Page 74 of Hunted By Fae
Not Lousie, if she had lived longer.
Not Ruby, if the plague didn’t get her.
No one, but us.
FOURTEEN
TESNI
The pasta is overcooked. It sludges in my mouth, a paste over my tongue, flavoured with salt and jarred tomato sauce.
I should taste it, the explosion of cheap flavours blended together. Better than the protein bars that line my stomach. But I taste nothing more than sludge and the residue of cigarette ash.
Emily pushes the tub of parmesan cheese closer to me. It snags on the boucle placemat.
I consider it, the promise of more salt, the allure of a touch more flavour.
But I tear my gaze away from the temptation and stab my fork into the pasta again.
Bee’s murmur is low, “She’s vegan.”
Emily pauses for a beat before her fingers slip away from the cardboard tub. “Forgot.”
I chew mush, with half a mind to spit it out into the bin and burrow into a pile of blankets in any other room but this one.
Maybe I don’t have an appetite.
Or maybe I’m forcing myself to eat, because the next meal might be a while away.
There is no security in staying here.
At any moment, anything could happen, and we could be pushed out of the flat. Out there, in the blackout, exposed and vulnerable, our next meal is uncertain.
It’s always better to force down food when it’s available. So that’s what I do.
It’s slow, gruelling work.
The temptation of the parmesan cheese lingers with eat bite.
The sludge of pasta in my mouth is somewhere between wet mashed potato and slime.
My face twists with each roll of my jaw, chewing and chewing and chewing, until it’s soft enough to force a gulp.
I’m slowest at the table.
Emily finishes up first.
I’m surprised to see her bowl empty. Like me, I expected her to struggle, but she devoured the whole serving like a greedy child.
This world comes without dish washing. So she leaves the bowl on the dining table then, without a word, rustles back into the living room, her cape of blankets brushing over the linoleum as she goes.
Bee is next.
For a while, she sits in front of an empty bowl, as if waiting for me—to finish, to speak. Then she gives up and starts piling all the preserved food from the cupboards into a box to be sorted.
“Never thought I would be grateful for preservatives,” she murmurs, then kicks the box out of the kitchen and into the lounge.
I follow her, a quiet shadow, then plonk myself on the couch.
