Page 11 of A Fate of Ice and Lies (Fated #1)

She tossed my blanket at me, so I quickly wrapped it around myself and inhaled.

It smelled foreign yet familiar, with a woodsy scent that made me feel protected.

Which yeah, I get was odd but no stranger than it snowing all over the world in spring.

Did that mean Florida and the Caribbean were getting hit too?

“Do you have your phone?” I asked Ryenne, too content by the fire to get up and get mine from my room.

She waved it in front of my face. “Why?”

“Donnie said it’s snowing everywhere,” I replied. “What about the Bahamas? You know, that cute little island you keep saying you want to go to?”

“Bimini.” She grinned and started typing on her phone. “There’s no way it’s snowing there.”

Her smile fell when she passed me her phone, and yep, there was a news report about the Bahamas and all the Caribbean being affected by the snow.

Planes were being grounded because of low visibility and their inability to land on runways that were not equipped to remove snow.

Port visibility was nonexistent, leaving cruise ships stranded in tumultuous seas fighting the frost. The Coast Guard was flooded with SOS calls from fishing vessels and pleasure boats they couldn’t reach.

So many places and people weren’t equipped to handle these temperatures. Like us in Colina, they lacked the proper equipment to survive. Grids were overwhelmed, causing mass power failures.

When I ran across a blog post about the death count, I turned the phone over and tried to breathe past the unease that tightened my lungs. What on earth was happening? This was...catastrophic.

Her phone vibrated in my hand with a notification that also rang like an alarm.

She crawled closer to me when her phone blackened before YouTube popped up unprompted, and a man appeared on her small screen.

His eyes, an unnatural yellowish-green color, stared back at us before his lips tipped at the sides.

When the screen framed out, I saw a larger reptilian creature that I could’ve sworn was a dragon.

On a hard swallow, I looked back at Ryenne to make sure she was seeing the same thing as me. Her rounded eyes told me she was.

“That’s not a dragon,” she said.

I nodded in agreement.

Because, really, I could only take so much crazy in a day before I institutionalized myself. Or forbade myself from ever reading again.

Donnie sat beside us just as the man on the screen cleared his throat.

“We have a problem,” Donnie said, peering down at his own phone with worry lines wrinkling his forehead.

“Shh,” Ryenne demanded when the man started to speak.

“My name is Commander Hudson,” he said, “and I was sent to your realm to help you acclimate to your new reality.. .”

“Realm?” I questioned.

“Shh,” Ryenne hissed again.

The man droned on. Calling us humans while referring to himself as a fae.

Talking about what he called our endless winter and how it’d brought hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide on our first winter night.

Because of this, he appointed himself as our leader, and why his people, other fae like him, would govern our cities to ensure we each received our food rations.

The footage went on to show city after city, town after town inundated with snow. The snowdrifts buried houses in some places, and people couldn’t get out. There were accidents everywhere, from cars to airplanes. Already, the death toll for the homeless population had reached record highs.

It was a bizarre nightmare. I pinched myself to make sure I was awake and not living out some weird fantasy where the sexy prince would rescue me and cart me away to his pretend fae land and make me his queen.

I was only a little surprised when I didn’t wake up.

“He’s joking, right?” Ryenne asked. “This is all a huge joke. A hoax or something.”

Donnie glared at his phone, his fingers wrapped around it so tightly his knuckles whitened.

“Donnie?”

“Whatever that is”—he waved a hand toward Ryenne’s phone—“doesn’t matter.” He stood abruptly. “Someone was killed at the food bank last night,” he said, not looking at either of us.

I waited for my breath to catch and my heart to thud in reply. Instead, I barely reacted and just blinked back at him. Because I already knew this. Knew a dead man was lying on the floor of the food bank.

Dread rose from the pit of my stomach. To keep my hands from shaking, I wrung my fingers into knots around the fabric of my shirt.

“That’s the shitstorm I need to deal with right now, not whatever this whack-job asshole is talking about,” Donnie continued.

I stood on shaky legs, and when I gripped Donnie’s forearm, he held on to my elbow.

“It’s okay, Ted,” he said, trying to reassure me and squeezing the elbow he still held on to. “You’re safe. No one’s taking over Colina.”

I shook my head and licked my dry lips. “The man who was killed... murdered”—I licked my lips again while I stared hard at Donnie’s shirt—“I knew about it before you said anything. How did I know about it?”

His grip on me tightened. “What do you mean? ”

I tilted my head up enough to examine his thin lips. “How did I know a man had been murdered at the store?” My voice shook.

“You had a crazy night last night, Ted,” he said, his voice low and calm. “You drank too much and have an insane imagination. You’re just getting some details about last night mixed up.”

My eyes burned with the threat of tears, and I shook my head again. “I think I was there, Donnie. I don’t know how to explain it, but I. . .” I felt it in the marrow of my bones. I was there when the man was murdered, and it was my fault. “Did I-I didn’t kill him, did I?”

Donnie pulled me into a hug when my whole body shuddered. He smoothed a hand over my head down to my back. “You know better than that.”

Against his lean chest, I shook my head again. “I was there, Donnie,” I repeated. “I was there. It’s my fault. He’s dead because of me.”

“Stop,” Donnie said firmly. He gripped my arms and gave me a gentle shake before he hugged me again. “Stop it, Ted.”

He held me tighter, letting me fall apart the same way he’d done so many times in the past. I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been there for me, something I was so grateful for.

I wasn’t sure I could survive if something ever happened to him.

I sniffled when he pulled me back, and he kissed my forehead only to blow a raspberry in my hair. That made me huff out a dry laugh.

“Your phone’s cracked,” Ryenne said, suddenly beside me. “It was on the floor of your room, and it has blood on it.” She handed Donnie my phone. “And, Teddy, your car’s not here either.”

Because I hadn’t used my car. I’d? —

“Okay,” Donnie breathed out, his hands on my shoulders. He took my phone and grabbed a small pack of sanitizing wipes from his back pocket. After cleaning the blood from my phone and wiping the whole thing down, he handed it to me. “What time did you get out last night?”

Another shake of my head. “I-I don’t remember anything.” I paused. “People came by with donations after we ran out of food. I stayed to fill the shelves and. . . stock the back room. I don’t remember leaving, though.”

Donnie ran a hand over his chin before grabbing his own phone. He unlocked it, and after a few more swipes, he nodded. “Ryenne texted me just before eleven thirty. It had already started snowing, so I went by the store to pick you up.”

We both stared at the cracked phone. While he’d wiped the blood, I could still see it. I blinked faster to keep the tears away.

“You were still inside the store stocking the back room,” he continued, creating a lie to tell the chief of police. “Because you never listen to me, you left the door unlocked, so I went in and got you.”

“Donnie,” I protested but didn’t continue.

I chewed the inside of my cheek while his eyes traced over my face.

“I didn’t see anyone with you, but that doesn’t mean the man wasn’t already in there.

Possibly two of them. I made sure you locked the door and took you back home.

I stayed the night while you two fools drank yourselves silly in celebration of the snow fight you wanted to have the following morning. ” He forced a smile and tapped my nose.

“It sounds like something you’d both do,” Ryenne said tentatively .

“Why?” I asked, hating the single tear that fell down my cheek.

He wiped it away, and when he held out his arms, I let him hug me again. “Because if you did kill this man, and I’m not saying I think you did, but if you did, it’s because he hurt you. And dammit, Teddy, if he hurt you, I’ll drag him back to life and kill him myself. You understand?” he asked.

“I don’t want you lying for me and getting in trouble,” I replied.

“Rita’s refused to get security cameras no matter how many times Chief Fort’s told her to,” he said with another quick kiss to the top of my head. “There’s no proof this isn’t exactly what happened.”

“Except we know it’s not,” I countered. “Why aren’t you asking why I didn’t call you or the police or something?”

“If you were there, and that’s a big if that I don’t completely believe, and you witnessed whoever the man was with that killed him, or if you had to kill him, or whatever actually happened, you wouldn’t have been in the right frame of mind.

” He ran a hand over my back and then to my shoulders when he stepped back.

“Trauma can really mess up your mind, and that could be why you don’t remember leaving or getting home. ”

I ran my hands over my arms to warm myself. Not that it helped.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay.”

He looked at Ryenne, who nodded in agreement.

“I have to get going.” He grabbed his jacket from where it lay across the couch. It didn’t look thick enough to keep him warm. “I’m gonna walk to the food pantry so I can bring your car back if the weather lets up. ”

“Didn’t you hear what Commander Dickhead said?

” Ryenne asked, her cheeks paler. “You can’t walk in this.

” Her voice took on a shrill tone, and she paused to chew on the side of her thumbnail.

“And you sure as hell aren’t driving in this.

What if you get in an accident and no one can reach you? It’s better if you stay.”

“I can’t stay, Ry.” He said it calmly, but his eyes flared in worry. “I have to get to the food bank and check on things. I have my phone on me.” He waved his phone in the air before he pocketed it. “You can call me every few minutes, and I promise I’ll answer each time.”

When Ryenne nodded, I bit back my retort, not wanting to worry her further. But with power grids failing, how long would it be until we no longer had cell or internet service?

“You answer every time I call,” Ryenne said, her voice firm.

“I promise.” He pressed his palm to his chest. “Keep the fire burning, and if you go outside to play or go into town, call Nate to go with you.”

Ryenne crossed her arms over her chest. “We don’t need a babysitter.”

If I weren’t so shaken, I would’ve rolled my eyes at her, but I managed to smile when she winked at me.

“It’ll make me feel better knowing you’re not alone,” he replied, then smiled his big, mischievous smile. “Besides, I thought you’d want your boyfriend here to help you through the beginning of the apocalypse.”

I barked out a loud laugh, which made his smile grow wider while his sister gaped at him with her lips parted.

“How?”

“Big brother knows everything,” he tossed over his shoulder.

I snorted out another laugh .

“You know you’re my favorite brother?” she said.

More like her only brother, but I got it. He was also my favorite brother, even if I’d had a crush on him once upon a time many, many years ago.

“Donnie,” I called after him. “Be careful out there.”

He snorted, but I saw the wariness in his eyes when he turned back from the front door. “Where do you think I’m headed to?” he teased. “This is still Colina.”

“Yeah, and unless the idiot on our phones is playing a worldwide hoax with some pretty great CGI stuff or whatever they use in movies, we’re now sharing Colina and the world with fae and dragons.”

He drew his brows together. “We’re going to be okay, Ted. You trust me, right?”