Page 159 of Wrath of the Fae

‘What is that smell?’ I wince, utterly repulsed.

I’m pulled to my feet, and they each take my hand.

They’re silent except for their laboured breaths. My insides squirm. They make them squirm through our Bond.

‘What… what the fuck…’ Reid whispers,

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask quietly, almost too afraid to hear an answer.

‘Nothing.’ Cyrus firms his hold on my hand. ‘We need to keep moving.’

‘I can sense lies, remember. It is something.’

‘Then it’s nothing I want you seeing.’

I face him. I think. And glare… kinda.

‘Seeing? Is that supposed to be a joke?’ I snap.

‘It’s death,’ Reid says, pulling me along. ‘A lot of it.’

I follow as they rush me away.

But I need to know. I have to see. See what my father has done. I need to see it.

I grip them both hard and take their truth for my own.

Ahead is a large rock face. There’s perhaps half a mile between us and it.

And covering the beach, every single bit of it, are the dead.

Bodies lie in a giant heap as if they are in some sadistic landfill.

So many… so so many…

They’re all tangled up. Skeletons mix with rotting corpses. They writhe with maggots, and scavengers gnaw and peck at whatever they find.

I yank my hands away, turn, and violently vomit into the sand.

Unable to hold my weight, I fall to my knees and groan, trying to stop myself from being sick again.

As my hand sinks beneath the sand, the tips of my fingers meet something hard. I feel it. A skull. A tiny little skull. That of a child.

What the fuck is this place? What happened here?

I regret the questions I demand in my mind.

My head snaps back, and I go stiff as the memories of the beach answer me. The memories of the child’s skull scream the truth at me.

The bodies here are human. Every single one. They tried to stop Ivan. Or they knew someone who tried. They were pushed down from the cliffs above in droves, and Ivan ordered his monsters to kill those who survived the fall. I see it all through the eyes of that little boy. How his father had left to join the fight against Ivan. How Authority raided their home. How he clung to his mother as they were forced into trucks filled to the brim with others, all screaming and pleading. How he gripped her so tight in that truck, unable to sit or move from the sheer number of others in there. How they were herded out atop those cliffs. Hundreds of them. And how Agents, Dark Fae, and human half breeds forced them over the edge, shooting and slicing them when they refused to step back. The little boy hears the screams as people fall.

I hear them.

He hears them land, thud after thud.

He hears the Dark Fae revelling as they tear at them for fun.

I live it through him. I feel his fear. I hear his mother whisper again and again that it will be okay.

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