Page 41 of Hunted By Fae
Muscles pinned to bones, I am rooted in place as my strangled breaths grate through me.
“Oh—fuuuck,” a man groans.
I don’t see him.
I hear him, but my sight is warped, it dances with ribbons of light and strings of crimson.
“I didn’t mean it,” another man’s voice comes, hitched and sort of squealy. “I didn’t mean to...”
It’s strange.
It’s all just… background noise to the heartbeats thumping, hot, in my ears.
My lashes flutter—and clinging to one, a tear dangles. No… Not a tear.
Blood.
A single drop of blood just dangling from my eyelashes.
I blink—and the warmth of it falls onto my undereye. A moaning sound hums in my throat. My eyes are widening as, slowly, my legs start to sink beneath me.
I press my hands to my face.
The slicking sound is instant.
The warmth of blood is all over me. It trickles down my face, my lips, my hands.
I drop to my knees, a trembling coward, and stare at the hole in Louise’s head.
I didn’t know it happened like that.
I thought gunshots to the head meant she would fall backwards. But she ricocheted. It threw her head back, then her knees gave out, and she crumpled to the cold, hard floor—facedown.
Now, I am staring at the back of her head. Or what is left of it.
Now, it’s shredded.
Bloodied.
Flesh and brain, pulverised.
A sickly sound crawls through me, a moan, humming in my chest like a plucked guitar string.
I turn my cheek to her and find myself eyelevel with the gap between the bed and the curtain. No point crawling into it now. No point hiding.
If they are going to kill us all, then plastic sheeting and a bed won’t protect me.
“I’m sorry.” The pitchy voice of a man is as shaken as I am. “I’m sorry—I just… My wife needs help.”
His voice fades, buried beneath a ringing in my ears. It’s all I hear, until—
The distinguishable, soft thuds of orthopaedic shoes smacks on the gym floor—a walk that feels like forever, a walk that I should do something to stop.
But I can’t.
Not without ending up like Louise.
I told her not to. She didn’t listen. That fucking sense of justice.
