Page 64 of Hunted By Fae
Tesni slipped into the bathroom a good twenty minutes ago, and the opening door wafted in the stink of mould and mildew to the living room.
That door is closed now.
It has been since she disappeared into the bathroom, but the stench lingers, and it faintly reminds me of the smell I would wear after I swam in the lake near my home as a child, and Mother would chide me for not bathing the moment I returned home.
I shut the thought out.
Can’t afford my mind to linger on memories.
Tucked up on an old leather armchair, I bury my mouth and nose into the crook of my elbow.
Emily is unbothered by the smell.
Since we got here an hour ago, she hasn’t moved. Still there, on the rug, in the foetal position. Every so often, her lashes flutter, or her breath hitches with suppressed sobs, and so I know she’s awake.
She maybe blames herself.
It was her hand on the torch beam, her fractured light, that stretched over Ramona’s face—and that drew in a moth lost in the dark.
I don’t even know how it happened, how the light escaped Emily’s firm grip, if she was shifting further back into the car and that slipped her hand or spread her fingers.
She must be wallowing in it now, mulling over and over.
I should comfort her, maybe. But say what?
Everything I need to say is fucking insane to the human ear, and Tesni is my priority.
It’s Tesni who needs to learn the truth.
Maybe I stay tucked on the armchair to avoid it—the moment that niggles at my mind, over and over,tell her, tell her, tell her.
Easier to think than to do.
I mean, how exactly do I go about telling my bestie of a decade that I’m not like her, that… well, I’m not human.
This could go any way, in any direction.
She might boot off, throw shit, shout, scream. She might cry, sob, wail.
But the worst reaction from Tesni is silence.
That’s what it looks like from the outside. To those who don’t know her, she is pensive, cold, uncaring.
But I know better.
Those times she suffers like that, detaches from herself, she’s practically comatose—and I worry about her in those moments.
If I could avoid telling her this, the truth, then I would. I have avoided it. Five months of this blackout and not once have I shared what I know.
But then they came.
The dokkalves. Dark fae.
Their warriors, their armies.
Not like I can hide the truth much longer.
She’s figuring it out for herself now, anyway.
