Page 105 of Hunted By Fae

Even I struggle with that sometimes, my comprehension not quite able to grasp it.

But Emily doesn’t know any of that.

So I’m not unprepared when she asks, “How did one of themrecogniseher? From where? How?”

“It doesn’t matter. It only matters that he did. Bee worries he’s going to go after her, and she made it clear that’s not a good thing.”

She blinks at me, stupid. “Why would…What?”

“We need to leave the hospital,” I say firm. “We need to leave the others behind. Bee will contact us when it’s time—and we’ll sneak out to meet her. But we can’t be here when that dark fae tracks her scent to this hospital. Do you understand?”

Her scent isn’t in the hospital yet—but I’ll make sure the walls reek of her before we leave.

Emily just stares at me for too long.

It’s a lot.

I know, because I lived this moment.

To be fair, Bee did dump a lot more information on me than what I unload onto Emily. Bee was gentler about it, kinder, even. Maybe I should’ve softened it a bit.

Emily takes a while.

Much of that time, she frowns at me, studies me, shakes her head, looks for a bloody patch on my skull that has rendered me mad. Finally, she turns her cheek to me and looks out into the darkness.

The blackout is broken. Splintered.

There is fresh fire blazing far in the distance.

That’s the unit Bee was tracking.

We don’t need to be worried about them. They’re far from here, and the fire won’t leave the boundaries of their area.

How?

Don’t ask me.

I just understand their fire to be… different. Magical somehow, like it can’t stray too far from its source or something.

“If we leave the others behind…” Emily’s starting to process things, work through the tangled thoughts that stupefied her mind, “and there is a warrior that comes here to look for Bee… then what you’re saying is we leave everyone here for the warrior to find?”

I don’t answer that.

“We leave them behind?” she presses.

I bite down on the insides of my cheek.

Her voice hitches, “We don’t even warn them… we just leave them here?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“You can’t be serious, Tess. What the fuck are you talking about?”

I turn a blank look on her.

Her eyes are full, brimmed with outrage, her mouth twisted into a snarl of disgust—and it’s all aimed at me.

“We know these people. Carlos is Bee’s—”