Page 143 of Hunted By Fae

Bee misses more often than not.

She knows it, too, so the swap happens without another word. Emily takes the rifle, and Bee gives a lengthy sigh before she snatches the shotgun, but with so much disinterest, like it doesn’t matter whether or not she has it.

Now I know.

I misread her before. Her concern isn’t for the weapons we have between us.

Her doubt is for our chances.

THIRTY-ONE

TESNI

The nightlight gleams over the shape of a car. It’s slick with ice, inches thick, and it spurs that uncertainty through me again.

That car is sheathed in such a thick layer of ice, just like the road is, but there should only be snow and slush.

As far as I can see, black ice sprawls over the asphalt, from pavement to pavement, wall to wall.

I’m not a meteorologist, or whatever profession specialises in the effects of the weather on the fucking street, but this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, especially not when the other side of the town is packed with slush and snow.

The strangeness of it sets my shoulders, stiff.

There’s something about it I don’t trust.

It just feelswrong.

The leather boots fastened to my sock-padded feet, they are born of the same unease flittering through my gut. The soles slip with every other step. I’m first to slow down.

Emily slinks by me, rifle tucked to her chest.

Bee glances over her shoulder, and her frown lingers on me for a beat before it drops to the slight slipping of my boots over the ice.

Her mouth tightens.

She slows down, her steps softer over the slick road.

Emily takes point.

A faint flicking sound comes before a blast of white light—and her torch illuminates the cars iced over.

I keep my hands splayed as if to better help my balance, and I slowly slide my boots over the ice.

Doesn’t help that the chill is nipping at me.

The air bites the way an icy wind would, but there is no breeze, just a stagnant air, colder than the fucking Arctic.

That unease thrashes in me.

It feels as though I’m stepping further into an unnatural pocket of space, and every part of my body knows it.

I fix my stare on the back of Bee’s head.

No indication in the way she moves, nothing that tells me she feels the same trepidation as I do, that niggling that echoes in me,turn around, go the other way, go back.

Her ponytail sways, soft, with her slinking steps.

The faint red of the nightlight stretches up the side of her face. She turns her chin to her shoulder and looks down the thick darkness of a street we pass.