Going Against the Grain

By no means did Sakura think that finding Summerland would be a simple task. After all, they were searching for an ever moving portal that would lead to a magical land in a different realm that only the fae had access to. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack on the back of a wagon that was careening off of the side of a cliff.

But this was starting to get ridiculous.

They had traveled through dozens of villages and towns over the span of weeks, and not a single person she spoke to had ever so much as heard rumor of a man disappearing and returning months later insane.

It made no sense.

Obviously the fae were still around—she was with two of them—and they preferred human men to reproduce with. Considering the fae were not monogamous beings, there would be no reason to keep the men in Summerland once they served their purpose.

They had to go somewhere.

But where?

“You need to stop obsessing.”

Sakura was brought out of her thoughts and she turned her head, resting her opposite cheek on Ren’s chest and stared at the man who still appeared to be sleeping. “How do you know I’m obsessing?”

“Because I can read your mind.”

She raised a brow, not so convinced. “Is that right? So, what am I thinking now?”

One eyelid slid open to look down at her. “That I’m full of shit. And that you’re hungry, and you’re hoping that I’ll make breakfast.”

Oh.

The man was good.

“Lucky guess,” she huffed.

“It wasn’t a guess. All you’ve done for weeks is wring your hands over all these human men like it’ll change something. Instead of worrying over things that make no difference, you need to start worrying about the important things.” Ren raised his head off the grass, cracking his neck and rolling it back and forth in an attempt to work out the knots. “Like getting us a tent to sleep in so we’re not sleeping outside on the ground every night.”

“How is this only my problem?”

He glowered at the woman, as if it had all been apart of her wicked plan. “Because you’re the one who had Maggie enchant only one of the ribbons with a tent. This is all fine and dandy for you considering you’re taking advantage of me and using my body, but I’m getting real tired of breaking my back on the cold, hard ground while you live a life of luxury. It’s time for you to take responsibility and right your wrongs. Get me somewhere comfortable to sleep.”

She crept a little further onto his chest, challenging him with a beguiling smirk. “Well, if you weren’t always so needy then we could sleep in the tent with Ivy and Zero.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon.” The man wrapped his arms around her waist, keeping her trapped, and laid his head back down to the earth, closing his eyes and resigning himself to uncomfortable sleeping conditions.

We all make sacrifices. This would just have to be his.

Sakura studied the man. He was always so laid back, willing to just go with the flow and take things as they came. He had told her to stop obsessing, but that wasn’t who she was. “Why do you think no one has ever heard of anyone going missing and then coming back? Do you think the fae are actually keeping them permanently?”

Ren yawned. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

Once again, her thoughts were going a mile a minute and there would be no stopping them. “What if they’re killing the men after they’ve served their purpose? It wouldn’t be hard to do. They’re completely at the fae’s mercy. They wouldn’t fight against them.”

“If you’re trying to seduce me, there are better ways to go about it.”

“Or maybe the fae are all dead.” She paused, ruminating on the possibility. “Maybe Ivy was one of the last ones, and that’s why she was on the land. Maybe that’s why Zero was born. The fae are always women, but if their race was on the verge of being wiped out, maybe they can create a man to repopulate it?”

The man sighed, seeing no end in sight. “That makes absolutely no sense. Are you even listening to yourself?”

She wasn’t. “Maybe that’s why Zero wants to find Summerland? But a fae has to create the portal, and he’s not making one, he’s following one that’s already open. So there has to be other fae.” The demon looked up at the angel with wide-eyed frenzy. “Didn’t you say before that you heard about men being found completely insane after going missing? Where did you hear about it?”

“I dunno. Somewhere. Who knows? Maybe I made the whole thing up.” Ren laughed as he took a slap to his shoulder. “What does it matter? Finding someone who’s heard of it happening isn’t going to change anything. Zero knows the way, just go with it.”

Sakura was silent, knowing that arguing her point wasn’t going to change his mind. Not that she necessarily wanted to or that she fully understood herself why it was so important to her to find out about these men. Ren was right, it made no difference and changed nothing. But there was something in her that nagged and picked and demanded she figure it out. It was something she couldn’t just let go of.

The man opened his eyes once more and looked down at the woman. “You’re not just gonna go with it, are you?”

He knew her well. “Probably not.”

“Of course you’re not.” He stole a quick kiss before his fingers dug into her sides, making her yelp and squirm away. “Get up, get dressed, wake the kids, and I’ll make breakfast. We gotta hurry so you can interrogate and harass the people in the next town. Can’t let them get away, now can we?”

However, the woman’s desire to question anyone was staunched before they even made it into the town a few hours later.

“What do you think happened?” Ivy questioned quietly, watching a short distance away from the large, mourning crowd as a dozen funeral pyres were lit in succession outside of the town’s limits.

“With all of those bodies, maybe an accident?” Ren glanced at the vixen staring intently into the flames. “Or sickness?”

Sakura shook her head. “More than likely they died in some sort of accident. If it was sickness, they wouldn’t have gone through all of this effort to give them proper, individual pyres, and it’d be further out. Either way, it’s not our concern. Let’s stop at the market and get some more food, and we’ll keep moving.”

The group made their way through the town—a somber veil settled throughout the streets—and entered a shop with a variety of provisions on display in the window. A bell jingled to welcome them before a slender woman with eyes as black as her hair and incredibly pale skin slunk out of the backroom to assist them.

“Are you travelers?” she asked, her voice deep and unhurried, as nimble fingers bagged and weighed each order.

“We are,” Ren replied with a polite smile.

“What direction are you heading?”

He opened his mouth to answer before realizing he didn’t know, and turned to look at the boy across the shop with his back turned towards him, examining different pots and pans hanging on the wall.

“Southwest,” Zero informed as he tapped his finger against the cast iron.

Ren turned back to the shopkeep with a shrug. “Southwest.”

“You’ll want to be careful when you go.” Her infinitely dark eyes settling on his sapphire ones. “There’s a pest in those woods along that path that’s very dangerous. They’ve been trying for months to exterminate it, but haven’t had any luck. I’m not sure how many people its killed now, but its been a lot.”

“There was a mass funeral on the outside of town coming in from the east. Did the pest have to do with those deaths?”

She nodded. “Twenty men went out there a few days ago, but only eight came back. It took a couple of days to retrieve the bodies. I think their next plan is to bring in more men from the neighboring towns and villages, possibly the city, and attempt to overwhelm it with larger numbers.”

“It’s a spike, isn’t it?” Sakura visibly perked up. “A big one.”

The shopkeep looked at her with surprise. “It is. How did you know?”

“Cause I’ve never heard of any other pest being able to kill that many men at once. But spikes can.” The woman looked up at the man beside her with a grin. “You remember that one far up in the valley?”

Ren chuckled at the memory. “Yeah. I was supposed to kill it, but you were under it before Raz could even think to tell you to sit your ass down. Wasn’t that one his last straw, and after that you weren’t allowed to go with us anymore, and you started working with Okag and Torg?”

“Yeah.” She scowled, still bitter. “Raz never let me have any fun.”

“You just never knew when to stop.”

“Whatever.” Sakura looked back at the woman with a wild hunger in her eyes. “Whoever is making the plans for the extermination, tell them not to worry about it. I’ll take care of it on our way out.”

The shopkeep placed the bags on the counter and gawked at the demon oozing with confidence. “Kill it? You?”

“Me.”

“But how?”

“The same way I’ve killed all the other ones.” A savage smile crept across the fox’s face. “I’ll slice the tender part of its throat open, crawl in, and stab its brain.”

The dark-haired woman stared in horror at the demon and her insane plan. “Why would you do that?”

“It’s the only way to kill them. Their skin’s too tough to cut through, except for the bottom of their neck.” Sakura ran her nail down from her chin to in-between her collarbones, explaining the route. “You have to get under them and cut that open, but their brain is still too far to reach, so you have to wiggle your way through their innards to get to it. It’s messy, but quick and easy. How much do we owe you?” she asked as she grabbed the bags and began putting them in her pack.

The shopkeep shook her head slowly. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” She leaned across the counter, keeping her gaze steady with Sakura’s. “I’m going to be honest, and I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful, but there’s something wrong with you. I’ve never seen anyone talk about certain death as if it were a child’s game. Even the ones who act cocky still have that shadow of doubt and fear in them. But you don’t, and that’s not right. If you say you’re going to kill that pest, then I believe you, and you can have this food as a thank you.”

Sakura chewed her cheek, observing the woman, carefully picking over her words. “Does that mean I can get some dried fruit for free?”

“It does.”

She could barely contain her joy as she watched the woman fill a bag full of the delectable morsels and hand them over. With a girlish giggle, she skipped from the shop with the bag, not even waiting for her companions to follow as she stuffed one fruit after the other into her greedy mouth. Though she hadn’t felt it right to question a grieving town on any knowledge they may have about men taken by the fae, things were still turning in her favor. Not only did she get to exterminate a more challenging pest, but she got treats out of it as well.

And how sweet they were.

“Sakura!”

The woman paused at the girl’s call and spun around on her heels, realizing for the first time how far ahead she’d wandered from the group.

“I know you’re excited,” Ivy scolded with a scowl that was more adorable than fierce once they had caught up with the vixen, “but you still have to wait for us.”

Sakura popped another fruit in her mouth, not nearly as concerned. “You’d be fine. You’re with Ren. Sooner or later he’d find me.”

The man walked by her, plucking the bag from her hand and tucking it away into his pack before the fruit could all be gobbled down. “Probably not before you kill that spike, so quit running off on your own.”

She rolled eyes but stayed close to the others as they made their way out of the town and onto the southwest path. “I wonder how big this one is,” she mused. “It’s gotta be a monster to take out that many men.”

“Probably,” Ren agreed. “Just try not to make too big of a mess of yourself.”

Zero watched and listened to the man and woman go back and forth, his teeth chewing at his tongue. There was something he wanted to say, but he wasn’t quite sure how to say it. He knew that they would listen, but he would be going against the grain, and there were questions that may come with that that he didn’t know how to answer.

There was a tight squeeze and a gentle tug on the devil’s arm, and he looked down at the fae smiling sweetly up at him.

“You should just say it,” Ivy insisted.

“Say what?” Sakura asked as she looked back at the pair.

Zero stared at the woman, deciding it was now or never. “I don’t want you to kill the pest. I want to do it.”