Page 48 of A Hunt So Wicked
Leaning forward as far as possible, I reached out and drove the branch into the reeds, pulling it back toward me, but I was unsuccessful. Whatever was stuck in there, it didn't budge.
"Try again, Eves," Kael encouraged, his usually jovial smile nothing more than a flat line.
I threw the branch out again and felt it catch on something, grimacing to Kael at the way it stabbed through my target. "Got it." Grunting, I put some force behind my dragging motion and abruptly fell backward as whatever I'd caught broke free from its watery hold.
"Oh my Goddess!"
"I'm going to be sick!"
"Is that a... leg?!"
Cries went out as I pushed myself up off the ground, and those were just a few exclamations I heard, followed promptly by the sounds of vomiting. Lots and lots of vomiting. I held my own stomach as I saw what I'd brought to the surface. Right there, in the middle of the pond, was a detached leg. Ripped jaggedly just above the knee, it simply floated there.
What a perfect replication of how I feel at this exact moment. Detached. Separated from reality.
All I could hear was whooshing in my ears and a sudden, overwhelming feeling of heat overtaking my body.
"EVES!"
Everybody was looking at me from above. How had I ended up on the ground? "What? What's wrong?"
"You fainted, my lady," Tiro explained.
I blinked. Fainted? I'd never fainted a day in my life! I tried to sit up, but Tiro held out his hands, slowing me down. "Careful now, Miss. Take a moment to get your bearings."
"—just drank severed leg water."
"Who's leg is it!?"
"Where's the rest of the... person?"
I had seen a lot of stuff in my life. I spent hours upon hours hunting with my father, and I had been out here, bearing witness to extremely disturbing deaths... and in the end, it was a severed leg that took me down. Feeling slightly more collected, I took Tiro's offered hand and allowed him to pull me up. Kael was at my side, looking down at me with concern.
"Okay, Eves?"
I cleared my throat. "Y-yeah. I'm fine. I think we should get to the gate... Sooner, the better."
Some of the girls already took off in a dead sprint in the direction of the gate. I didn't blame them. We were at the end of our mental ropes.
"Let's go," Riv said as she and Isla walked over to us.
Isla wiped her mouth, having just been sick. "We have to get inside those walls."
I nodded, and the rest of us left the tainted pond behind, our sights set on safety. "That poor—"
Screams cut off any further discussion, and we collectively froze, looking at each other with wide eyes. The girls! We took off running toward the gate, and I was terrified at what we were going to find. Were the animals waiting for us there? Were we about to meet our bloody doom?
We rounded a corner, and there stood Tiona, Belinda, Becca, and a few others, their mouths open in fear and their faces whiter than a phantom's.
"What is it?!" Kael demanded.
Slowly, Tiona lifted her arm and pointed, first at the massive gate door, then swept it outward toward the field we had trekked through to reach the woods not so long ago. My heart sank as I took in the blood splattered across the old wooden door, as though someone had exploded on the spot. My eyes trailed down and landed on the pile of bodies and parts of bodies... Shredded fabric, exposed bone, vacant eyes, and still faces that were forever locked in a horrible expression of absolute pain and fear. I lifted my hand to my mouth as I took in the rest of the scene.
The field was littered with bodies. Guards and women alike. Parts of the earth were scorched and still slowly smoking, the tendrils gently climbing higher and higher into the air, as if not even the evidence of what happened could stand to be a part of this nightmare for another moment.
Becca snapped out of her trance and ran to the door. She pounded her fists against it as hard as she could. "Help! HELP US!"
Tiona and Belinda joined her, their cries for help so loud that the birds sitting atop the wall took flight.
