Page 140 of Hunted By Fae

The clatter of metal is fast followed by a long, drawn-out scrape. I boost myself up higher, shoving all my weight into the heavy metal, and tilt.

I angle the lid to scrape over the road.

The bone of my forearm throbs. I feel the pulsations of my blood gathering, trapped under the pressure. My groan turns gravelly as, lifting my boot to the next step, I force myself upwards.

The promises of bruises spring all over my flesh.

The manhole drags aside, the loud scrape like the thunderous moans of demons, and I can hear the hissed, cringed response from Bee below.

I drag myself out onto the street above.

Cold presses against my face, icy air wisping its way into my mouth. I suck in the deepest inhale before I roll onto my side once.

The breath is ragged through my lungs as I reach for the torch fastened to my belt. My thumb presses the slide button—and a small gust of wispy white light reaches over the snow.

I angle it around, wall to wall, then down the lane before I announce, “Clear.”

There is a code for it, but the exhaustion has me weakened, and I force all my energy into scooting back until my backpack touches the wall.

I slump.

My hand is deadweight as I lift it, limp and shaky, to the strap of the rifle, then tug it over my head.

I set it down on the ground.

Emily is next to come clambering out of the manhole—but my attention is on the slipperiness of the street. I run my gloved hands over it, the sheen of ice, then drag my gaze wall to wall.

A frown turns down my mouth.

That’s new.

Back in the lane, before we went down into the tunnel system, the ground was slushy. That old, murky kinda snow, but it wasn’t ice.

Now, ice is all I see.

Even as I drag my gaze up the walls of the buildings encasing us, that glisten under the torchlight, I feel like I’ve climbed out of underground tunnels and right into the movie,Frozen. The ice is… odd. Too much.

It has creeped up the walls as far as my measly torch can reach, it has thickened on the slippery floor, like I am surrounded by an imitation of nature.

And why the fuck was slush back on one side of this town, but now I’m surrounded with walls of ice?

Pristine ice, too.

Not a crack on its surface, not a scrape of a boot-scuff. It’s perfect, as if painted by a magical hand, a layer of nature’s varnish, or fucking CGI.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

The clatter of the manhole flinches me.

Bee is last to drag herself out of the hole, her backpack catching on the lid. She wrenches free, then rolls onto her back.

For a moment, she just lays there, shuddering, her teeth chattering in the frosty quiet.

Emily is crouched over, just a metre away from my soaked boots, swatting as much water off the surface of her trousers as she can, but that’s a useless thing.

We are drenched through to the prickled flesh.

“Change,” Bee hisses the order, then shifts onto her knees. “Quickly.”