Page 10 of Hunted By Fae

His pleading gaze is fixed up at Tesni.

She stares down at him, stuck in a horrified trance. The dazed emptiness in those glass eyes, the slackness of her dumb expression, it’s nothing I’ve ever seen on her before.

“Tess,” I say, gentle, soft. “The others. We need to find them.”

Her brows thread together.

The words are slow to sink in.

But they do.

She nods, firm, and rips her gaze from the dying man.

Her hand slips from my wrist and slides down to thread our fingers together.

A heartbeat pulses between us.

The man on the ground gurgles. His blood is spilling out onto the dirt and the frayed, dried grass. He twitches, his hand flinching, as though to reach out for us, to reach out for help.

But Tesni has eyes only for me.

Her soft, pink mouth parts—but no words come. She just stares at me for a long moment before her words come whispered, hushed, a confession, guilt, “I don’t know where they are.”

My mouth turns inwards.

The bite of my teeth clamps down on the flesh as I look across the dirt field. “I might.”

My fingers tighten around Tesni’s, tangled, before I tug her into a run across the field of dirt.

Bodies are scattered around like litter. Most are motionless, quiet. Some moan and twitch as our boots skitter by.

Tesni has the thought to fish out her smartphone and lift it, checking for signal. There is none. Not out here.

Hours ago, I had to climb the hill to get some signal bars and text my dad.

Help will be coming anyway, with or without us.

There might be dead and mangled people peppered around the dirt field, but enough made it out, most made it to the rows of cars and trucks parked uphill.

At least one person has managed a dispatch call.

I won’t be surprised if I hear helicopters shuddering the skies any moment now.

But my worries aren’t for the injured or the dead.

My concerns aren’t for the purses and wallets and phones that my boots are crashing down on as I race for the row of portable toilets. It’s for my friends, and only them.

So the closer we get, and the thinner the dirt mist becomes, the more my heart sinks.

The portables are scattered all over.

Once a row of a dozen blue, plastic toilet frames, lined up against the barren horizon; now, a mess—like giant hands have reached down from the scorching sky and thrown them around in a violent rage.

Three of them are toppled onto others, a barely balancing pyramid of dented plastic. Four arecrushedunder the weight of the stampede. One is a ramp leaning against a parked, ruined van. The rest are metres away.

I don’t know which one to start with.

Tesni tugs away, her fingers slipping from mine.