On the bridge, the fae should be battered by them.
I watch the warriors swarm the city—before the next bullet strikes us, and it plants right into the head of the man at my boots.
“Fuuuuuck,” my throaty moan morphs into panic. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
My boots kick against the snow-packed road. I worm myself away from him, from his sagged, bleeding body.
All around us, guards are dropped onto one knee, fists pressing into the road, heads dropped—but the flare of their stares swerves around us.
The lilac set follows me as I shove myself back from the dead man, and my skull knocks into a sludge of blood.
The girl with the shattered cheekbone wails against me, her hand smacking down on my shoulder. Her cries at me to get off of her are drowned out by the sudden shouts lifting up from the captives.
I cringe against it, the rise of cries and screams, the striking of bullets—and the sudden burst of bootsteps pounding down on the road.
A gasp cuts through me.
People are rising from all over and barrelling out of the circle of guards.
Frozen, I watch as legs leap over mine, as people splinter off and race through the gaps between the kneeling guards—
Then I notice the lilac eyes again.
They lure me in, devoid of the flare, that gleam that had my toes curling in my boots.
Now, they are lifeless.
Cheek smooshed against the snow, it’s a slack face that boots jump over as people scatter.
Blood oozes from the nape of his neck.
I push up from the snow, onto my hands and knees, and from this angle, I look down at the gaping holes split along his spine.
Right down his nape, pulsations of blood spill out of him and melt the snow around his limp body.
More than one bullet hit him.
There’s no doubt about that in my stunned mind as I take in the sight of the torn flesh and a shattered spine.
The solid weight of a boot kicks into my side, and I’m knocked back down.
I almost think a fae has come to kick me, to recapture the ones running off into the woods, down the highway, over to the riverbed—but it’s a woman.
I throw a twisted look around at her, that round and blotchy face that flickers in my mind, memories of her stout and strong frame heaving pots and laundries all around camp.
Her legs writhe over my back, trying to find footing again, and I’m just in her fucking way, being trampled.
The cry ribboning out of me is hollow.
Before she can crush my fucking spine, I drag myself out from under the harsh kicks of her boots on my back.
The murderous glare I throw at her goes ignored as she scrambles to her feet, then barrels out there, into the darkness of the highway, back the way we came.
And it’s only now that I see the destruction.
Five humans hit.
Three are motionless, limp, oozing blood. Two are writhing on the snow, holding onto weeping wounds that slick their hands crimson.
