Page 27 of Hunted By Fae

The blackout is impacting radio frequencies—and if we’re not within five or so miles of the source, then we’re not getting that transmission.

The world is inching closer to being totally cut off.

That was the final straw for me, the cut of the last thread in my heart, before I slipped out of the camper at first light and snuck down here to the shore.

Maybe a part of me wants to watch the sunrise. It will be one of the last—for however long.

Will the blackout take hold forever?

A thought that strikes me, and I flinch against it.

Bringing the heel of my palm to my temple, I rub as if to knead those intrusions out of my mind; my ugly, tangled mind.

This helps.

The soft butt of the cigarette touching my lips.

Even if it stirs the ache in my chest, it’s worth it.

It grounds me.

“They’ve stopped calling for evacs!” Ramona shouts down the hill. The sound of her nearing voice steels my shoulders. “And the blackout is like… doing something to the cars. They stop working.”

I sigh a deflating breath before I touch my chin to my shoulder. The look I give her is dull.

A shadow behind her, a silhouette of curves, says, “Ramona, can you head into the town? We’re low on food.”

Ramona falters.

The deep caramel hue of her cheek turns to me, planted on the shore.

She blinks once, twice, then an uneasy smile pins to her dimpled cheeks. “Sure, yeah—I’ll take Louise.”

Bee spares her a wink before she starts down the hill for me.

“Thanks,” I mutter, my words coming out in grey smoke, grey to match those sharp eyes latched onto me. “I can’t stand another word of it.”

I turn to watch the waves, the darkness rolling over the farther reaches of waters. It’s not unlike when we watched from the campsite, but now the dark moves like it’s in slow-motion, and I can see the details, the wisps, the threads of it, spooling, then unspooling, lashing, then curling back into the source.

Bee parks herself next me. “So you need the morning.”

My brow pinches. “More than a morning—”

“The morning is all I can give you.” Bee rubs her lips together for a beat. “The blackout is distorting machinery, like cars, and signals, like the radios—I just… I can give you the morning out here, alone, but after that we do need to talk. All of us. There are decisions to be made.”

I say nothing.

I watch the black clouds ahead for a while before I flick the cigarette into the water.

Bee’s mouth twists.

It’s my revenge for her intrusion on my quiet moment—and she knows it, too. Before she can call me out on it,littering, I jolt with a sudden cough striking through me.

My chin knocks off my knee as I double over.

That ache has swollen in me, icy and chesty. I feel the pressure building in my face, heating my cheeks and throbbing my brain.

Then my lips part around an ugly hacking sound—and my breath comes smoother.