by Zara Zenia
“Not without getting unfinished business out of the way by killing as many supernaturals as she can in the process first,” I said scornfully.
We rounded another corner and stayed close to the campus, but after a while, we found ourselves trailing into the outskirts a bit. Nighttime hadn’t yet descended a cloak of darkness over the town quite yet. There was a yellowish gray color to the sky as dusk lingered.
“I just want to be able to enjoy my time here and make the most of the Sleepy Hollow experience,” I said and looked at the guys. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Nope,” they answered with stoic shakes of their heads.
“I don’t feel like I’m enjoying myself at school this year,” Colin said, but then, as if realizing what he’d just said, quickly added, “aside from when I’m with you, of course.”
I gave him a light smile. “I understood what you meant,” I answered him.
“It’s hard to enjoy it when there is the constant fear of contracting the illness in the back of everyone’s minds,” Daniel said.
“I feel like it’s not safe to breath anywhere.” Colin chuckled.
“Tell me about it.” I rolled my eyes as we strolled through the grass, listening to the low chirping hum of the crickets off in the distance of the woods.
I didn’t know why, but I felt compelled to visit the tree line. Call it intuition, but I felt a fierce magnetic pull to enter them.
I began walking robotically in that general vicinity. I felt entranced, so much so that I forgot I was even with Colin and Daniel in the first place, as I dropped their hands.
“Marina?” I heard Daniel call out behind me. “Where are you going?”
I halted my tracks and turned around slowly, feeling dazed. “Huh?”
“Where are you going?” He pointed at the horizon ahead. “Into the woods?”
“Don’t you think we should check it out?” I asked, blinking trying to recover my thoughts.
Daniel exchanged an apprehensive glance with Colin.
“It’s getting dark,” Colin advocated for both of them. “Maybe we should search closer to the campus?”
There was a trace of caution etched in his voice. The noise of the crickets suddenly became closer and louder. I felt an enhanced attraction to this area. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
Goose bumps spread across the surface of my skin even though there wasn’t much of a breeze at all to cause such a sudden, disturbed chill that rushed aggressively through my body.
“I can feel her here,” I whispered. “I can feel her energy.”
Daniel took an intrigued step forward. His crimson eyes were practically glowing with officiousness.
“You can feel her?” He looked worried. “How is that possible? She’s not a witch.”
“I don’t know, but I know it’s her. It’s intense,” I admitted with a nod. “I can’t explain it. It’s magnetic.”
“Where is she, sweetness?” Colin glanced around curiously, doing a slow circle spin.
“I think she’s in the woods,” I whispered.
“How deep do we have to go into them to find out whether you are right?” Colin asked doubtfully.
I turned around and slowly began edging my way closer to the woods. I didn’t care if the guys followed me or not. I was determined to prove my intuition right.
I heard the footsteps of each of the guys as they followed behind me with steps of trepidation.
I kept my gaze to the ground, keeping one foot in front of the other. Patches of snow were in the woods where the sun couldn’t shine on the bottom as brightly as it did in the clearing around the lawns of the school.
I stumbled over something that I assumed at first to be a log, but then quickly realized it was too soft to be something like that.
I glanced down and felt a scream explode from the depths of my lungs and shatter into the air. I was haunted by the image of a female, slumped over and sprawled face down into the dirt. Her body was lifeless. She wasn’t moving, she was limp.
She wore jeans and her shoes were untied. One of them was partially coming off, exposing a heel under a purple sock. Her dark hair was askew and there were several leaves clustered into it in a tangled bunch.
There was a knife that had been jabbed down to the handle into the back of her head. Dried blood was sticky and oozing out of the wound, but most of it had crusted over.
“Who is it?” Daniel asked, approaching warily from behind me.
“We need to move her over to find out,” I said, giving them a regrettable look.
“I’ll do it.” Colin stepped up in front of us and gently lifted the torso and rolled her over as delicately as possible.
I held my breath and gasped when the girl staring back at me was the ashen face of Carlotta. She must have been dead for several hours. Her blood was already beginning to pool and it was causing greenish, black bruising across the surface of her skin. Rigor mortis had already begun to settle in.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. If Carlotta was dead, she couldn’t be behind the illnesses back on campus.
Daniel shot me a perplexed glance. “How…did you know that she would be in here?”
“I didn’t.” I vigorously shook my head. “I honestly had no idea that I would nearly trip and fall over her murdered body. I don’t know…I just felt it somehow, that she was near.”
Daniel and Colin stared at me as if they desperately wanted to believe me.
I forced myself to look at Carlotta laying still and dead a bed of soggy leaves. Her eyes were open and startled. Her mouth was agape as if she wasn’t expecting her killer.
“What happened to her?” I whispered, shaking my head with utter bafflement.
Before the guys had a chance to respond to me, we heard the crunch of leaves and twigs under boots of footsteps behind us.
All three of us whipped around in alarm. Could it be Carlotta’s killer returning, thirsty to shed more blood?
I stifled another scream and immediately staggered backward, shaking as I saw two Hunters from the Kingston group of Hunters approaching us. I recognized them from their pictures, their names were Dan and Benton. Their eyes were menacing, glaring a hole right through us.
I felt a rush of panic. I was lightheaded. My vision blurred, making me dizzy. Daniel gripped me before I fell.
Dan Legrasse, the older of the two, had a cold and vicious sneer on his face. His white blond hair was combed to the side. He balled his fists at his sides and wore a short-sleeved shirt exposing tattoos that took up most of the surface space of his arms.
Benton, Dan’s cousin stood beside him, shorter and leaner. He was scowling at us with blame flickering in his eyes.
“You did this.” It wasn’t a question. It was an incriminating statement.
“No.” I shook my head. “We did not do this.”
“Then why are you here?” Dan took an aggressive step forward.
“Stay back,” Daniel warned.
“Or what, you’ll stab me in the back of the head too? I don’t think so, walking corpse.”
I felt Daniel’s body tense in response to the insult. I gripped his arms to prevent him from lunging into an attack against Dan and Benton.
We stood there, the three of us parallel to Dan and Benton, with only Carlotta’s deceased body between us. We were waiting for one of the sides to make the first move. This unexpected encounter could end all types of ways, but none of them were good for either side.
9
Colin
“Let’s not do anything destructive here,” I said firmly, moving out from behind Daniel, but keeping Marina behind us both. “We aren’t responsible for what happened to…” I glanced at Carlotta’s corpse, “her.”
“Liars.” Dan cracked his knuckles and focused his rage on me. He lifted his gun and pointed it at us.
“That’s not going to hurt us,” Daniel said nodding at the weapon.
“Wrong. These are enchanted!” Benton sneered.
Marina moved closer to both of us, putting her hands on our backs, and then a glow started to shield us from the Hunters.
Dan and Benton reeled back with stunned expressions.
“What the hell are you doing, freak?” Benton hissed, as angry spittle burst from his lips and sprayed through the air.
“Preventing you lot from shooting at us before you do something you’ll regret,” Daniel smirked.
“I won’t regret killing any of you,” Dan barked. His menacing eyes darted frantically between us, just waiting for an excuse to blow our brains out.
“Especially not that one.” Benton pointed directly at Daniel.
Daniel started to lunge forward, snarling, but Marina had hold of his shirt and I grabbed his arm.
“He’s got a mouth on him.”
“I seriously wish you were an Unseelie,” Daniel whispered to me.
He was of course referring to the fact that I was a Seelie Fae, and not the more aggressive type of Unseelie who spiritedly loathed the Hunters and jumped at any chance to kill them.
“No one has to die here,” I whispered back.
“Tell that to Carlotta,” Marina said and nudged her chin in her direction.
“Better her than us,” Daniel said. “Otherwise she would be standing on the enemy side right now. She still might be responsible for the sickness spreading through the school.”
“Stop arguing with each other. We need to deal with this problem,” Marina reminded us and flickered her gaze at Dan and Benton.
She turned to face the pair with a brave expression and a confident squaring of her shoulders as she held the shield in place.
“I promise you, on our lives, we did not kill Carlotta.” She didn’t release her hold on us as she stared the Hunters down. “Guys show them your hands.”
I was confused, and judging by Daniel he was also skeptical, but we both did it anyway.
“See?” Marina began again. “Our hands aren’t bloody. We had nothing to do with this.”
Dan moved forward and leaned over Carlotta and inspected her body. “She looks like she’s been dead for a few hours already.”
“They probably came back to hide the body,” Benton accused.
I scoffed. “Why would we be foolish enough to return to the crime scene?”
“So, you admit it?” Dan took a step forward. “This is the crime scene? This is where you killed her?”
“We did not kill her!” Daniel exclaimed. His voice thundered through the trees with a booming echo.
I held my breath and waited for all hell to break loose. I tensed every muscle in my body. I was ready to take them out if necessary, but I didn’t want to be the first side to exert violence. Perhaps there was still hope in trying to talk the Hunters down, no matter how impossible it seemed.
“Why would we want Carlotta dead anyway?” Marina asked of the pair.
My eyes flicked to her, I knew of a good reason to want her dead, she’d tried to kill Marina, but I seriously hoped that these two were unaware of that.
“I don’t know.” Dan gave her a mocking sneer. “You tell me.”
“We were looking for her because we needed information,” Daniel retorted, matching Dan’s sneer.
“Information about what?” Dan and Benton exchanged a glance as if the idea was utterly preposterous.
“We know it sounds a little far-fetched,” Marina explained. “But it’s the truth. There’s a virus going around Sleepy Hollow. Last semester, Carlotta manipulated a witch into helping her, we wanted to confront her and find out if she was doing it again.”
“What are you talking about? Supernatural creatures don’t get viruses,” Dan asked.
“There are students at the school who are sick. It’s a magical virus, caused by a witch or wizard,” I told them. “We thought Carlotta might have something to do with it.”
Dan and Benton chortled maliciously. “What are you three, detectives?”
My temper flared and I did what I could to control it instead of unleashing it on these two. We needed to hold out for as long as we could with these unpredictable Hunters. We already knew what they were capable of, and we didn’t want to trigger any kind of violence from them.
I knew we could protect ourselves, but we were going to stall the fight for as long as we possibly could, and hopefully we’d either get away or more students would join us. The woods were a great place to hang out, especially for those who were shifters and wanted to go for a run.
“We just want to figure out what’s causing this virus on the campus,” Marina commented. “And we thought that finding Carlotta might help us get to the bottom of the problem.”
“Like she would ever help you,” Benton said with a glare.
“We wanted to catch her in the act,” Daniel said.
“She’s too quick and smart to get caught,” Benton fired back.
“Are you saying that she’s guilty?” Marina gave them an expectant, yet smug look as if she was baiting them to admit something.
Dan turned to face her. “I’m not saying anything to an ugly witch like you.”
I stepped forward, along with Daniel, blocking Marina from their sight, but she still kept her hands on our backs. “You better watch who you are talking to.”
Dan pointed the gun back at us. He cocked it in a warning manner.
We stayed put, for the time being. For several agonizing moments, nobody said a word. The only sound was the wind whispering its phantom song of sorrow through the cloaking canopy of trees.
“It seems awfully coincidental that you would just happen to be in the woods, standing over her dead body,” Dan said.
“I know it looks bad—” Marina began from behind us.
Daniel interrupted her. “We could say the same thing about you two. What if you killed her and are now attempting to frame us?”
It was outlandish, at best, but I had to give the guy credit for trying.
Dan and Benton glared at him.
“It still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here, so far away from your cozy little coddled school life,” Dan hashed.
He was mocking us again. He was either bitter, jealous or really despised us. It was probably a lethal combination of all three.
“We aren’t that far from school, we’re still on school property,” I replied. I wasn’t about to let them dictate where we could go, but I also didn’t want to give the pair of vicious Hunters any more clues or information than I absolutely had to divulge.
Marina moved her hands over our sides, gently pushing the two of us apart and stepped forward. She continued to keep her hands on us, keeping the shield erect. A beam of moonlight even pierced through the treetops and penetrated the ground right where she stood. She looked like an ethereal witch who was there to conquer and save the world and dispose of all the torment and prejudices that existed.
“I felt her presence,” Marina confessed. “I can’t explain it.” She glanced over her shoulder at me and Daniel. “I tried to explain it to them, but I couldn’t.”
“It’s because you’re a filthy witch,” Dan snarled.
I stepped up beside her and so did Daniel as we both put our arms around her waist, protectively.
“Watch your mouth, Hunter,” I said gruffly.
Benton shifted his gun but didn’t point it at us. I knew he was preparing for the unexpected, and I had to keep my wits about me. We were all on edge.
“She probably killed Carlotta with her mind,” Benton added.
“I most certainly did no such thing.” Marina shook her head insistently. “I just wanted to find her before she hurt another student. I had no idea that she was going to be dead when we found her. I nearly stumbled over her body. I tripped, and that’s how I noticed her.”
“She gets feelings sometimes about energies,” I said, helping her out and enhancing her defense.
“How can you feel someone’s energy if they’re already dead?” Dan raised his eyebrows with an expression of mass
ive cynical doubt.
I looked at Marina for an answer. His question had merit, but I wasn’t going to question her.
“Sometimes I can feel the energy of the dead, their spirits sometimes linger in our world,” Marina stated without skipping a beat.
“I don’t believe a single word that you supernatural freaks are saying,” Dan hissed angrily through a clenched jaw.
I held my breath and heard Marina gasp beside me as he cocked his gun and aimed it at us, fully motivated to shoot it at all three of us until we collapsed into a pile next to Carlotta.
It didn’t take long to realize that Dan hadn’t lied, the firearms were enchanted, which could only mean one thing. Dan and Benton had stolen them. Strobes of green light came firing out of the gun as the bullets sprayed toward us. But Marina’s shield held as Daniel and I curled around her protectively.
The bullets shot out, hitting the shield and making it zap as they deflected away from us. I did my best to protect Marina, and Daniel did too. We stood shrouding her, trying to cover every bit of her. Witches could be harmed, killed even by a regular human weapon. They weren’t easy to heal, and it was crucial that we kept her alive. I somehow had the feeling that she might be the key to unlocking this whole illness mystery. Besides, I was in love with her. Protecting her wasn’t something I had to think about. It was a natural instinct at this point. “Get Marina to safety!” I roared to Daniel, who scooped Marina up in his arms.
He stood and ran with vampiric speed deeper into the trees. Setting her out of the way from the unforgiving bullets and then sped back to me all within the span of a few seconds.
Without Marina’s shield we weren’t as protected, so I fired back illusions at Benton and Dan that I thought might scare them off, but nothing was working. I created a huge illusion of a vampire to form from smoke right in front of Benton. He was the weaker of the two, and I thought I had a better chance at taking him out.
The vampire illusion chased after Benton with aggressiveness, like it was wanting to feed with its bloodthirsty mouth hanging wide open, but Dan called him back.
“It’s not real!” Dan shouted as he reloaded. “It’s just an illusion that the stupid Fae is throwing at you! Keep shooting, we’re winning this thing!”
