Page 14 of Hunted By Fae

Tesni throws me a frowned look. “E.coli.”

“Oh.” I nod, but the correction doesn’t quite land. Not while I work through my breaths slowly easing the ache in my chest. “E.coli.”

Then I flinch—

Ramona shrieks a squealing sound, “Am I the only one who wants to knowwhat the fuck just happened?”

THREE

TESNI

Ramona’s question hums in the air like static, but the only answer she gets is silence.

No one speaks—because no one knows what happened.

No one except me.

Slowly, I peel myself off the ground. My limbs are heavy and aching from the fall, my legs are numb and tingly from being folded over too long, and I’m pretty sure I chipped my kneecap on landing.

A strange sense of detachment is what keeps me calm, like my soul and mind have been tugged out of my body.

Even my own voice sounds far away to my own ears: “The radio.”

Gazes swerve to me, silent, expectant.

Louise arches a tinted eyebrow, once black, now middle-of-your-period-red, and asks, “What?”

“The radio,” I parrot the word, as if to myself, then turn on my heels—and run.

My run is hobbled and sore, a limp that slows me down, but I push through it.

Urgency ripples over the others. Dirt is kicked up, crushed under turning boots, and the girls are quick to follow.

The rapid pummel of footsteps hitting hard, dried earth chases me through the sea of litter, dropped belongings, bodies.

I don’t look at the faces of the dead.

Not even as I reach the one who moaned, who twitched, who choked on his own blood, and who reached out for me.

His gurgles and whimpers and flinching hands are no more.

Now, it’s just a pair of vacant eyes staring up at the clear sky, and from his lips is a stagnant trail of blood.

I jump over him, hearing the yelps and squeals behind me, the girls just now seeing the bodies of those caught in the stampede.

Louise gives a guttural sound, a sickly groan, before Bee shouts, “Leave them! Just go!”

I charge for the hood of the truck, and as my middle smacks into it, and a grunt punches through me, I hear a cry behind me.

I throw a wild look over my shoulder.

Ruby stands just an arm’s reach from the guy I was making out with earlier. Her hands are firm on her face, hiding her mouth, muffling the rest of her cry.

The huff I release is something like relief.

I don’t know if I expected the cry to mean something else, like another stampede headed our way, or even to be one of hope, like to glare of ambulance lights are emerging from the horizon.

But it’s just the dead guy.