Don't Touch My Men - Helen Scott Page 0,60

tell she was exhausted by her slower pace. If we were going to get the other pieces, then we needed to do it fast before Mae collapsed. Preferably before nightfall, which seemed to be coming on a lot faster than I’d expected.

27

Hunter

The moment Alastair and I decided to split off to get our pieces, it’d felt like I was a king among my own kind. The creatures in this place were dangerous, but there were few things more dangerous than an angry dark fae.

I gathered my shadows around me until they were like a massive flock of birds that shadowed my every step, and walked toward the piece I needed as if nothing in the world could harm me. Something about having Mae back, but losing Grim, had made something strange awaken inside of me. If the Horseman thought he was in some twisted fight of light versus dark, he was wrong.

I was a kind of darkness he had never faced before, and if he hurt the people I loved, he would soon realize it.

Creatures in the fog hissed and growled, but seemed to dart away when they took me in. I ignored them all. If they wanted to try to hurt me, I would let them.

When I came to the location of the first piece, there was nothing but a lone machine. It was a glass box with a fortune teller woman inside with blue eyes that glowed and a coin slot. I sent my shadows through the coin slot, and the puppet seemed to come to life. She said to ask a question, any question, and she would reveal the truth.

Only, I wasn’t a human. I could feel the dark energy within the puppet. Deep in my heart, I knew that no matter what question I asked, she would speak words that would come true, words that would haunt me for however long my life would be after her curse.

I sent my shadows forward, breaking the glass, and I lifted the puppet into the air. The cursed puppet screamed and screamed while my shadows shredded her. Then I carefully put on my gloves, pulled the piece of the Horseman’s head out, and slipped it into my bag—a grocery bag that Alastair had found in the bottom of his backpack.

I left the gloves on,

because I wasn’t done yet.

It was strange how the evil in the carnival seemed to pull back from me after the remains of the puppet fell like snow around me. As if I was something to fear. I went back to the place Alastair and I had agreed to meet, but when he didn’t return, I thought of the next piece not far from me and headed in that direction.

I walked until I came to the Ferris wheel. A normal looking man worked beneath it with his tools, but I knew that no normal man would be in this place.

“Hello?” I called.

He climbed out from where he was working and stood, his expression nervous. My gaze roamed over the bone-thin man with his head of pale, almost white, blond hair and his deeply set eyes. He wore a blue uniform with the carnival’s logo on it and cleaned his hands with a white cloth.

After an awkward moment, he said, “Hello.”

I cocked my head and studied him. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“I’m just a normal—”

“No, you’re not,” I interrupted.

His face pulled into a crazed smile. “You’ll never get all five pieces. Many have tried, and many have failed.”

“But no one like me has tried,” I told him, and the look I gave him made him flinch.

Because the truth was, I was not the cruelty and darkness inside of me. My time with Mae had made me realize that who I was and what I was were two completely different things. I might be a dark fae, but I was a good person. I might have done some bad things, but that did not make me bad. And now, in this dark and dangerous place, I would make our enemies fear me. I would kill. I would ravage anyone and anything that stepped in my path.

All so one day my best friends and I, and the woman I loved, could be safe. All so we could be together and happy.

So I wasn’t afraid. But this man should’ve been.

“Where is it?” I asked.

He pointed to the Ferris wheel. All the swinging compartments were white, except for one. It was black and tinged with grey. As I focused on