Page 13 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

“They were hunting you, Auralie,” he clarified, as if the truth wasn’t already screaming alarm bells in my head and waiting for me to catch up.

They’re tracking me by scent.

“Brynn,” I whispered. And then I was gone before the High Fae brute could stop me, sliding across the sticky green blood drying on the entryway’s floor before I fled out into the dark cobblestone street.

Jonah’s car was purring against the curb, keys still in the ignition. Avoiding the baby seat in the back, I climbed in and slammed the door closed just as Wren came stalking out of Dante’s Bookstore with a sour expression on his face.

He became a shadow trailing me in the rearview mirror as I tore down the road and over the bridge, nearly sending the car skidding as I made a sharp right turn into my street. I saw our townhouse up ahead, the light from the front porch pouring out in a rectangular beam across the dead lawn. The screen and wooden doors were closed, the second-storey windows still intact. My hands trembled wildly as I half-fell out of the car and stumbled over the gravel, listening for the sound of my mother or little sister screaming.

The house was quiet.

In the distance, a dog barked. Crickets and frogs were singing in the reeds down by the river.

I’m too late, too late…

Nearly colliding with the wood, I fumbled to pull my house key from my bag. It took me two attempts to insert it into the lock. Handle slipping against my clammy palms, I finally wrenched the stupid thing open with a loud bang.

The hallway was dark. Faint light loomed at the end, coming from the kitchen. My mother’s bedroom door was partially closed beside me. The television set cast a faint white glow on the walls of the sitting room up ahead. Static filled my ears as I crept towards it, easing my weight onto each foot gently to make my steps as silent as the night. I craned my neck to peer around the door, heart pounding like a racehorse in my chest.

A shadow rose up on the wall in the sitting room, and then—

“Aura?” My mother’s voice came from behind me. “You’re home late. I was getting worried.”

Whirling around, breathless, I found my mother standing in her bedroom doorway, completely unharmed. She was already in her pyjamas—a set of pink satin, with the hem of her long pants tucked into a pair of fuzzy socks.

I glanced behind me. “Ma—”

The shadowed figure emerged from the sitting room, and my heart sank so low that it was no longer a connected part of my being. It was adjacent. Disconnected. Detached.

Because there was my father, a can of beer in hand.

“Auralie.” His hoarse voice was like nails on a chalkboard. “You’ve caused your mother a great deal of stress tonight.”

For a moment—for just one awful, fleeting moment—I wished the caenim had followed me there so they could rip that man’s head clean off his body.

Gritting my teeth, I turned back to my mother. She was my mirror image in looks—pear-shaped figure and heart-shaped face, a straight nose, and the splotch of a strawberry birthmark in almost the exact same spot as mine, above her left eyebrow—but my opposite in personality. She looked as tired as I felt. Her hair was down, hanging in loose curls over her shoulders, and her face was wan.

“Where’s Brynn?” I asked.

“Asleep.” My mother tilted her head to the side, a sad smile cracking across her face. “Are you okay?”

“What ishedoing here?” I mouthed.

She straightened up and swallowed tightly, a silent but familiar warning. “Go check on your sister,” she urged.

I didn’t need to be asked twice.

Turning on my heels, I swept down the hall without sparing a glance in the bastard’s direction as I passed him. The potent, fermented smell of beer filled my nose, and I considered stopping to spit the bile in my mouth out onto his shoes.

But I didn’t.

I went straight to the narrow staircase at the end of the hall and clomped up to the second level.

“When you come down, you’ll answer to me for what you’ve done, you little bitch!” the drunkard downstairs called after me.

WhatI’vedone—

Anger flushed through my veins. My chest filled with hot coals and a cataclysmic pressure.

---