I was standing in my ensuite, staring at myself in the ceiling-to-floor mirror, empty bottles of pills in each hand, a glass bottle of vodka spilling out on the chaise seat behind me.

  I blink and steal myself back to the present. A shudder uncoils down my spine. I shake it off.

  I redress, starting with my loose underpants and light-pink bra. Grabbing my white country-style dress, I shimmy into it, making a point to ignore the freckles that feel like they are burning against the lace of my bra.

  I leave my socks, since they are so worn-out and gross that putting them back on after washing seems futile, and I slip my bare feet into my ankle boots. Then I re-secure the gun in my right boot for easy access later.

  Who knows, maybe I’ll save the last bullet for myself?

  It’s a violent way to go, so different to the stealth of pills, but if it’s a last resort…

  We’ll see what happens.

  And when there’s a knock at the door and Paul’s voice calls out “It’s time”, I realise I’ll find out my fate very soon.

  8

  And before I know it, we have left the flat and found our way to the cusp of the village.

  We stop at the mouth of the main road. The dark fae should be coming up this way soon, if not this very moment.

  To avoid the critters, only two torches are switched on. The faint light helps guide Harry down the road a bit. Paul and Mikey flank him. Still it hardly eases the tension in Harry’s stiff shoulders. At least he has two others surrounding him if the critters come or the dark fae are earlier than we predicted.

  I don’t have any such protection. Where are my human shields? Instead, I’m alone, tucked down at the nose of a rusty old sedan.

  Peering around the hood, I keep my handgun loose in my grip as if too scared to hold it firmly, and I watch Mikey and Paul veer off from Harry.

  Harry is left standing alone in the middle of the road, precariously holding the bundled bomb in his arms, covered by a sheet.

  He’s left alone only for a moment while the other two push cars off-road. Eventually, the road is a clear path down the middle. The dark fae won’t have much of a choice than to take the middle, the path we moulded for them, and then they’ll be wandering right into our trap.

  Harry sets the blanketed bomb on the road, between two particularly large cobblestones. As per our plan, discussed in the flat before we left, Paul brings over a cardboard box. It’s dented and damp enough to not draw any suspicion—looks like any other litter around the streets after the days of evacuations.

  Once the bomb is concealed by the sagging box, the guys rush over to us at the mouth of the road. Then, we all move into motion, finding our positions. I have a gun, so I’m made to be closer to the explosion point. Those of us armed with fire-weapons are huddled at the cars cutting into the end of the street, crouched and silent.

  Those with knives slip farther back into the shadows—they keep hidden around the corners of the street’s final buildings before the road turns to gravel and carries off to the next far-off village.

  We have to stick fairly close together for this last stand. It’s not like radios work these days, and can’t go lighting up the street and betraying our presence. We have to be near each other to know when we need to act and also so we all die around the same time. No need to go drawing out the inevitable.

  But then the thought pops into my head, How many of us will flee?

  My money is on Spike for the frontrunner. Over by the corner of the street, he’s clutching onto the wall, pressing his forehead against the rough texture, and his shoulders are stiffer than if he was carved from stone.

  That’s all I see before a torch flicks off on that side of the street.

  He’ll run. Or at least he’ll do what he mentioned earlier and declare himself a kuri to save his own life.

  I won’t. I’m ready to die.

  I’m twisted, ok, I grant you that, but wouldn’t you be tired? We all come to a point in our lives, surely, no matter our circumstance, and are tempted by the thought of a forever calm, quiet end. Peace.

  I’ve been at that point a long while, now. Maybe forever, or for as long as I can remember. The thing that is different now is the end of the damn world. No use in fighting to stay alive anymore. Now, my wishes can be fulfilled, and I won’t go down alone.

  A torch is flicked off, and we’re doused in total darkness.

  I don’t know much about homemade bombs, but I can’t decide for certain whether or not the one Harry built is timed or connected to a detonator. Though I highly doubt the detonator since not even walkie-talkie radios are working anymore.

  So I go off my gut that it will explode whenever it does, or even if it’s disturbed. Not like I can just sneak a glance at Harry’s expression in the thick blackness to disprove my theories.

  It feels like forever that we are all stiff and motionless in our positions, just waiting. The silence is familiar—and suffocating. It’s so thick and heavy that it’s like a weighted blanket draping over me, pushing me down further to the ground. Anxiety moths spring to life in my belly. It starts to churn and, in the dark, my cheeks burn hot as nervous sounds start to crackle in my gut.

  Faraway, I hear a shuffle of boots, and I’m a little relieved knowing that I’m not the only one who can’t keep quiet.

  Silence this time around is more uncomfortable than it’s ever been before. Probably because we’ve never been sitting in it, waiting for dark fae warriors to stumble upon us and our bomb before. New things always make me anxious.

  Then faint wisps of light start to break the black.

  I peer under the sedan, hidden behind the tyre, and see the far end of the street start to warm with orange and red hues. Fire-torchlight.

  Only the dark fae carry those.

  Their kind of fire-torches are different to ours. Those ones never seem to extinguish, run out of fuel, burn down or out, unlike ours. So we’re left to rely on the battery-juiced torches to light our way in the darkness.

  Not that any of it matters now.

  Crooked and bent under the hood of the car, I keep myself shielded by the thick tyre, and watch the street’s horizon. The light grows bigger and stronger, climbing up the faces of the thatched houses, slowly beginning to shed illuminance on what brings it to this part of the village.

  The tip of the street slopes downhill, so I see the steeds first.

  Can’t really call them horses, those two hairless, grey-skinned beasts that prickle my skin and shudder my spine. Look more like skeletons with old, aged and leathered skin pulled tight over them. And their tails… razored and sharp, flashing to mind those wretched tentacles that dropped out from the dark and latched onto Jamie.

  But those ghastly steeds are nothing compared to the ones mounted on them.

  Four of them, just like there were when I watched them be separated from their army. I’ve seen them before, but never this close, and not with such strong, direct torchlight to light up their faces and shimmer their black armour like pools of tar.

  Now, the sight of them does a lot more than spear me with ice-cold stabs of fear. It cuts off my breath, trapping it in my chest, and widens my dampening eyes.

  This is really happening.

  Even if I changed my mind and bolted into the blackness now, they would hear me. They might even see me with their super-night-sight. And I’d be one of the first to go down.

  Now, I look at them and feel warm teardrops roll down my hot cheeks. My breath releases so loudly that I slap my free hand to my mouth and muffle the noise.

  Doesn’t look like the dark fae noticed, though.

  Distracted, they murmur to each other, so confident in their untouchable status in this world that they don’t even bother to hide that they are here, small in numbers, perhaps vulnerable—as vulnerable as dark fae warriors can be.

  Two steeds, four warriors mounted on them, so six beasts in total. That’s what I’m staring at, six creatures from the darkest pits of hell.

  Each of them wears the same black tar-like leather, a sheen that glistens off the torchlight. Their physiques, while all muscular and strong, do differ—I can tell that even from this distance. The front two, the ones leading the steeds, reins in hand, are the broad-shouldered ones.

  Holding up the fire-torches, the dark fae behind them look narrower, but by no means less intimidating with the inky scars running over their faces. Or are those tattoos? It’s hard to tell through the distance and adrenaline pumping through me.

  But I do notice the warrior at the front right, the one closest to me. Maybe that’s why I notice him. I like to think so. It could also be that, when he twists around to look closer at something he spotted in the shadows, there’s a giant gap at the back of his strappy armour.

  In place of the missing inky leather, there’s lightly-bronzed skin pulled tight over rippling muscles. His bare back is lined with thick holster straps and, most startling of all, two thick, crooked scars mirroring each other; they run from the middle of his shoulder blades all the way down to the small of his back, exact replicas of each other.

  I wonder fleetingly if the scars were intentional or a wicked, thought-out torture from another.

  Then he turns back around, facing me all over again, and something flips deep in my belly. I loathe myself in this moment. I’ve seen a lot of dark fae before from afar and hell if they aren’t all absolutely beautiful in their wicked, cruel and brutal way.

  But there’s something about this one…

  It’s a different beauty. One that steals me.

  His skin is olive-oil. That’s what I notice first, glistening in the warmth of the fires.

  Then my gaze flickers to his hair. Cropped, tousled and parted at the side, each brown strand is so dark I would think them black if it wasn’t for the faint chocolatey shimmer dancing over them. His eyes, reflecting amber in the torchlight, are downcast as he leads his steed alongside the other down the street. Long lashes cast spidery shadows down his bronzed cheeks, and his plump lips are pulled into a tight line.

  He knows something is off. But he isn’t prickled or alert. He is utterly calm—at peace, almost as though he wants this.

  It floods my veins with icicles, and I loosen a shuddering breath. My palm muffles the sound, but still, his eyes snap up … and he stares right at the car I’m crouched behind.

  A violent tremble rains down me; even my scalp tingles. I’m utterly motionless as I keep my wide eyes on him.

  Faintly, I catch the twitch of his full mouth. A half-smile. He lifts his head until he is looking down his nose on the car and his eyes are almost out of my narrow line of sight.

  Out the corner of his mouth, he mutters something to his companions. They sharpen, gazes darting all over, suddenly restless. They think it’s just humans waiting for them, ready to attack. I’m absolutely certain they suspect nothing about a bomb—

  Because they still are headed right this way.

  9

  Their pace is so agonisingly slow that I wish to Mother Earth and all of her brutality that they would hurry the fuck up. I can’t keep fighting off this adrenaline pumping through me much longer.

  But they are drawing closer to us and, even from under the hood and the dark fae faces starting to lift out of sight, I catch the glint of amusement in the striking one’s eyes. If it weren’t for his poker-straight posture and broad, set shoulders, I would think him utterly at ease with the softness to his expression, his free hand resting on the thigh of his leather trousers and the other holding loosely onto the reins.

  He looks unperturbed. Not troubled in the least.

  And yet, there’s a hunger burning in the amber hues of his eyes—and it’s more than just the firelight reflecting off them.

  Something crackles to my left. I cringe against the hood of the car, my breath swelling in my chest, and cut a glare into the thick black. But I don’t see what made the noise. I only know that it came from the direction of Harry and Paul—maybe Mikey, if he’s still there. Knowing him, he’s probably slipped around to a new position, thinking he’s in Mission Impossible or whatever. Good guy, just a bit away with the faeries.

  Well…

  I shake off the irony and loosen my breath, quiet and slow. It shivers a little, but nothing too audible and, after a few breaths, I’m able to find a steady, silent rhythm again. Those damn breathing exercises they taught us at school to “cope with panic” and all that.

  Hey, I’m not dissing it. That shit works—sometimes. Can’t always get the chance to stop and breathe.

  But I do have a few moments to centre myself and breathe while I wait for the dark fae to reach us.

  I throw another peek under the sedan. Beneath the metal guts of the car, I see only the hairless, bony legs of grey steeds—they are mere metres from the bomb now.

  But they split around the box.

  My heart drops, sinking all the way down to my bum.

  I watch as the two steeds peel away from each other and—clonk-clink-clonk—clomp around the box planted in the middle of the road.

  The icy disappointment unravelling throughout my body is too much like the anxiety rising up in my veins. A battle of emotions, and yet a numbness engulfs me and I bow my head in defeat.

  Guess we’ll have to fight with just our hands, knives and guns. Won’t do much damage that way, but it’s all we have.

  I was just hoping that the bomb might give us at least a chance—

  That crackle comes out again. I blink, looking up at the darkness just as a faint light flickers on; a torch.

  Harry stands there, his blotchy face streaked red and white with tears, and he swallows back something thick and emotional. His mouth twists into a grin-snarl hybrid and he slowly raises a gun that I just now realise is gripped in his trembling hand.

  My heart stops in my chest—and it’s all the time I have before Harry fires the gun right at the bomb in the middle of the fae-steeds.

  A wink of silver speeds past me just as he pulls the trigger—and a dagger sinks right into his chest.

  It happened all at once—the gunshot, the dagger, Harry is dead, and the bomb….

  Boom!

  I barely have a moment to flatten myself to the ground.

  First, I’m aware of the sudden screaming in my ears. No, not screaming. That’s ringing. I hear nothing but a high-pitched whistle; a kettle left on the hob too long.

  My hands slap onto the back of my head. I stay crouched, body folded in half.

  Distantly, I’m aware of the cries—the shouts of surprise. From our people or theirs?

  A cloud of debris and shattered cobblestone is tossed through the air. It envelopes up, pulverised stone raining down on my back. I can hardly draw a breath that isn’t dusty and ragged.

  Burying my face into the crook of my arm, I struggle for clean air. Every muscle in my body is bolted like balls of lead, and I wait—it’s all I can do. I wait for the cries to subside, the thick cloud to disperse.

  I wait for the first of our group to switch on a torch. Whoever aimed light at the bomb has turned it off now. But the fae have torchlight and the bomb will have started fires, so it must be the cloud of dust I can’t see through, not the darkness I’m so used to.

  The longer I’m forced to stay tucked to the ground, the more I’m regretting this fight. It’s not that I don’t want to hurt them or send them to their deaths, but it’s the violence of it all. None of this will be clean.

  There will be blood and guts and throats and organs just flying about all over the place, and that means that in my final moments, I’ll be the one vomiting. My final breath will be of stomach bile, I know it.

  The thought has me cringing, my face twisted into a grimace, as the noise around me starts to fade away. It’s only now that I realise the ringing in my ears has gone faint—still there, but soft enough that I can hear the shuffle of boots on the road, the squish of what definitely sounds like flesh and blood, and a whispered groan ahead—one of the dark fae.

  So now I know. We at least got one of them with the bomb.

  Oh fuck, I hope the steeds aren’t suffering. As ugly and cruel-looking as those things are, I pray to Mother Earth that they were taken out quickly.

  I can’t be seeing anything like that. I’ll never stop throwing up, the image will never stop haunting me.

  Starting to forget why I agreed to this in the first place.

  Oh, that’s right. I’m fucked up and I want to die.

  The cloud starts to thin.

  The dust is settling.

  My sight is returning.

  A torchlight flickers on, not that we need it. After the blast, fire has been left burning on the road, and the dark fae have dropped the fire-torches they carried—or they have been thrown away from them in the blast. Whatever the reason, brightness comes in oranges and reds, and it floods the street.

  A heavy sigh billows out from me, coming from deep in my belly, and I push to my feet. Movement shuffles all around me.

  Everyone is creeping out of their hiding spots.

  Before I straighten up, I wipe my sweaty palms on the skirt of my dress, then fix the gun in my grip. My hands tremble like leaves caught in angry wind, and I can’t unwind the coiled stiffness in my shoulders.

  The punch of my frenzied heartbeat has found itself lodged in my throat, choking me. I swallow it back as best I can, but it does little good.

  And I can’t delay it a moment longer.

  Paul has cocked his shotgun and gone sprinting onto the spill of the road. Mikey shadows him, close to his heels, and jumps over Harry’s corpse as though it isn’t there at all.

  Did they know, I wonder? Was it a part of their plan that, if the dark fae didn’t disturb the boxed bomb, then he would be the one to shoot at it? Because I don’t remember him ever having a gun before the moment he aimed one at the bomb.