In The Dark Of Night

Chapter Seven - To Care

Chapter Seven

To Care 

 I've been keeping secrets

From my heart and from my soul

~Florence + The Machine, Lover to Lover

Time was moving sluggishly. 

Faye's breathing sounded heavy.

Everything felt cold.

As Jamie raced into the hallway in slow-motion and Cale took off down the corridor, hair whipping behind him, and Rick lay frigid beneath her fingers, Faye rocked back, numb, watching Jamie work furiously over the fallen Hunter, calling her name.

All she could think was that the Fae girl had done it.

She knew she had.

And suddenly she was thrown back to her childhood, only five years old when her parents had felled like trees around her and the Fae had leered over her, eyes glowing with an unholy fullness and skin ablaze with the life of others.

To her, the Fae Folk were the most loathsome of the Abnormals.

And now, she had been proven right, yet again.

"Faye! Faye, snap out of it!" 

Suddenly everything lurched forward, time speeding up and Faye's eyes zoned in on the scene before her - Rick, breathing shallowly, and Jamie performing CPR.

"Get my kit, Faye! Get it!" She was yelling, hands grappling at Rick's chest. "Get it now!"

And then Faye was on her feet, darting down the corridor towards the foyer of the grand Academy, heart stuck in her throat as she skidded around corner after corner, the numbness fading and her nerves prickling. 

She fell to the ground before the medicine cabinet, disguised as a chest of drawers in the small, square room, fumbling through the objects inside for Jamie's specially designed First Aid Kit.

Just as her fingers enclosed around it, however, a bone-numbing chill swept into the room and she felt breathless, her vision swerving as she hunched over, sweat dotting her skin and her skin ice-cold. 

Standing in the suddenly opened doorway of the room, was an impossibly tall, impossibly large, hooded figure, with dark, tattooed skin, blotting out the sun the background and leering down at her from beneath his hood. Even with his covered face, she knew exactly who it was.

What she couldn't understand, was why the Master Orlot Hafter was back at the Academy.

And why there were armed Hunters standing guard behind him. 

"Hello Falyla Garter. Is Cale Schatten here?"

Cale dodged through the crowded street of New York City, his body feeling winded and cold. He'd gone through the Gap-Portal on Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, that hid the mountainside Academy from the streets of New York, at a run, and was now feeling the effects of it, but he pressed on, never slowing.

A few New Yorkers shot him looks, probably wondering what he was doing so active so early, but he ignored them. He peered around, looking every which way for any sign of the dark-skinned Fae dressed only in a top-shirt that had escaped from the Academy. 

And then he caught a glimpse of bare legs, limping towards Central Park, and he picked up speed. 

He caught her just beyond the line of trees, his feet sliding underneath hers, sending her flailing to the ground, and him suddenly on top of her, locking her hands behind her back as a restraint.