Page 75 of Fractured Fates

All I want to do is run away. Right now I’d risk the stupid Wolves of Night just to be rid of this place. But I can’t. I’m trapped. I can’t go anywhere without Pip.

I wipe my face with my palms and watch as the lights on my phone die and it lies still on the floor once more.

Then I jump up. I can’t sit here feeling sorry for myself. Not when Pip is missing. I need to find him.

There’s one place we haven’t searched properly. The forest behind the dormitory. Mainly because I was convinced my pet had been stolen and wouldn’t go bumbling off into the scary woods without me. Winnie hadn’t exactly been keen to go snooping about the forest either.

“It gives me the serious creeps,” she’d whispered in my ear as we’d searched the perimeter. “There're all sorts of tales about goings on in there.”

I’d rolled my eyes at her then and I roll my eyes again now, as I switch on the torch on my phone and walk around the dormitory building and through the first few trees of the forest.

Once I’m under the heavy boughs, though, the light of the moon hidden and the sounds of campus muted, I’m not so sure of my earlier skepticism.

This place is pretty darn spooky. I’ve spent years living in various forests. I’ve camped out and hidden in them multiple times. I’ve never felt afraid before.

But it’s the pitch blackness and eerie silence of this place that I don’t like. Plus the feeling that I’m being watched. Perhaps even followed. I spin around suddenly, the beam from my phone swishing through the trees, sure there is someone behind me, certain I heard the snapping of twigs underfoot.

There’s nobody there though.

I’m letting this stupid college and these people crawl inside my mind and mess with me.

I cup my hand around my mouth and call Pip’s name. The sound of my voice reverberates off the solid tree trunks, echoing back at me and for a moment I’m stunned by how much my own voice sounds like my aunt’s. It’s almost as if she’s calling me now, like she did multiple times, calling me in for dinner, calling to me to tell me the coast is clear.

I close my eyes. I can’t lose them both. Not my aunt and Pip. He’s my only connection to home now, to the family I’ve lost.

I trek deeper through the trees, trying not to notice how they become denser, crowding closer and closer together until soon I seem to be squeezing through the gaps in the trees.

Bark scrapes against my legs and branches catch in my hair. I keep going, calling Pip’s name over and over again.

My phone beeps twice in my hand. A message from Winnie most probably. I ignore it. If she’d found Pip, she’d know to call me.

As I trek deeper, the silence that had drowned me is pierced by the creatures of the forest. An owl hoots low over my head and something scrabbles in the undergrowth near my feet. The wings of a bird crack and I could almost believe I hear the distant howling of a wolf.

I stop, leaning my weight against a tree. I haven’t eaten all day and I’m hungry and light-headed, my footsteps heavier and requiring more effort than normal.

“Pip,” I call out desperately. “Pip, are you here?”

What if I’m wrong? What if it wasn’t a human who stole him? What if it was one of the creatures who live in this wood?

I should never have left him outside on his own. Unguarded, defenseless, gullible as hell.

In desperation, I tap into my power. It won’t help me find my pig. But I’m desperate. Maybe I can bend it, manipulate it, force it to find Pip for me.

As soon as I release the doors holding my tracking power, it floods into my mind and I know immediately there’s someone here, someone with me in the darkness.

Without warning, I spin my torch around, pivoting 360 degrees on the spot. The light flickers through the trees. But once again there’s no one there.

Except there is. I can feel them. Close. Close enough that the beam of my torch should pick them out.

“I know you’re there!” I call out, lifting my hand, ready to shoot my power at whoever is lurking there in the shadows.

Immediately, I’m slammed hard against a tree, my back and my head thumping hard against the solid bark.

I grunt and try to struggle free, but I’m caged, caged by a warm solid body.

I blink, all I can see are the dark trees of the forest. There’s no one there. Yet I can feel them, feel their body pressing against mine, feel their presence buzzing in my magic.

“Get off me,” I say, struggling against the body restraining me, but they grip my wrists, pinning them above my head, and I can’t twist my hands around to blast them with my magic. Something sharp tugs in my stomach as I try to wriggle free, the fingers at my wrist only gripping tighter, digging into my flesh.