Chapter 21
HE HAS COME
Ican’t tell you how many hours we stay in the car.
After finishing his cookies and dried fruits, Sunny passed out with his head on my stomach.
He did question why it was taking so long to get to his papa, so I lied.
It left a foul taste on my tongue. The adrenaline keeps me wide awake to any danger that might come our way.
Our silent rescuer volunteered no conversation.
Just an unnerving companionable silence.
With my head resting on the slick leather seat beside me, the car comes to a harsh stop, jerking us aggressively. I latch onto Sunny a little tighter. Adam doesn’t say why we’ve come to a halt. Evacuating the car, he leaves me to stew, imagining more killings taking place outside.
I don’t have to sit in my worst-case-scenario imaginations for long before my door opens a crack. Stretching upright, allowing my stiff muscles to finally move, the blanket falls off of us, Adam’s voice coming from behind. “We are ditching the car. Time to get out, human.”
There’s an unrestrained part of me that wants to scoff loudly at this fae.
I’m stuck between two seats with a child on me and one inside me.
Grumbling under my breath, I struggle to pull Sunny’s body off and relent, calling for the fae.
“Can you carry him? He’s asleep.” There’s a shuffling of shoes from the rocky ground and squeaking of material colliding as he works his way skilfully onto the back seat and extracts the boy from under the blanket with tinted sage fingers, the colour hypnotising.
“Thank you.” I breathe a sigh of relief as he cradles my son in his arms.
Being surrounded by grey walls, monochrome clothing, and lacklustre visual effects for so long makes this fae man stand out to my senses.
Seeing real colour is an awakening of my sight.
The different shades of green, brown, yellow-tinted gold.
He’s a breath of fresh air. Adam reminds me of the trees in my forest—a safety.
And he represents fullness, exotic and alluring.
Following him could be the biggest mistake of my life.
Or it could lead to my greatest happiness.
He has yet to show me harm. The fae have been nothing but docile creatures being fed upon by the hollows. I have to believe he’s found me for a reason. I have to believe he’s taking us to safety. Otherwise, what is the point?
I refuse to be a hollow.
Prying my numb bottom from the car floor is a balm to my stiff joints. I moan loudly, leaving Adam to give me serious side-eye. “Try being pregnant and cramped on the floor of a car for hours. It fucking sucks.”
He shakes his head, then proceeds to walk away with my son in his arms, nothing but an endless abyss of darkness awaiting us. The moon is the only light to our path.
“Hey, wait up,” I shout at his retreating body, sinking further and further into nothing. I quickly grab our bag of supplies and shuffle out of the car, using the leverage of the tight space to push myself up.
My feet hit barren, hard-packed dirt, and I stop.
“Adam?” I call. “Adam?” He freezes for a second, then turns around. “What is this place?”
He rubs at his temple, holding Sunny in one hand. “Female, do you want my help or not?”
“I-I just want to know what we’re walking into?” My hands tremble at my sides. A dark hole in the side of a mountain rises to greet us. It doesn’t reflect the moon like the rest of the inclined harsh surfaces. My heart beats in heated suspense. No civilization exists around us.
This is it. There’s truly no going back.
Stalking back towards me, he speaks. “This is the human answer to the utter chaos they have created in this once beautiful world.” A broad emerald palm is placed before me, darker at the fingertips. “Let’s go.”
That answered nothing. This fae is more confusing by the day.
I continue forward regardless. If I’m walking into a trap…
I’ll fight. I still remember everything Nix taught me.
The thought is comforting but moot, considering my rounded lower half.
This pregnancy may be easier than my first, but nevertheless, I can’t grow complacent.
Waring internally, I grip onto Adam’s hand and follow him into the night. Shaded rock and a circular void hover before us. Eerie and daunting.
The moment we step over the threshold where light and darkness meet, the scratching dirt under my shoes grows impossibly loud, and my skin crawls. Adam’s hand is the only anchor I have in this unknown territory. “I can’t see anything.”
His grip on my hand tightens in a reassuring gesture. “It’s okay. I can.”
Good for him. I huff loudly so he can hear.
We walk for what feels like eternity, my eyesight incapacitated in this—what I can only assume is a cave. The rush keeps me upright and heightened to every sensation. The chill in the biting wind. The soft echo of falling rock. The breaths from our lips.
At each step, hope takes over, willing the next to be the one that brings us to our final destination.
The chorus of Sunny’s soft snores soothes my frazzled ends.
He’d probably be beside himself if he woke up in this disquieting pitch-black.
Though I think he’s more resilient than I give him credit for.
Injured arm and all, he’d be a willing participant in visiting a new destination, more social than I.
His childlike wonder is still uncorrupted, as much as I could keep him cloistered from the hollows.
Sweaty palms slip against Adam’s. I know he can feel them.
The air is stifling the further we walk.
He continues, unbothered, self-assured in a way I wish I could be.
These unexpected, unfamiliar surroundings and relying on a fae I don’t know…
Wormlike, all my fears slither through the corners of my mind.
Is this our end?
Just as quickly as it crests, the uncertainty slowly ebbs. A pinprick of light forms in front of us, and I could kiss the packed ground at my feet. I send a silent prayer to my mam for looking out for us. We didn’t come all this way for nothing. There’s something at the end of this…
This is it for us—our final happiness.
It has to be.
“What’s that?” Adam halts, pulling me close to his side. I didn’t hear anything but the sounds of my laboured breathing. “I need you to be very quiet, little human. Do you understand me?” He’s hushed and urgent, setting off alarm bells.
“Yes.” I gasp as he yanks me against a craggy rock wall. “What’s happening?”
“Shhh.” He puts his smooth, sunshine-scented hand over my mouth, crowding in on me with Sunny in his arms.
A heartbeat ticks by, his warm breath at my ear. “You see the light, yes?”
“Yes.” My voice comes out constricted. Adam pushes Sunny into my arms. I position him so his legs are wrapped around my body, trying to find a good angle with my extended bump.
He exhales loudly, mumbling a bit until his breaths go even again, content to sleep on me.
At least someone is comfortable. My back kills with a vengeance at the new weight, but I dig deep to keep going.
“Go towards it. Someone is waiting for us on the other side.” The fae goes to pull away. I take his arm, cutting my nails into him, unwilling to let go of my last lifeline.
“Where are you going?”
“We have an entourage. I need to deal with them without having to concern myself with your safety.” Of course they are after us.
It couldn’t be as simple as hiding in a car.
This all seemed too easy from the beginning.
Nothing in my life has ever come painlessly.
I expected people to follow us. I was just hoping it would be once we were in the Fairy Lands. Wishful thinking.
We’ve been gone an entire night, if the sunlight at the end of the tunnel is any indication. And we had at least an hour on the Halo keepers when we left home—maybe. I can’t account for the murders at the checkpoints. Most likely, they decreased our timeframe significantly.
“Go,” Adam barks at me. The gravity of this situation sets me at a tipping point, solence crashing, my body shocking into action.
No need for further instruction, I follow his command, heading as fast as I can towards the light, watching it grow bigger and bigger with each hurried step.
With the ground being slightly uneven, I have to slow a few times to catch my footing.
It’s not long before I hear the sharp, grunted echoes of voices coming from deep within the tunnel. Adam must have caught up with the hollows following us. With the weight of Sunny slowly dragging my tired bones down, those noises spur me on.
Fight, Storm. Fight.
They will not have me again.
They will not have my children.
The dream of a magical fairy land is better than anything Halo has to offer.
Ten feet away from the entrance, I see everything.
A kaleidoscope. No sleeted grey fog. Yellow, orange, red, and pink, the sunrise begins to poke through the horizon.
The beauty of the daybreak in this all-encompassing vista is foreign to me.
The sight of it ethereal, something I could only ever imagine, yet the brandishing of morning light makes itself known across the waiting land without ceremony or applause in this part of the world.
It’s spellbinding. A sight I could never get sick of.
But a voice, rough and hardened from years of battle, makes its way through my reverie—one that tugs at my soul. “STORM.” I don’t need to see him to sense him in the air. Melek.
On instinct, my whole body pauses, waiting for him, the little head on my shoulder mumbling papa.
“If you take another step forward, I’ll slit the fae’s throat.” Caught. We are done for. There’s no chance for us after this. I’ll never know what’s beyond the horizon and if the fairy land is truly a sanctuary.
My stomach roils, my last chance for a bright future dashed.