Page 29 of Outcast Fae
He didn’t acknowledge me but turned his face away, growling between clenched teeth.
Gingerly, I pushed his pant leg up and found two puncture marks. From the looks of it, he had been bitten by a venomous snake.
“Will he make it?” Elon asked.
I shook my head and gave an honest answer. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good.”
Chapter Eleven
“Help!”Elon bellowed into the sky. “Help us!”
“Stop shouting. You might draw whatever attacked you right to us.” I glanced down the sloping hill to the trees below while I gripped Vaughn’s handmade spear.
Elon and I stood outside of the shallow cave as the others waited inside with our patient. The day had slipped by, most of it spent arguing about what to do about Vaughn. Night would be here soon and, in the dark, we’d be in even greater danger than before. With Elon alerting every creature who stalked the trees right to our doorstep, things could only get worse.
How could I protect them? Sure, I could fly up out of harm’s way, but what could they do? This place could provide shelter from the elements, but we’d be sitting ducks if something entered in the night.
“We’ll need to set up a watch tonight, take turns.” I glanced back at the cave’s entrance where Wally and Daniella were overseeing Vaughn.
His condition had worsened in the hours since he’d stumbled into our camp. The snake bite was bad, swelling and oozing, but what was worse was his fever, nausea, and delirium. Whatever bit him must’ve been venomous, and it was attacking his body and sapping his strength. If only I could find some wild onion or davilla elliptica, I could make a poultice.
“Why aren’t they answering?” Elon said, panic creeping into his voice.
He sounded like a child who’d lost his parents and was starting to wonder if he’d ever be found. Before, he hadn’t cared about Wally dying in the pool. I suspected he wasn’t worried about Vaughn, either. He was simply scared.
Elon opened his mouth to scream again, and I clapped my hand over it.
“Do not scream,” I ordered, then removed my hand once he seemed calmer. “If they were going to help us, they would have done it already.”
Elon’s face scrunched up, and he kicked at a shrub. “Are they just going to let him die?”
I mulled this over. “If they wanted us to die, wouldn't it have been easier to kill us when they had us magically pinned back at the intake station?”
Elon chewed his lip and finally nodded.
“So why go to all this trouble?” I reasoned. “It means they really do think that, by thrusting us into all these bad situations, they are teaching us a lesson. That they are rehabilitating us. Everything we’ve faced so far we’ve conquered.”
Elon scrubbed his face. Dirt had collected on his cheeks and forehead making him seem younger, more vulnerable. “How can this be helping us? It’s just making me hate them all the more.”
“That may be,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “But we are learning to work together. To trust each other.”
His eyes darted to me. He wore a pinched expression that made me believe some of the unkind words he’d said to me were coming back to haunt him. Maybe that was remorse in his eyes. Maybe he hated me and my kind a little less at that moment.
He turned away, staring at the distant tree line. “What do we do?”
“Let’s see how Vaughn is doing. Then I can decide.”
Together, we walked toward the others. The shallow cave was small, dark, and cool, compared to the still-hot and muggy air outside. Vaughn lay at the back, about ten yards in. Daniella sat on the ground at his side while Wally hunched in a ball on one of the boulders.
As we approached, Vaughn moaned and rocked, one hand reaching for his swollen leg. On instinct, I grabbed his hand, keeping it from digging at the wound, but realizing I was holding onto a fae hater, I let it go. I shouldn’t help him. Not after what he did.
Still, the wound looked worse than when I’d last seen it. The skin around the bite had swelled up to twice its normal size and was now turning red and purple. The signs of toxin were etched on his features, too: sunken eyes, pale skin, sweat-soaked face and chest. He panted and moaned, not really conscious but not resting either.
He was in pain. A lot of pain.
Elon sighed and walked out of the cave again. Watching someone suffer isn’t a pleasant thing. Not for the faint of heart, and I had a feeling Elon’s heart was as faint as they came.
Daniella looked at me. “What do we do, Tally? He’s getting worse.”
