The Fae Prince

Chapter 4: Monsters in the Trees

Friday
2:45am

Haley

I quickly grab Cathy's frail wrist and drag her with me towards the front door, both of us sliding our feet into our sneakers without adjusting them properly.

"Wait, it's freezing!" She hisses, running back into the living room to grab her coat and a blanket.

"Hurry! Maeve was with him earlier, she could still be here," I usher her out the door and use my key to open the doors to my car from afar, "God, you're already wearing like three layers, how many more do you need?"

"Don't judge, judgy," she grumbles.

My car, luckily, sat unharmed from all the shattered glass that landed a few feet in front of it.

"Okay," I eye the unconscious body of the starry man on the sidewalk, "You're gonna have to get in the car as quickly as you can, okay, Cath?"

Cathy nods, "I'll try, it feels weird walking in my body right now."

"Just try please, as long as you get inside of the car as fast as you can, we'll be good," I let go of her wrist and walk forward.

Cathy and I both make our way towards my car, scrambling to get inside when we can finally reach to open the doors. Dread tingles my scalp when I realize ice has frozen over my windshield.

"Hals, there's no time to worry about the ice, you gotta drive," Cathy says as she stares at starry man's lifeless body.

"How'd you know I was worried about the ice?" I look over to her as I put the car in drive and begin to drive down the empty road.

"You didn't say it?" She asks.

"No, I didn't," I say as I plug in the coordinates for my mom's farmhouse.

"I could've sworn you said it out loud," the space in between her eyebrows creases.

I shake my head, "I'm telling you I didn't."

"Huh," Cathy slumps over in her seat, "I don't know then."

"We'll figure it out later, but as for right now, we need to get to my mom's farmhouse," I gesture towards the GPS, "We'll be there in about an hour."

"Your mom's farmhouse? But isn't she, ya know, dead?" Cathy cringes.

I stifle a laugh at her awkwardness, "Yeah, but she left me her farmhouse. I go up there for the summer sometimes."

"So that's where you go!" Cathy exclaims.

I let a quiet laugh bubble past my lips, "Yes, it is."

The car ride falls into silence, the sound of the radio filling the silence with pop music. Once we're far enough away from my apartment, I pull the car over and scrape off the remaining ice from my windshield that my heater couldn't melt off. My breath comes out in foggy breaths as I slave over trying to scrape the ice off. Cathy stands next to me in the snow, bundled up in her coat and my blanket trying to get her glamour to work. I sigh when I see that she's holding her breath again and turning blue and purple.

"You're holding your breath again, Cath," I say.

She blows out a large amount of air and gives me a sheepish grin, "Sorry, I forget."

"Come on. We've still got at least forty minutes to get to the farmhouse and we're wasting time standing here any longer than we should be," I walk back around to the driver's seat and get in.

Cathy gets into the passenger seat and she turns to look at me, "Okay, I think I know how this glamour thing works."

I start the car and put it in drive, watching the road as I speak, "Okay, show me."