Page 58 of Escaping Monsters

“Oliver Hunt… come with me. I’ll give you everything you desire. Just follow my light.” The voice was soft and alluring, and I remembered with visceral clarity what it had felt like to be caught by the queen’s entrancing power.

Oliver stepped away from Jasper and toward the light, his eyes glazing over. “Everything I want…”

“Everything,” the voice promised. “You’ll be honored above everyone in my court. You will be the strongest, smartest, and most handsome. Fae will serve you, day and night. Your every desire will be fulfilled. My menagerie will center entirely on you. You will be treated with the importance you deserve.”

“Come here…,” Oliver reached for the glowing globe, stumbling after it. As soon as his fingers were inches away, the glowing ball bounced away from him and moved deeper into the forest. Oliver scurried after it, falling into a jog. Within the space of a minute, he faded from view as the deep shadows of the nighttime forest fell over him.

“Better fate than he deserves after what he did to Teagan and Chad,” Ace muttered from somewhere above me. Moonlight reflected off a tear that clung to Ace’s cheek.

Chad.

The name sent a pulse of pain through my heart.

Oliver had shot Chad point-blank in the head. A whimper escaped me before I could stop it, and someone ran a hand down my back trying to comfort me.

“Chad is alive, badly injured, but alive.” It was Lucas from somewhere behind me. I wanted to look at him, but I didn’t even have the energy to lift my head.

Jasper looked down over his shoulder. “Did Oliver give you any order that would make you need to stay here?”

My brain felt fuzzy, but when I thought over the orders Oliver gave me, I couldn’t think of a single one that would need me to stay here. His last physical order was for me to lay down, and I’d already done that. The only other order I had on me was to shut up. The order to look at Oliver was gone now. Nothing required me to stay here. I shook my head, and it was the last thing I did before darkness pulled me under.