A frown pinches between my brow.
At first, I think of the faint dusting of freckles on my cheeks and nose; but none of those are in a crooked line—they are barely even three shades darker than my complexion. It’s as though I’m permanently wearing an off-brand concealer.
Then, it hits me like a punch to the gut. I feel sick—and I know what freckles he’s talking about.
Slowly, hot bubbles of anger start to rise up in my chest until rage is boiling over around my beating heart.
The urge to punch him straight off this table seizes me so strongly that I clench my fist. Prickles roll over my skin like ice-cold water, and my shoulders stiffen so hard that they quickly start to ache.
Through clenched teeth, I hiss, “I never told you about those.” I roll my jaw then suck in a long, deep breath before I slit my eyes at him. “How do you know, Spike?”
How does he know about the three crooked-line freckles on the side of my right breast? How could he possibly know about those—unless…
And that hatred I have for him rises back up like a tornado.
Before I can boot out at him or swing or lunge, he holds up his hands in surrender, as though sensing the violence swirling around me.
“Look, it was an accident. I didn’t know you were in the bedroom—it was a few towns back, and you were changing clothes, and I came to the door and it was cracked open a bit. I looked inside, but I didn’t think I would see you in your knickers, all right?”
I don’t believe him.
And I definitely don’t get changed or undressed with the door open, even ajar.
I cave to the urges and lean back. My boot comes flying out at him before he even has a moment to blink. I catch him straight in the gut.
He doubles over. I slip off the table, grab my handgun and my bag, then storm out of the lounge, through the kitchen door.
7
Paul is sitting at the window, perched on the sill that’s far too narrow for his bulky frame. He looks up from his pocketbook (the ones with black-leather covers, but no titles, since they have been worn-off over time) as I come in.
He reads my scowl all too easily. “What’s he done now?” Exasperation clings to his tone and he softly folds his book closed.
“Spying on me while I change clothes,” I growl and stomp over to him. My hands are balled at my sides. “Says it was an accident.”
“It always is with him,” Paul mutters and shakes his head. “He won’t be a problem much longer,” he adds as if to reassure me, comfort me somehow with the truth that we will all be dead shortly.
“I hope he dies most painfully of all of us.”
Paul’s mouth pulls into a tight line. He doesn’t speak as he shifts off the window sill.
“You two just need to stay away from each other,” he adds after a pause, and he pockets the book in his jeans. “After last time—”
“Oh, I hit him again,” I confess without the slightest hint of regret or shame to cloud me. I merely blink, unperturbed. “He deserved it then and he deserves it now.”
You see, Spike and I have a bit of a history. Let’s just say I don’t like the way he speaks to the girls around here. He’s the kind who claims to be a ‘nice guy’, and it’s a rule of thumb that when a guy self-professes himself that way, he’s in fact the exact opposite.
I don’t make the rules.
Besides, one day—after rejecting him by a lake we stopped to make camp at—he hit on me. The usual. Asked if we should “bunk” together that night.
To no surprise of mine, when I said no, he called me a “rich bitch” and “frigid”. I showed him how much of a bitch I can be. I stomped on his toes so hard that he had a limp for a week, and his foot was all bruised and swollen.
Fingers crossed I actually did some real damage.
“I’ll take over,” I say with a sigh.
Paul nods and I can tell that my timing couldn’t have been better for him. His eyelids are fighting him, drooping over his glass-blue eyes so unlike my ocean-blue ones, and he stretches his arms over his head.
He rolls his shoulders. I hear a faint clicking sound that brings a shudder through me—much too close to the noises of the critters.
Thinking of which…
“Have you heard them?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It’s clear out there. I’ll use the bathroom,” he adds, “before I head out to scout for those lone ones.”
The lone ones. The separated dark fae warriors.
My stomach turns cold at the reminder. It’s starting to feel real, less like a fantasy and plan, more like a looming reality.
I nod and wander past him to the window. I hop up on the sill. I’m narrow enough to fit on it comfortably.
The swing of the kitchen door tells me that Paul has left. Turning the gun over in my slender hands, I study the curtains that shield the window. Best not to slide them open just yet. Wait for Paul to scout first before I start to feel too safe.
But I know what’s out there by the style of this flat. We’ve been in many like it before. No fire escape, just a straight-down fall to the cobblestone below. The main road must be close by.
A part of me flutters at the idea of a fire escape. There was one outside my room back at boarding school. I used to sit out there in the middle of the night and sneak a joint. Helped relax me for bed. Or I just wanted to numb myself. Whatever reason I indulged in it, I was only ever caught once and it wasn’t at school. It was a maid at our villa, on my bedroom balcony, and of course she told my parents. But they never brought it up with me.
They never cared about much that I did. Even when I OD’d on painkillers and sleeping pills. Our family was the type to keep things quiet.
Hush, hush—our unofficial motto.
I could have snorted a line of coke in front of my parents and I swear they would have just turned their heads. That’s if they would have even noticed.
If they did notice, the worst they would have done would have been to send me back to boarding school over the holidays. It was rare for me to be allowed to return home for the holidays, even Christmas. My last December at school, my parents left me there so that they could go to the Swiss Alps and all the charity events without me.
It wasn’t a lonely Christmas, though. Most of the kids at the school were left behind. We just did Secret Santa, and that was enough for most of us. That year, my secret present-giver gifted me diamond earrings. Never wore them. Not much of a jewellery person. Never much thought they looked all that good or saw the point of them. Mother’s favourite pearls, I think, looked wretched and out-dated.
No pearls or diamonds in my life anymore.
I wonder if my parents died from the plague after I was taken by it. Maybe they went to a different sanatorium than the one they sent me to?
Then, a strange thought strikes me.
Did I survive the plague—just like Spike and all those human prisoners—because of the freckles?
Of course not. That’s a silly thought and I chide myself for it, shaking my head. There are plenty in the group who don’t have those freckles and who did suffer and survive the plague.
I’m putting too much weight on Spike and his theories. Who knows if the freckles have anything to do with why the dark fae spare some humans along the way?