Page 17 of Hunted By Fae

“Again?” Ruby’s voice is a squeal now. “That stampede could happen again?”

“Who knows? I don’t want to hang around and find out how many animals are about to tear through here. I say we get fuck out of here and get back to the camper.”

Still, Bee stands there, her dazed stare on the radio, her hand pressing into her breastbone.

My gaze is slitted, narrowed, on her.

Ramona’s voice cuts over the transmission, “It’s, what, an hour walk to the campsite? We can get back to the van—and… And, uh…”

Her voice trails off, lost.

Louise finishes for her, “And then we get out of here.”

Ramona’s resolve has dimmed, fallen into doubt. “And go where?”

“Wherever this isn’t,” I say.

My determination is too firm.

My soul has left my body.

Detached.

And maybe that’s for the best, maybe that’s what’s keeping me sane right now. Like, if I was ‘all here’, I would crack and fucking crumble into a fit, a meltdown.

That part of me has switched off, and all that’s left is survival.

I slide the radio out of my clammy grip and let it clatter onto the hood.

“Look,” I start and run my hands down my face. “Our campsite is in the middle of the woods. We’re not safe there if another stampede comes through—and that’s if one hasn’t gone through there already.”

A groan lifts through Louse before she shakes her head, rejecting any possibility that our camper and site is completely fucked up from another stampede.

I go on, “What we have to do right now is get our asses back to the camper, pack up, and find another place that’s not surrounded by wildlife that could come crashing outta the fucking woods any minute. Yeah? Can we all agree on that?”

Bee lifts her gaze to me, her mouth thinning and her eyebrows pinching together.

Ruby nods, Ramona too.

It’s Louise who sighs, heavy, then says, “We should rinse off, first.”

I nod, a blank look stealing my face as the image flashes in my mind, of the three of them getting shit all over the campervan. Or worse, getting some shit-contaminated illness and spreading it to me and Bee.

“Are we really going to walk?” Ruby’s eyes are blue oceans burning from a canvas of brown.

I can’t fight the purse of my mouth at the reminder of all the shit covering her.

I would set myself on fire.

But that’s just me.

I drop my gaze to the guy—

Sawyer!

That’s his name!

He did tell me that, when he introduced himself and asked if I wanted a drink.