Meryl’s jaw fell open. “Wait! You were on the ferry?”
I let my head fall back against the chair. “Yep. The records were sealed because of national security. I’m not supposed to talk about it. Anyway, the Danann dropped us on the stern, then went back to get help. We never saw him again.
“At first, we didn’t know what had happened. Remember, this was ten years ago. No one really thought ‘terrorists’ then. It was in the backs of our minds, though, because of our security job for the diplomatic reception. We didn’t know the reception and the attack were connected until later. The terrorists intended to blow up the ferry in view of the reception because they knew news crews would be filming. The reception was supposed to be outside, and the attack was supposed to happen as the ferry passed, but the terrorists screwed up their communications.
“After the initial explosion, the captain stopped the ferry. Dylan and I guessed something had blown in the hold. People panicked, pushing their way to the port side to get away from the smoke. We tried to keep things calm. We did sendings among the passengers to find more fey to help, but very few were on board that morning. Dylan decided to go to the bridge to find out what was going on. I stayed behind to keep the passengers away from the smoke coming from the starboard side. Then the second explosion went off on the port side.
“Chaos broke out. No one knew where to run, so people were running everywhere. I managed to get the crowd to go to the stern. That’s when the bridge blew. The whole boat shuddered and began to list to port. It was hard to see through all the smoke. People were screaming and crying and fighting over life jackets.
“The next thing I knew, I heard essence-fire. I pushed my way through the crowd midships and found Dylan. Two fairies were attacking him, which confused me. I thought they were panicked or something, or that maybe Dylan had tried to press them into service, and they’d refused. Then they started firing into the crowd, and my instincts took over. I deflected what I could of that first barrage, then flanked Dylan and struck back at them. I was the more aggressive offense fighter, so Dylan let me coordinate our defense.”
I paused, realizing where my need to talk about this had come from. Talking to Dylan, who was on the Pride Wind with me that day, and telling him about the strange attack in the alley had dredged everything up again. Maybe that was why I had gotten so down last night, given how it all ended in New York.
Meryl waited while I gathered my thoughts. “In the middle of all this, Dylan managed to tell me what had happened. The fairies had blocked his access to the upper decks and the bridge. They were lookouts, protecting three druids who were detonating the bombs. Unfortunately for them, preventing Dylan from going up to the bridge saved his life and sealed their own fate.
“When the fight started, anyone who could get away did. We had a large span of the middeck to ourselves. The fight with the fairies was at a stalemate until the druids showed up. They had good coordination and pushed us back toward the stern, where the passengers were.”
I stopped talking but didn’t look at Meryl. She kept silent and let me have the moment. It was at that point in the fight that I’d made my first hard decision. I took a deep breath and continued.
“We were already outgunned, and still another fairy turned up. Six against two with no help coming yet. A couple of low-powered druids and solitaries among the passengers took occasional shots at the attackers, but they weren’t enough. They were civilians. Office workers and families. They’d probably never used their abilities to fight like that in their entire lives.
“I knew Dylan and I couldn’t protect the passengers much longer, so I told him to build an airbe druad behind us. I figured a druid hedge would at least buy us some time and stop the essence strikes from hitting anyone. Dylan couldn’t split his essence to form the hedge and continue the fight. I couldn’t let up my defense to do it myself. I had the command, so I ordered him to use the passengers’ essence. That was hard. I had never drained the essence from bystanders to power my abilities. I had never needed to. It was the lesser of two evils at that point, drain them and hope they didn’t die, or not drain them and watch them die.
“Dylan didn’t hesitate. He trusted my decision and acted on it. He has an amazing command of essence control. Not a single person he tapped that day died from the spell. The entire time, he shot back at the attackers whenever he could. He was incredible.
“I kept firing. I deflected their shots, wove nets of essence out of them and threw it all back at them. They didn’t give me a chance to rest, and I did the best I could to return the favor. We reached another stalemate. I lost all sense of time. I remember wondering why no one came from shore to help. When I saw the case report later, I couldn’t believe that the entire event transpired over twenty minutes from the time the first bomb went off to when… to when it all stopped.
“When I thought it couldn’t get worse, the strangest thing happened. Human normals showed up with guns. They weren’t there to help us. They were with the fairies and the druids. They fired at the airbe druad, trying to kill passengers. But Dylan… Dylan held the hedge. The fey passengers still standing did their best to help him.
“But we were losing. I couldn’t stand much longer by myself. I had been forced all the way back to the hedge. Dylan blazed with essence, keeping the barrier up with one hand and firing at the terrorists with the other. He was burning out. The essence channeling through him was tearing him apart. But he didn’t stop.
“Another bomb went off, the last one, but we didn’t know that then. We both fell to the ground. The druids and the human attackers fell, too. The fairies were airborne and continued firing, pinning us to the floor. I managed to get to my knees.
“Something flew through the air toward me. I thought it was debris. I couldn’t do anything about it without taking my attention off the fairies. Dylan shouted and pushed me out of the way. A second later, I heard this sound, this wrenching groan, come out of him. I knew something was wrong. He was sprawled on his back. It wasn’t debris that had flown by me. It was a knife. A cheap, stupid knife. It had struck him in the chest, right in the heart.”
I stopped speaking again. My face felt warm, my heart pounding in my chest as I remembered the moment. I closed my eyes, steeling myself to finish. I had told the whole thing only once and never said a word about it again, but I needed to finish it for Meryl. And for myself.
“I don’t remember what the terrorists were doing at that moment. I just don’t remember. I wasn’t looking at them anymore. All I saw was this dark red stain pouring across Dylan’s shirt, this dark red stain against a red shirt. The look of horror on his face is etched in my mind forever. I leaned over him. He reached up for me, his hands shaking uncontrollably. I will never forget the shock and fear in his eyes.
“Everything seemed to stand still. Everything seemed to fall away from me, nothing but me and Dylan on a blank white canvas. To this day, I don’t understand how I knew to do what I did, but I must have released a huge pulse of essence into him. The next thing I knew, Dylan gave a strangled gasp. I had stopped his heart, frozen it in place, and shut his whole body down into a deep trance state. My own essence wrapped into his. I felt the pain of the knife, felt what he felt as he lost consciousness.”
I was breathing faster, avoiding looking at Meryl. Heat rushed into my face, and I knew I wasn’t going to be the stoic, emotionless man telling a story. I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again. After another long pause, Meryl shifted in her seat. “It’s okay, Connor. Finish it.”