Page 54 of Faun Over Me

“No!” Mac blurted. “No sorries. I just—I know I said you should give the inhumans a chance, get to know them a little, and while I didn’t quite mean that in the biblical sense, I’m proud of you.” Avery raised her head, struck dumb by the admission and the praise. “I know a lot of this is new to you, the camp and … and Cricket, but if it ever feels overwhelming, or you have questions about the faun or need an ear, I’m here. Alright?”

“Alright.” She toed the dirt, barely able to bring her voice above a whisper. Something new fluttered in her chest at Mac’s offer. At her acceptance. Something new and lovely and fragile that she was too afraid to share, so she held it close and safe and said, “Thank you.”

“The faun are special,” Mac continued—her voice light and wistful. “Ramble is very protective of their family, but they’ll come around. Once they see how good you and Cricket are for each other, they’ll come around.”

Avery opened her mouth to respond, but only the tiniest little squeak came out.

“It’s pretty obvious.” Mac waved her hand, dismissing the sound. “I’ve met that cranky little deer a few times but never seen her smile the way she smiles at you.” Avery’s cheeks flushed hotter, and Mac took pity, jerking her chin at the camp, a smile in her voice. “Go on, make sure all the campers are in their bunks and get to yours.”

“Yes, Director Murray.”

“Avery,” she warned, and at that, Avery could only smile.

“You got it, Mac.”

The howls continued, puncturing the night from a distance in a baleful melody. It was enough to have the campers rushing into their bunks. The memory of Avery and Sanoya’s cabin, of the terrible destruction, was fresh enough in the collective camp mind that not even the full moon could entice campers to wander unchaperoned.

Avery hustled along the meandering center trail, forgoing the shortcuts behind the buildings to stick to the dimly lit path. A handful of campfires burned, the logs and stumps surrounding them abandoned. Aksel wove between the cabins, his broad-shouldered figure lending a sense of security to the campers, and counselors observed the flames from the front porches of their cabins, whispering among themselves and waving at Avery as she walked by. In the distance, hair glowing in the moonlight, Sanoya swept the perimeter of the marching band field, followed closely by a large shadow darting from bleachers to trees to trashcans.

All was well, the campgrounds secure, the campers safe.

Still, she couldn’t shake the memory of Troy’s leering smile and the cloying musk of his cologne. The sticky heat of his breath when he’d exhaled against her neck, almost as if he savored the scent of her. What had he said?

Need a little refresher.

A gag and a full body shiver had her hustling to the practice rooms, hand shaking as she fitted the key into the lock, shouldering the humidity-swollen door open and shoving it closed. She slammed the deadbolt into place, jiggling the knob to be absolutely certain the door was locked, the building secure, and only then did she exhale and drop her forehead against the window in the door.

Sleep was going to be a long time in coming, that was for sure. At least she had her favorite practice room and the only properly tuned piano in the camp to keep her mind occupied. Already, she could feel the music surging into her hands. Something in four-four time. A driving composition. Rossini? No, Khachaturian. Sabre Dance. The frenetic chords and arpeggios would burn through her energy, leaving Avery panting and sweating at the end of the movement, clearing her mind so she could think.

She was fairly certain Troy was behind the attack on her cabin, and she believed Cricket when she said the papers had smelled like him; she just couldn’t figure out how.

There were a few shifters at the camp—Aksel, for one. He was wolven, and he could have caused the destruction they saw in her cabin, so it was possible they were dealing with another of his kind. But when he shifted, he shifted into a wolf. Not a bipedal monster that smelled of stale cologne.

So whatever Troy was, he wasn’t any sort of shifter Avery had met before. Granted, that list was very small and entirely made up of the shifters in the camp, but when she took Sanoya’s comments about the whatsitcalled into account, Avery knew in her gut that Troy was something else.

But what.

With her head full of thoughts, she walked the length of the hall, idly checking the doors to the practice rooms and finding each one locked. Moonlight filtered in through the window in the door, illuminating the hall just enough for Avery to peer through darkened windows, each room empty, as they should be.

All the campers and counselors were safe in their cabins and bunks; the howls had only grown distant as the night deepened, and soon, Avery would be too tired to think. She would play until her fingers ached and fall into her makeshift bunk to sleep off this endless day. Tomorrow, Ramble would come home, and maybe they would bring Cricket, and they could—

Avery stopped in front of the door to her favorite practice room, the only one without a window facing the hall. A faint light glowed through the crack at the base, which wasn’t unusual. She hated entering a dark room and had gotten in the habit of leaving a lamp on years before. But her lamp glowed a soft yellow, not the cold blue of moonlight.

She stepped back, a hand pressed to her mouth, as she assessed the door. The only sound in the hall was her tight, panicked breathing, and the only light came from the window at the entrance and under her door. The practice rooms were empty and locked. Everything was fine; she was fine.

Been a long day, is all—a long day after a series of long days.

She just needed to go to bed. Needed to play out her nerves and her thoughts and get some sleep.

“Stop being a paranoid dummy,” she muttered, “and go to bed.” Rolling her shoulders and lifting her chin, she grabbed the knob, twisted it, and shoved the door open.

Moonlight streamed through the window set into the rear wall, casting her room in a ghostly pallor. Her makeshift bed, a twin mattress on a cot Sanoya had wrangled from storage, filled the far wall. An overturned crate beneath the window acted as a bedside table, and at the foot of the bed was the upright piano she favored. Curtains wafted in a slight breeze coming in through the window, tickling Avery’s nose with the faint scent of lavender and wintergreen. She pressed her mouth into her shoulder, stifling a gag, only to have her stomach turn at the lingering stench of Troy’s cologne on her shirt.

“You’re being stupid,” she said to the room. “You forgot to turn on the lamp, that’s all.”

Avery shook out her hands and strode into the room. Glass crunched beneath her sneaker. She froze, squinting in the low light, and just barely able to make out the shape of her lamp on the floor in front of the crate. She crouched and picked it up, examining the broken bulb. Her gaze tracked upwards, snagging on the window and the wafting curtains. Every hair on her arms rose, unease breathing warm and sticky across the back of her neck.

“You left the window open,” Avery told herself, praying silently that it was true, that she was right, that she’d only left the window open. “You left it open, and a breeze knocked over the lamp. E-easy peasy.”

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