Page 100 of Hunted By Fae
But I might have seriously messed up with that. With any other dark warrior, it’s a non-factor, but Dare?
If Dare chooses to hunt me, to chase me… then I have left behind a talking flesh-bag of knowledge for him to find.
Gary might talk.
If Dare finds him, if he asks questions, then he might learn all about me, the hospital, the group…
Tess.
My heart slingshots into my throat.
A wave of nausea strikes me like a blow to the gut, and in a flurried breath, I’m hiking my way through the ankle-deep snow to the buried sidewalk.
I press my shoulder into the stone wall of a grocery store, glass windows long gone, and I climb inside.
Unlooping the CB radio from my belt, I stagger over the broken glass lining the floors of the grocery store.
The flick of my thumb on the button ignites static from the radio. I give the signal that I’m here, that I can talk, and as I wait for her response, I sludge through the wet, slushy aisles, searching for bleach.
I find the shelves of cleaning products.
My eyes scan along bottles of window cleaner, drain cleaner, shower cleaner—
The static pauses.
Tesni’s voice is a trembled whisper, “Bee?”
I lift the radio to my cold lips. “I’m here.”
There’s silence for a mere moment, then a gush of her strangled voice. “I thought… Gary came back without you—I thought…”
My gaze snags over the bottles of bleach, a frown, then, “Gary? He’s there? At the hospital?”
“He got back an hour ago, said he woke up to the fire in the street and you were gone… and he bolted outta there.”
My cheeks swell around a long, drawn-out huff.
“Did you get out ok?” The flat base of her voice borders on stern. “Bee, where are you?”
My shoulders deflate with a breath.
I consider the bottom shelf of the cleaning supplies, bottles of bleach knocked over, only a few, but dented and broken by the toppled metal of another shelf, and a fallen trolley.
Great.
That’s just fucking great.
I tighten my grip on the radio.
My lashes shut on a sickly sensation that rolls through my stomach. Disappointment ebbing at my insides with prickles of anxiety, burning my chest with a flurry panic.
Without bleach, Dare might find me if he is looking for me. I don’t know if he is. I only know that he is unpredictable.
And frankly, I’m afraid of thewhat if.
I speak into the CB, “Listen, Tess. I saw someone I know. Dare. A dark fae… and he recognised me, I’m sure of it.”
Silence is the answer from the other side, beyond the crackle of static. I can picture her, tense, hidden in acloset or a room, door shut firm, and hunched over the secrets I’m spilling over radio frequencies.
