Page 25 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Canvas walls.

A… tent.

And Ivy is curled against my side.

She's using my arm as a pillow. Her hair spreads across my bicep, and I feel the gentle rise and fall of her breathing.

Thane is on her other side, one massive arm thrown over both of us, his dark shaggy hair falling into his face.

How did we get in a fucking tent?

My memory starts creeping in, little by little.

The care home.

The mask tearing.

The blood.

The screaming.

Ivy saw.

Ivy saw my fucking face.

My body explodes into motion, muscles responding to pure panic. I lurch upward, lashing out, canvas collapsing around us.

"Wraith? Geez, wait—" My brother mutters, his voice muffled.

Fuck.

FUCK!

I tear at the canvas, ripping it away.

The fog's so thick I can barely see ten feet.

My chest heaves. In through my nose—fuck, the mask's hanging off my face, no, not a mask, a fucking scarf—and out through my open jaws. Damp silk clings to my neck like a noose.

"Wraith?" Ivy's voice cuts through the rushing in my ears.

I spin toward her, and she's crawling out from under the destroyed tent, hair wild, eyes alert but not afraid.

Not running.

Why isn't she running?

My hands fly to my face, covering it.

A low, desperate sound tears from my throat.

"Hey." Ivy moves closer, hands outstretched as I turn away from her. "It's okay. You're okay."

I'm not okay.

Nothing is okay.

She saw everything and she's still here and I don't understand why and my brain won't stop screaming that this is wrong, all wrong, she should be gone⁠—