Page 59 of Hunted By Fae

But she makes no move to flick the switch and deprive us of this one, faint wisp of light, now aimed at the road where leather boots kick through the white gleam.

We are all still, stagnant.

We all watch as the boots kick through the dusty light.

The fae know we are here.

Tucked away in this little pocket of darkness with a single torchlight cascading over the asphalt. They know—and yet they just pass by.

It takes a while.

A long fucking time.

An hour, maybe more, maybe hours and hours, and it’s a whole day that passes, but we can’t tell without the sun and the moon.

So we just sit in the blackness, waiting.

Waiting for one of those creatures to tug out of formation—and slit our throats.

We sit here so long that I find a pattern.

Hooves, a dozen or so, followed by a lot of boots, leather, maybe up to a hundred pairs; then the hooves come again, then the boots, the same number, each time.

That pattern imprints into my brain, etches into my chest where the breath is tacked, and I watch the army march through the light.

Emily hiding in the car, has her hand pressed to her torch, but Ramona, still crumpled with her bike, holding her gun to her chest, has wisps of light escaping between her fingers, and my own torchlight—aimed right at them.

I should turn it off.

But my bones are rigid in my fingers.

Bee’s hand is firm on mine, her head ducked, brow pressed into my shoulder, and she is tense as they pass. I don’t know if it’s fear or strategy that has Bee stiff against me.

Before I can wonder on it, the darkness behind me is disturbed by the clumsy flap of small wings—and the clatter of a rifle.

I throw my head to the side, my glare wide.

Bee’s grip tenses on mine. I feel the rush of air at my cheek as she shouts a whisper, “Ramona! No!”

It doesn’t make a difference.

Doesn’t stop it.

It happens so quick.

Ramona’s fear turns on her.

So long of sitting out here, waiting and waiting for a pause that we can use to escape, to run away, and it’s nowhere closer to happening, something has switched in her, turned her against herself the moment that fat ass fucking moth flies into her face, that one stupid moth that cracks her frozen fear, and sends her into a spiral.

Stupidity makes her its puppet—and she fires the rifle.

The ‘no!’ that rips through me is fast muzzled.

Bee’s hand smacks onto my mouth and crushes my cries, cries that are drowned out by the shots of the rifle blasting in the quiet.

I cringe back into Bee’s chest, the heels of my boots digging into the road, but my eyes don’t shut, and the flashlight swerves up as it catches on my hiked knee…

And I see it.