Page 110 of Hunted By Fae

A pair of socks Bee stole from Em’s bag.

Emily’s boots thud too loud on the hard floor. “Why?”

Out the corner of my eye, I see her light bobbing for the door at the end of the lobby. The guns are tucked under her arm, one semi-automatic rifle, one shotgun.

“In case one of our scents are picked up by a stray—we can redirect them.”

Emily leans her hip into the push-bar, but doesn’t open the door just yet. “Where are we going?”

I stuff the scarf into the chrome bin. “A brewery, up north.”

“A brewery?” The wrinkled doubt on her face is predictable. Emily hasn’t been on in the ‘in’ with our meet-points. “How far away is it?”

The look I throw her is grim. “About a five-hour walk. The energy drink makes more sense now, yeah?”

“Why so far away? Can’t she meet us here, or at least closer—in the city?”

Oh my god, please stop with the questions.

If I have to deal with this the whole way, I’ll throw myself into the path of a stray.

“Bee’s got a head-start. It’ll cost her too much time to round back for us.” I don’t share the particulars, because, “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”

With that, I jerk my chin, and it’s enough for Emily to push her weight into the door. It’s silent as it opens, but heavy, and her boots press into the flooring for a moment before there’s a gap large enough for us to squeeze through.

I steal the shotgun into my gloved grip before I slip through the gap. I take point, and Emily flicks her torch off to shadow me.

The chill of the outside is without its earlier winds. More settled now. But as we trek the streets, the folded map in my pocket for easy access, it isn’t relief that follows us from the lack of winds lashing at us. There’s a silence to it, an uneasy, unsettled feeling creeping over us.

Too quiet.

Too still.

I don’t hear the calls of birds, the distant moans of deer, the groans of cold buildings.

Often, in the quieter moments, the calls of still-surviving nature can be heard. Sure, it’s selective, like I’ve only ever seen one moth in all this time in the blackout, and it flew into Ramona’s face.

I haven’t seen worms or mosquitos since the blackout. But I’ve seen bees and bears and even butterflies, and stampedes of horses, whether wild from the beginning or wild now.

I’ve seen so much still out there.

I wonder about it sometimes.

In the quiet moments where we tuck ourselves away in some hiding spot, and everyone sleeps around me, I hang onto thought, to consciousness, and I let myself wonder if somehow the sun is still shining far above us, if the rays are filtering through the thick blackness and touching the earth, or the darkness itself is changing the world, changing the plants and the animals and the earth, like a rapid evolution, and nature survives it.

How else are there trees still standing, animals still out there, flowers in the warmer seasons?

But then there’s that cactus.

I’ll never get that cactus out of my mind. It was before the dark fae marched down that road, and Ramona was still alive, we were camped out in remote Cali, a barren space, no abandoned houses around, no ransacked shops, with a view in every angle.

I snuck off to find a bit of privacy. A girl’s gotta go, and periods don’t stop in the blackout.

I had my torch with me, and when I squatted behind a bush, and the faint light glossed over a little bunch of cacti, I froze. For a while, I just squatted there, staring at this one cactus, bang in the middle of the other two.

The other two were normal.

Green, prickly.