their father like this.
“Roman,” she croaked pathetically. “I’m sorry—”
But he already turned away, grabbing a lamp and hurling it at the wall. A scream escaped from the top of the stairs, but before Roman could turn his attention to the twins, Rose sprinted forward. In one blink, her supernatural speed carried her to the twins, and she picked them up before running into their room and locking the door. She soothed the wild flares of energy circling their bodies, binding it tightly inside of them, while forcing her own body to erase the bruises forming on her face.
Lorelai and Jasper both gasped before crying uncontrollably again.
“Rosie?” Lorelai choked out.
Rose didn’t know what Lorelai meant when she spoke her name, but she just held both of them tighter before bringing them back to bed.
The three of them huddled on the same mattress, Rose’s arms wrapped around both of them as she tried to murmur sweet nothings to get them to sleep. But her heart wouldn’t stop thundering. Even now, she thought she could hear the faint sounds of more glass shattering and drunken cursing from downstairs.
Unlike the twins, Rose took a long time to fall asleep.
Georgina tried her best to keep her heart unfeeling, but Rosella seemed intent on challenging that. True, it was Georgina’s job to assist, or at least investigate, the Supernaturals in this country, especially regarding their connections to humans. And a Fae murdering a human husband was a very valid connection.
Georgina’s mother’s voice came back to haunt her with her guard down like this.
Don’t get attached. Caring is for the weak. Emotions only get in the way.
And despite Georgina’s hatred for her long-dead mother, this was one area she was right about.
Maria’s voice snapped Georgina back into the present.
They were at the police station. Georgina’s contacts told her that Mary Dare would be moved from the holding cell tomorrow morning, most likely taken straight to prison. The idiot woman confessed, not to mention was found covered in her husband’s blood.
Georgina had already saved too many Supernaturals in her time as the Operations Director of Black Ridge. Some of them did turn out to be Georgina’s most trusted agents, Maria included, but sometimes she had trouble seeing the lines. Like, when did she step in to help a Supernatural versus a human? Should her priority be her own race? Or the Supernaturals? She’d already gotten Rosella’s cousin out of trouble so many times that she lost count. Not that Rosella knew that. But Josi Marc was the daughter of one of Georgina’s oldest friends, who stupidly married the most Supernatural of all the Supernaturals.
“You should stay out here, Maria,” Georgina finally said. “I need to see Mrs. Dare alone.”
In a busy police station, Maria couldn’t outright ask if Georgina was sure, so she just gave her a look. Georgina gave her a stiff nod back, trying to convey confidence.
You couldn’t buy the type of loyalty Maria displayed these past two years. Georgina didn’t know what she would do without her, especially when it seemed like Maria always knew what Georgina needed without her having to say anything. Sometimes she wondered if Maria could read minds, or if her intuition was just that good. Georgina wouldn’t be surprised either way.
After giving her young assistant one last look, Georgina followed one of her local police contacts to the interrogation room where Mrs. Dare was waiting for her.
Walking inside, Georgina finally understood what Rosella meant by the effects iron had on the Fae. Mary Dare looked sickly, with hollowed-out cheeks and chapped lips. But there was a defiance about her. She did not shrink away from Georgina’s stare.
Georgina took the seat across from her and waited until they were alone before speaking.
“Mrs. Dare,” Georgina said icily, “I am a representative with the Supernatural-relations organization in this country, and I have a few questions for you.”
The female looked young, like she was in her early thirties or even twenties, but Georgina knew how Faeries aged differently from humans. She could be centuries old for all Georgina knew.
“I know who you are, Director Georgina Abba,” Mary’s voice rasped. “And I know why you are here.”
Georgina did everything she could to not show a reaction to the Faerie knowing her name. But of course she would. Black Ridge may be secret to humans, but many Supernaturals knew the parts of government in charge of dealing with them.
“Alright, then let us begin. Did you mean to kill your husband, Nicolas Dare?”
Mary didn’t even blink. “Where is my daughter?”
“If you answer my questions, I’ll answer yours.”
“Fine. Yes, I did mean to kill him. Now where’s Gwyneth?”
“So you admit to murder?”
Mary gave her a scowl, as if Georgina were the idiot. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Georgina kept her gaze steady and voice even. “Then why?”
Mary Dare finally showed some emotion—guilt, hatred, grief, and something else.
“If you know what I am, then you must be wondering why I married him in the first place.”
Mary looked incredibly young at that moment.
“My name is actually Maeris. My family—no, my brother is very highly regarded at home, and so I grew up in the High Courts, apart from the freedom of the usual Fae. Nicolas was a young and foolish man looking for adventure when he visited Faerieland. My brother wanted to enslave him, but I was also young and looking for adventure. And just like Faerieland is mystical to you humans, the human lands were mystical to me. Nicolas promised me more fun than I could ever dream of. I thought I had him in my debt, being his saviour against my brother, but that idiot thought he was saving me.
“Nicolas brought me to his family farm, where his aging parents had deteriorated significantly in his absence. They died not long after we married, and quickly after that, we had our son, Tucker. We faeries don’t experience time the way you humans do, so those short years still felt like a brilliant adventure to me. I learned about farming and your strange animals and little human children. And then came Gwyneth, my beautiful baby girl, and we were happy, the four of us.”
Georgina found herself leaning forward and quickly righted herself.
“Now I’m not sure if my brother had been looking for me,” Maeris continued, “or if he sent someone after me, but Nicolas sure thought so after…”
She trailed off, looking lost and alone in her memories.
Georgina spoke softly. “After?”
Maeris snapped back, and it was like a beast was released inside of her. Her face grew stormy, and she was visibly vibrating.
“My babies are half-fae, and Faerie children are meant to roam and wander! I told Nicolas that! So when Tucker and Gwyneth went to the little pond, as they often did, and I was in the garden… I don’t know what actually happened— but Nicolas blamed me and my folk! I-I didn’t get there in time, and then it was too late!”
Rage laced every inch of Maeris’s voice. “I felt something pull at me, and then I heard my babies screaming. The Fair Folk are fast—I am fast—but by the time I got to the pond, Tucker was beneath the water, and Gwyneth was screaming on shore. I jumped in and searched for his body… He was in the deepest part, stuck in the weeds. I brought us up and screamed until Nicolas found us. My baby boy… my baby boy was dead, and Nicolas blamed me! He was convinced it was the Fae, taking out their revenge on him because he stole me away!
“He was such a stupid delusional man, and I said as much—the Fae don’t kill their own children, and Tucker was half of me! The Fair Folk don’t concern themselves with stupid revenges on childish humans! I was no locked-up princess, and he was no knight. A century spent with a human is only a blip to us, and I am sure my brother thinks I will return after my hunger for adventure is sated. But Nicolas wouldn’t listen to anything but his own dumb thoughts, and instead of letting me speak, he would lash out at me.”
Maeris put her cuffed hands on the top of the table, and Georgina barely swallowed her gasp. The skin under and around the metal was red and peeling. But Maeris pointed to her arms where Georgina could see faint white lines—lash marks.
“That stupid human rediscovered all the tales that he used to find Faerieland to now hurt me so I would ‘remember my place.’ I made sure my baby Gwynie wasn’t around to see, but I was sure he only needed a couple of sessions to get the anger out of his system. I was wrong. My husband was like all you stupid humans, and thought my Fae blood meant I was no better than an animal. Like those dogs you slaughter when they have no more use.
“This morning I… snapped. My baby was at that dumb thing called school, so her perfect face couldn’t stop me from giving Nicolas everything he gave me—pain and suffering and humiliation.”
A pang of sympathy hit Georgina. She was suddenly very glad Maeris had rid the world of Nicolas Dare. And that Gwyneth Dare had Rosella looking out for her now.
“Not all humans are like Nicolas,” Georgina said softly. “But many men are.”
Maeris looked at her in surprise. “You believe me?”
It broke Georgina’s heart—at least, the little she had left—that Maeris assumed the worst of humans. She wanted to bring Nicolas back to life just to kill him again.
“I do, but I don’t know if I can get you out of here. I can try to pull some strings, but you already admitted to being guilty. The only thing that could save you is that it was self-defence.”
“I don’t care about getting out of here.”
Georgina was taken aback. “But the iron— Your wrists—”
“It could kill me, yes,” Maeris said calmly, like they were talking about the weather. All the fight from earlier was gone. “And it very well might, but if I get out, where will I go? If I go home, I must take my baby, and after my family learns of what that human of mine did, they will never accept her. And I can’t take care of her in these human lands. I don’t understand them. I can’t endanger my little daisy bud like that. She will be safest wherever you have her now, and she can only stay there if I remain here.”
There were a hundred better scenarios that Georgina could think of, but she had a feeling that a Faerie mind worked differently than hers.
“You don’t think I would help you and your daughter if you got out? Or that your family would accept both of you back, since, as you said before, Gwyneth is still half-faerie?”
Maeris shook her head. “You humans cannot help me. What happens when you die, and I am still alive in these lands? Who will protect my baby and me then? And my family is not like a human’s. When Oris sees what Nicolas did to me, he and his mistress will think Gwyneth is tainted. If I die in here, Oris may one day find out I had a child and come looking for her. He will accept her because he won’t know the actions of her father. The knowledge will die with me.”
Georgina decided not to point out that she knew the truth, too. It didn’t really matter since this was just one more secret she would take to her grave.
Finally, Georgina nodded. “So you want to stay in prison where you will die?”
Maeris lifted her chin. “We Fae don’t view death like you mortals. It does not frighten me; it must be done.”
Georgina nodded again and got up. “Then I will leave you to your decision.”
“You never told me where Gwyneth is.”
Georgina paused. “She’s living with another Supernatural, a Princess of Magic.”
Maeris gaped. “The Princess? And how do you know her?”
“She’s also in my care.” Well, she was in Pizarro’s, but details didn’t matter right now. “Your daughter is safe, Maeris.”
Maeris nodded and then gestured to the door. “Thank you. Be on your way.”
Georgina suppressed a chuckle. Faeries still thought they were superior, even one in chains.
