Page 11 of Hunted By Fae

She darts for the bodies sprinkled over the dirt but doesn’t pause to check their faces. Her gaze is sweeping over the bodies, theoutfits, checking for anything familiar, like the hot pink cowboy hat.

I take a different strategy, and bring my hands to my face. I cup my mouth, as though it’ll increase the volume of my incoming shout—

But I suck in a large, chest-filling inhale before I pause.

A loud groan comes from the pyramid of portaloos.

I jerk at the sound.

Tess is further up the way now, trying the handles of the portables.

I turn my gaze up at the pyramid. “Hello?”

I don’t know what caused the groaning sound. If it’s the unsteady stack threatening to fall, or the bowing of plastic setting in… or someone stirring within one, trapped, not yet sure it’s safe to come out.

I drop my hands. “Louise?” I inch towards the trio of toppled portables. “Ruby? Ramona…?”

The door rattles.

I loosen a ragged breath—and drag my gaze up to the third portaloo, the one toppled on the two others, the peak of the pyramid, the one out of my reach, that’s the one with the rattling doors.

There’s a choked grunt, like a sudden release of oxygen and a hissed, “Get the fuck off me, I can’t breathe,” that sounds so much like Louise, but at the exact same moment, Ramona’s voice calls out, “We’re in here! Bee! The door’s stuck—ow, that’s my foot, bitch!”

I scramble for the pile of cubicles and, in a blink, I’m scrambling up them. The plastic groans under my weight, the pyramid trembles, but that doesn’t stop me.

“Tess!” I shout as I hoist myself up. “They’re in here!”

The raining thuds of bootsteps is quick to follow.

But before Tess reaches us, I’ve scaled to the top—and I see what’s trapping the girls in there.

On the door, is another one. Another door from another cubicle. Well, apieceof it at least, and it’s wedged into the handle on one side, and the other end is crammed into the gap between two loos.

“Well…fuck.” A huff sags me. “I see it!” My shout is chased by the thuds of boots climbing the plastic pyramid. “We’ll get you out of there, it’ll take a minute.”

I glance back at Tesni.

She’s crouched down at the bottom of the spare door, eyeing it over. “We’ll have to lift it first, then slide it out of the wedge.”

I squint against the sun turned up at full dial.

The heat is scorching me again, and I almost wish for the return of the flocks just to ease some of the burn.

I sigh something weak and exhausted, then flex my grip on the edge of the door as best as I can with clammy hands.

“Ready?” Tesni shouts up at me. “Lift!”

The background noise is a hum and murmur from inside the cubicle before I hear the familiar hiss of Louise’s chiding, “Just stop stepping on my fucking knee. I swear you’ve bruised my ribs already!” and Ramona’s snarled response, “Bitch, I was blacked out—give me a fucking break.”

My chin tugs with a grimace.

I’d hate to be in there with them.

Probably all toppled and turned around, upside-down and sideways in a literal shitbox.

“Slide!” Tesni’s shout snaps me back. “To the right, pull it to the right!”

My fingers are gripped onto the door so tight that red and white blotches appear on my knuckles. My skin squeaks, too sweaty, over the thick plastic.