Fear for Val and my mother rushed through me.
Had they come here, hoping to find shelter from the mists? Had anyone been inside these homes? Or had they been a part of whatever had happened here? My heart beat painfully beneath my ribs. What if they’d somehow made their way here, but then the worst had happened? The pookas had attacked them just like they’d targeted us.
“Stay close,” Kalen murmured as we slowly stalked toward the nearest building. Its front door was wide open, hinges creaking as it swung in the steady breeze. I shivered beneath the cloak and tried to find the strength inside myself to carry on, knowing that my worst nightmare might lie just beyond that doorframe.
Mother and Val dead, ripped apart by vicious claws.
Nausea churned in my gut. If we found them in there, I didn’t know how I’d have the strength to carry on.
We went up the small set of creaking steps. Kalen hovered in the doorway just in front of me, wincing when a gruesome stench wafted toward us. I threw my hand over my mouth and stumbled back down the steps, curving forward as I vomited on the ground. Tears streamed from my eyes, a horrible knowledge twisting me apart.
I knew what death smelled like. King Oberon had made certain of that.
Steps creaked as Kalen came to my side. He lifted my hair from my shoulders and pulled it back, waiting silently while I composed myself. Gripping my knees, still curved forward, I sucked deep breaths in through my nose and blew them out through my mouth. Slowly, the nausea passed, even as my heart raged like a bonfire.
“Thanks,” I whispered, finally daring to stand straight. Kalen met my eyes as he loosened his grip on my hair. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You should braid it,” he said gruffly. “Better for fighting.”
I ground my teeth and glanced away. “I don’t know how. Nellie used to do it for me.”
Kalen was silent for a moment before he said, “I can go inside without you. There’s no reason why you should have to see this.”
“Yes, there is,” I said, nearly choking on my words. “You don’t know what Val or my mother look like. How will you know if it’s them in there or not?”
“You are brave,” he murmured before striding back up the steps and waiting for me just outside the door. I appreciated that he didn’t try to talk me out of it or insist I stay down here. I could tell by the look on his face that he understood, that he’d do the same damn thing if he were in my shoes.
Gulping air into my lungs, I nodded to myself and followed him inside the building. Shadows crammed the small space, making it difficult to see much. I waited for a moment to let my eyes adjust while Kalen began a slow stalk around the room.
As I settled into the darkness, I had to put a hand to my mouth to hold back the scream. Blood painted the walls and the floorboards. Bodies littered the ground, arms and legs ripped from their torsos. Some of them looked half-eaten.
There were at least a dozen of them. Men and women, old and young. They were all dead.
Squeezing my hands into fists, I whispered through the room, not daring to touch a thing. Revulsion twisted through me as I peered down at each tormented face, searching for two familiar sets of eyes. Faces I had longed to see for so long, but now prayed to the sun that I wouldn’t find—not here.
After I’d gone through the entire room, I went outside and sat on a stump far enough away that I could no longer smell the stench. Val and Mother were not here. Not in this building, at least. But that did not make the horror any less real. These people had suffered. Their lives had been cut short.
All because of those monsters. The same monsters who were determined to do the very same thing to me. The moonlight must have chased them away before they’d finish their meal, but it had been too late.
I heard footsteps behind me. Kalen sat down on my left side and stared across the empty city.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
“I haven’t been all right in a very long time.”
“I take it your family isn’t in there.”
“Not in that home, no.” Swallowing hard, I scanned the rest of the buildings. “But they could be in one of those. Just give me a moment. I need to catch my breath.”
“There’s no one inside those buildings, Tessa. I can scent them from here. Nothing dead or living inside. They must have fled when the pookas attacked. Hopefully most of them got away.”
Slowly, I stood, all my hope dashed in a single sentence. “You think they fled into the mists? What if the pookas followed them? They wouldn’t have gotten very far before the beasts caught up.”
His eyes were heavy when he spoke. “The pookas might have been distracted by…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to. “It might have been enough.”
“But we don’t know that,” I argued, sweeping my hand toward the hidden horizon. “We need to go see if we can find them. See if they’re…see if they made it away from here.”
It wasn’t over yet. If we didn’t search the mists surrounding the city, I’d never know if Mother and Val had been here and tried to escape. Maybe Kalen was right. Maybe they did get a head start. We needed to see if we could find something out there.