“We have to get off the street,” I pant, a few paces behind her. I reach out for her, following the sound of her running, but I grab thin air.
“Tiffany,” I bite, my whispery breath a panicked sound of wind. “Go down the alleyway!”
If she hears me, she doesn’t let me know. I just hear her shoes pounding against the cobblestones. The shouts are crying louder, they are drawing nearer.
With a quick glance over my shoulder, I can see the shadows of the army stretching up the faces of the buildings, leeching over the ground.
With another swipe out at Tiffany, I come up short. She’s too far ahead of me, and I can’t spend another second out in the open.
I take no chance.
I veer off left, headed into the darkness of an alleyway.
Tiffany doesn’t follow me. And within heartbeats, I can’t hear her anymore. She just keeps running.
I hope she makes it.
But I doubt she will. And the same goes for me.
The alleyway might be dark for now, but as the army spills into the village, it will light up and betray me to all of the dark fae. I’ll be a target.
Down here, I’m not safe. But the alley ends in a stone wall, too high to climb. I stagger back from it, hands outstretched. I can’t see a thing without my torch, and I dropped that little one when I rushed to put clothes on. I only have a kitchen knife and a blocked alley.
I’m trapped.
5
I throw my back against the nearest wall and spread out my arms.
Breath hitched, I feel along the wall and slowly move back to the street. There has to be a door or a window here, somewhere.
My hands are starting to tremble against the stone. Palms are aching already from the course texture scraping against them. But I stretch out my arms and feel all around for something—anything. I just need to get out of this alley.
Maybe Tiffany had the right idea, running ahead. Leaving me behind.
It’s like I said, we’re everyone for themselves around here. But that doesn’t mean there is no sting when I’m abandoned, especially when I know I’ll be the first found by the dark fae.
Their cries are so loud now, it’s like their calling right beside me. The street is really lighting up. The orange has given way to a blazing red light. They’ve already started to burn down the buildings. The fire is catching.
And I’m going to burn.
If they don’t find me first.
My breath hitches when stone gives way to glass against my palm. I spin around to face the wall and lift up my hands, running them along the window.
Close enough to the ground to climb. But I can’t break the glass. That’ll give me away instantly. I have to stretch up on my toes and try, with all my withering strength, to push it upwards. It gives, slowly at first, and then with a final shove that aches my arms, the window slides all the way up.
Light starts to leak into the alley. Darkness at my feet is fading away, and I can now hear the heavy bootfalls of the army descending upon the street.
I don’t give myself a moment to breathe before I haul myself up onto the windowsill. No point trying to clamour, I just throw myself through the gap.
I land on the floor with a thump, and feel every bit of impact spread over my back like hot water. I ache everywhere, all at once.
My breaths come out in short, hoarse wheezes. I roll onto my side not a second before light suddenly blazes through the room, and I see that I’m in a little cafe. The firelight rises up from the alley just a moment after I escaped it. Still no time to waste—they’ll be hunting us, scouring the streets and windows for humans to slaughter, and they’ll be burning us all to the ground.
My best hope is to find a back door somewhere and bolt out into the darkness, never looking back.
I flip onto my front and push up on my hands and knees. I scurry behind a counter. I can’t risk standing up. The window isn’t high enough to conceal me—any monster that looks through it will spot me easily.
Leaning back against the counter, I give myself a moment to breathe, and I look around the café. All the tables and chairs are stacked against the wall that parallels the main street, and there’s a small kitchen on the other side of the counter. I crawl for it, fast.
The door is one of those half-sized ones, cut in half. It makes it easy to rush under before any dark fae can look inside the café window I threw myself through.
I hesitate at the door as a sudden scream splits the dark air in two. I cringe, hearing every curdle of the scream. It rattles my bones and claws at my thrumming eardrums.
It’s not like it is in movies, where women and men scream in totally different ways—no, in this world I’ve learned that we all scream the same. Which makes it impossible to tell who is screaming out there where the beasts are.
I take a fleeting moment to wish it’s not Tiffany, then I shove off the ground and run into the dark kitchen. No time to take it slow.
I
