Faetality |✓|

Chapter Twenty, Part One - A Gift of Blood and Bone

Chapter Twenty

A Gift of Blood and Bone

"Coach?" I said her name, hoping that her image was just a figure, a mirage, some sort of hallucination. But there she stood, ghostly in the moonlight, wearing a smile that had always appeared friendly but now seemed... wicked.

"The moment is here - it all finally comes down to this. You're a smart girl, Tamsyn. Have you figured it out yet?"

She was still several yards away but in her gloved hands I could see a small, wooden bowl filled with a silver liquid.

"The suicides," I said quietly, slowly rising to my feet. "It was you. Rebecca Crane, Jacob Moore, Dean... you killed them. All those innocent people..."

"Oh they were far from innocent, Tamsyn," Coach Ashby's smile turned down at the edges, revealing pity, sympathy. I felt my stomach turn at that the thought that a killer could feel sorry for me. "Take Jacob for instance. He assaulted a girl and then lied about it. And Rebecca well, she was a tease - a slut. She led Jacob on and changed her mind at the last minute. So in a way... she kind of asked for it..."

"No she didn't," I said coldly. "No girl ever asks for that."

Coach Ashby, still grinning, sighed and exchanged a knowing look with Erica, who chuckled in return.

"Why did you do it? How did you it?" I demanded.

"I'm a Suicide Fae from the Dark Court, and my gift involves collecting souls -"

"So just to clarify - you encourage people to kill themselves and then steal their souls?"

I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to.

"It was so easy," she replied with a simple shrug. "Last summer I joined a counseling program at the college - that's how I ran into Rebecca. She was so sweet and trusting. She talked to me about the need to fit in, the peer pressure, the encouragement from her sorority sisters to... satisfy the frat boys. But when she met Jacob she thought he was different, so I encouraged her to make friends with him and of course one thing led to another. And from there everything just kind of fell into place. Then, when summer ended I transferred to the high school..." she paused and slipped a hand inside her coat pocket, pulling out a small, lethal looking knife stained with a silver liquid. "Did you know that Humans are attracted to death? Physically... mentally... emotionally... they're all drawn to it - like moths to the flame. Especially the hormonal ones. It was so easy. All those students were just so eager to unload their problems, their secrets, their fears. So I picked the weakest ones, the easiest targets."

"Like Dean?" I whispered, feeling the blood boiling in my veins.

"Oh he was one of my favorites," she replied, biting her lip, clearly deriving some sick pleasure at the memory. "Dean came to me, several times, looking for advice about you. He wanted to know how to handle you, how to hurt you without... hurting you. So I suggested he talk to Sienna and she took it from there. All I had to do was wait."