Page 16 of A Fate of Ice and Lies (Fated #1)

Chapter

Seven

TEDDY

The hills of Colina Verde were shrouded in a bleak, gray mist that almost made my small town look out of focus. It looked nothing like the vibrant town of my youth. Hell, the lively town of only eleven days ago.

Ironically, since this bewildering winter hit, the nights looked more spectacular. As if the stars themselves needed to stand out against the raven sky, reminding us that magic did exist.

Then again, no one on earth ever had to wonder about magic.

Not with the man who paraded himself on our screens with his dragon—an actual real-life dragon—with a head the size of my house, gray and light blue scales, and eyes an almost yellow-orangish color that reminded me of the sun.

This man, who looked very much like a man aside from his pointy ears, fangs, and pristine, alabaster skin, called himself a fae, and on the television, he explained he was from a different realm.

As in there was more than one realm. I should have myself checked out because once the prospect of that settled in my brain, it filled me more with excitement than the initial fear.

A part of me wanted to meet one of these fae to ask the millions of questions that swam through my head daily and add the details to my dream journal, which was quickly developing into a full-fledged story.

I knew there was no possibility we were alone in this big world, but I’d always leaned more on the idea of aliens from space than beings from a different dimension.

And these beings, who were actually fae, looked far more predatory than the dragon who was never far from their commander.

For some reason, Commander Hudson and a considerable number of his followers, or warriors as he called them, were sent to our world to teach us how to survive what he named the endless winter.

While he claimed to be here to help us, I was more inclined to believe he and his kind had caused our current freezing temperatures.

Why else would they be here but to fix their mess? Unless of course, their goal was invasion and conquering. Which honestly wouldn’t be all that hard to accomplish since humankind seemed more inclined to fight each other than the strangers who may very well have set our demise in motion.

I shook my head, clearing it of what I hoped were foolish thoughts. What I was sure Mom would have called my overactive imagination.

I wasn’t sure if I was glad Mom wasn’t here to live through this insistent cold with peculiar and possibly dangerous beings or if I wished she were here to remind me things would be okay.

Because, in my mom’s words, until we were six feet in our grave, we still had a chance, and all we needed was a chance. Already, hundreds of thousands—no, closer to one million people had lost that chance, dying from the frigid temperatures without the necessities to keep them alive.

I pulled my comforting yet strange blanket Ryenne had found on my bed eleven mornings ago closer to my chest as I forced my legs through the snow-drenched ground.

While I wasn’t sure where it came from, I was grateful for the deceptively thin material's warmth. I rubbed my socked hands together to try to warm them while wishing my clothes were made of the same material as the blanket. Or that I’d ever been somewhere other than Texas, somewhere the cold typically lasted longer than a week or two, so I’d have some actual mittens or gloves, a scarf or two, or one of those knitted hats to keep my hair dry and ears warm.

Good thing I was a big fan of boots and had plenty to choose from to keep my feet warm and dry.

At least I wasn’t the only one with strange attire at church that morning.

Because yep, here in Texas, we still went to church on Sundays.

Despite the frozen apocalypse that no one, including our pastor, wanted to call an apocalypse.

But what else did you call an eternal winter with mythical creatures trying to rule us?

Even my long-gone mother couldn’t deny how all signs pointed to the end of our world. Definitely the end of humanity.

After church, where Grandma Richter had prayed fervently for all our souls, I headed into town.

Trudging through the snow had quickly become one of my least favorite activities.

I despised it almost as much as the now empty shelves of Colina Verde Community Food Bank.

Only made worse by the strange footprints I sometimes found when I left my small cabin in the woods.

Footprints I’d never seen before and were far different from what any creature in our “realm” had ever made.

Even Donnie, hunter extraordinaire, couldn’t place the prints.

Still, I walked or sludged my way through the freshly mounting snow to the food bank, hoping some foolishly generous person donated much-needed food for the families who would soon starve.

The fae commander could rattle on all he wanted about our survival, but without food, none of it mattered.

With all his constant talking and barked orders through the screens, he never once spoke about how we’d eat.

Even my woods—that had once been filled with deer, wild boar, and other wildlife—were eerily quiet.

It had been over a week since I last saw a bird, squirrel, or jackrabbit eating from the feeders I put out in my yard.

Over a week since the same people who had donated their food to the food bank had returned to reclaim their supplies.

Understandably, people were scared. I was scared. But rather than helping each other through this drastic weather change, my neighbors had turned on one another.

I didn’t need the news to tell me how crime rates had escalated.

I saw it in my own town, with the store’s windows and doors broken down and the inside torn apart and empty of anything valuable.

People sat on their front porches with a rifle in their hands and hardened looks on their faces.

It wasn’t just the teenagers wreaking havoc on abandoned cars, but adults stealing from the same people they sat next to at church just this morning.

A little over a week—that was how long it’d taken for society to break down.

Eleven days for the lawless mob mentality to rule over human decency.

The footage the commander now showed us was filled with scared people hurting and even killing each other.

While the cold had claimed thousands of lives, we as humans claimed the others.

Yet we considered ourselves the superior breed when we were far worse, far less humane than the four-legged animals.

At least their drive was instinctual, while our motivations were based on greed.

At this point, I wasn’t sure I’d be surprised to find my pastor holding me at gunpoint in my own home for the meager food I had left. If only I’d had time to do some grocery shopping before all this happened, then I’d have something worth stealing.

I was grateful some things hadn’t changed, though.

Even through the destruction of several electrical grids, many homes still had electricity.

Oddly enough, our internet and phone lines still worked.

Whether it was through the fae’s magic or something else, at least it allowed us to stay informed and in contact with each other.

By the time I reached the food bank, three police officers were already standing by the perimeter they’d set up the morning after the snow had started to fall to keep people from breaking into the store.

The same morning they found the body of a dead man inside the store with the door unlocked and the troublesome refrigerator fallen on the floor.

A memory niggled at my brain, but if I was being honest, I was too scared to chase it down and find out the truth. Instead, I leaned on the lie Donnie so easily told and others believed.

I waved at Donnie, who, from a distance, waved back.

Collette stood by the barrier with a vacant look in her eyes. Victoria, her tiny daughter, tucked closely to her side, lifted a hand in greeting. I waved back at her but kept my attention on her mom.

“How are you doing, Ms. Morris?” I asked Collette .

She blinked back at me without replying, but Victoria peered up at me with her big green eyes filled with the same joy she had whenever she saw me. Her grin was sleepy as she held on to her mom’s leg.

I nodded a greeting to the others who waited for some miracle I wasn’t sure would arrive.

They were the reason I showed up at the food bank even though Rita had told me to leave it alone.

But I couldn’t desert the store and the people who needed it when today might be the day food came barreling in.

Although unlikely, it was a possibility I couldn’t turn away from.

“You should go home,” Donnie said when I reached him. “No one has extra food, and if they did, do you really think they’d donate it?”

I quirked up a single brow. “Don’t you get all doomsday on me too. I had enough of that with your grandma at church this morning.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why do you think I demanded to be on shift today?”

I pursed my lips together in thought. “So you could come up with a solution for the pending doom of all creation?”

His lips didn’t bother twitching at my lame joke.

“Has Chief Fort said anything about the government sending someone to help?”

Although I asked the same question every few days, Donnie took his time to consider before he answered.

He inched his face closer to mine. “The commander’s taken over New York,” he whispered.

“The government sent out a couple of thousand SWAT members to regain control.” He peered around to make sure no one could hear him.

“From what I heard, it wasn’t much of a fight.

Between his dragon and fae warriors, they killed all the SWAT members within minutes. ”

I hissed in a harsh breath that hurt my throat. “They killed over a thousand SWAT members?” I asked.

Donnie pinched his lips together and nodded.