Page 22 of Faerie Fate
“None of it matters,” I told myself out loud, pressing my hands flat against the wall until I was steady enough to take a step.
Then two.
“You’ve got this.”
Did I believe myself? No, one hundred percent no. Did it help to hear my voice? Yes. I had to move forward and I had to get going. There were other people out there who didn’t have their uncle here to save them. They only had me.
The tears turned the world into a salty blur.Uncle Will tried. He’d come for me in an attempt to make up for the mistakes of his past, to right what he’d considered his wrongs with me. Look where we ended up.
My neck burned where he’d yanked off the key on its chain. Why hadn’t I said something? Why hadn’t I anticipated what he’d do in order to cut a hasty retreat?
There were a lot of things I should have done differently, like fought harder, like made sure that Kendrick never caught me in the first place.
Fuck. Another death on my shoulders.
I certainly racked them up. Once I’d thought finding dead bodies was my super power as though I was some kind of walking and talking drug-sensing dog for corpses. Now I halfway wondered if death didn’t trail me like the most loyal companion.
People I loved tended to die. And I was always involved.
I made it to the end of the hallway and took a right where it branched off, heading down the stairs for Nurse Julie’s office. It made sense to start there, anyway. Or at least search for her on my way down to the lower level.
She’d gone off to attend to the injured. They were the ones who took priority. They’d get the help they needed in Faerie.
How are you going to do it without a key?
A sob broke loose. I’d messed up big time.
My hand on the wall, I went one step at a time, and the further I walked from Kendrick…the more I felt him. The mate bond stretched like a physical tether between us. Like chains, and no saw was going to cut through the links ever again.
The bond kept me leashed, kept me prisoner to him. And when he woke up, he’d be furious, ready to take his pound of flesh out on me.
The things he’d do to me when he regained consciousness… Images of blood and torture and sex flashed through my head and I cringed away from them. The shuddering sob burned the inside of my chest.
There would be no escaping him now. No matter how far I went, or how fast—which, facing the truth, I would never be fast enough like this—he’d come for me. He’d punish me.
I clenched the banister and skipped down the steps two at a time before landing hard on the floor below. The ache in my muscles focused me and I clenched down, my jaw jutted.
Julie’s office.Then you go from there.
Livvy and Mike were here. I’d find them eventually. They still had their keys.
What would Livvy say when I told her that Uncle Will was dead?
I passed more empty classrooms, dragging my feet behind me so each step forward announced itself with a shuffle and asqueak of rubber on stone. I had to move. Shit, I had to hustle as quickly as my tired limbs and bone-deep exhaustion allowed.
My head spun crazily and I took a beat in the nearest doorway. Movement flashed from the corner of my vision and when I glanced up sharply, shadows separated from inside the classroom.
A pair of blank eyes met mine and the young girl sucked in a breath.
Don’t touch your neck.Don’t draw attention to it.
My scar throbbed and my fingers twitched against the urge. The smell of potions and old ink grew as I stepped into the room. “How many of you are there?”
The first-year glanced unerringly at my scar and her eyes widened, sending my gut roiling. Julie wasn't there but others were. More first-years who cowered behind the desks and stared apprehensively at me.
“How many?” I repeated.
The girl who made eye contact shook her head, and her pointed ears poked through her hair.
