9. Cricket

Dawn in the woods had once been her favorite time of day. The world was mostly sleeping, the roads and villages were quiet, and the woods were the playground of the faun. She remembered traipsing after her mom, Thicket, when she was young, following deer trails only she knew into new, exciting corners of their old world—remembered being bedded down when the sun fully rose and spending those long days in a space between waking and dreaming until her mom and older siblings returned at dusk to rouse Cricket and begin the journey home to their den.

And then the world split, they fell through, and Cricket’s mother kept her close and safe. As the only one of Thicket’s children to fall through, she spent her doehood in a den with other young faun, given only a tight radius to wander that her parents considered “safe.” She was only allowed into Green Bank proper when her cousin returned to be married in the Faunish style with her human wife.

So it was little wonder she found herself hobbling the paths and deer trails running along the backside of the camp a little after dawn, leaning on her crutch and cursing under her breath whenever the knobbed end got stuck in a patch of mud or tangled in ivy. Which was exactly why she was bent at an awkward angle, tugging ivy off of the aluminum leg, and stopped long enough to catch the delicate, dancing melody floating through the trees.

Her ears swiveled in the direction of the sound, and her head followed as she straightened. The edge of a building was just visible through the trees, painted a lovely, deep shade of green. Jerking the crutch free, Cricket stepped off a path that could hardly be considered a trail and followed the sound. She hopped one-hoofed over a runnel feeding into a larger creek and swung around a tree, stopping beside a half-opened window.

Lovely piano music spilled out, a song Cricket had never heard before. She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes as the melody poured over her like warm, sweet honey. There was a hopefulness to the song, a whimsy tempered by a longing that tied itself to Cricket’s very soul. Gripping the window sill, she peered in, jaw-dropping at the sight of Avery lost in her music.

Eyes closed, body moving in time to the sound she produced, she was without care, without worry. This was Avery, plying her passion on the keyboard and baring her heart to an empty room. Her expression shifted with each measure, the human feeling every beat, every emotion evoked by the music written by her very soul.

Cricket was again caught by the puzzle of this human girl. Mesmerized, hypnotized, whatever it was, it held her in place like … a deer in headlights.

The song petered to an end. Avery exhaled all of that passion in one long sigh, releasing Cricket from her spell. She spun around, out of sight, frantically smoothing her ears down while imagining those graceful fingers—long, lean, and strong—brushing along sensitive down. The memory shifted, Cricket’s imagination taking full control, and those fingers brushed lower, trailing along her jaw and down her throat. Heat flooded between her hips, and she shot away from the building, catching herself with the crutch before faceplanting in the pine straw.

“Oak and ivy, you’re being stupid.”

Picking any direction that led her away from the building and Avery, Cricket followed one of the well-trod paths into the woods, careful to keep the camp on her right, though just out of sight. The morning bell rang, and muffled voices filtered through the trees as campers headed to the dining hall for breakfast. Her stomach grumbled, but the last thing Cricket wanted to deal with right now was sharing a meal with Avery. What if she asked about her hasty exit two nights prior? What if she had to admit that a faun’s ears were, like, super sensitive? Oh, Gods, what if Avery had seen her in the window?

Her ears flattened against the side of her head, and her face flushed hot. Gods, she needed to get out of this camp. Avery was running a number on her, emotionally and physically. She’d all but run up the stairs to Mac’s guest bedroom that night, needing to take the edge off after the incident with the spiderweb, but even then, it wasn’t enough. No matter how wild her imagination was, no touch or caress she gave herself could match the arousal she’d felt at those light, careful touches.

“Gods damn.” Cricket hobbled to a halt, shaking her head to rid herself of the memory. There was only one way out of this: distance. She needed her cousin to return so they could go to Green Bank and convince their family to move.

Her stomach growled again, and she raised her head, catching the scent of bacon, eggs, and—“Waffles, awesome.” Working around, she caught another scent in the air—wet and musky, with the faintest hint of wintergreen.

Her ears shot straight up, every muscle in her body going taut as instinct took over. The woods fell still, birdsong dying along with the quiet rustling in the undergrowth. It was here. Whatever had chased her over the ridgeline and stalked her through the wood was here.

Fighting her instincts, Cricket grit her teeth and spun around, nose twitching and ears swiveling, seeking any sound or scent or hint of where the thing was in relation to her. Just when she was about to give up, she caught it. A stronger, headier musk coming from the northwest. Abandoning her crutch against a tree, Cricket limped off the trail, wincing and hissing through her teeth. This was stupid; she was probably courting death, but she needed to know she wasn’t crazy. That whatever had chased her was real, and it was here.

Bacon and blessed waffles grew fainter in the air, and a new scent joined the musk and wintergreen. Something metallic and sharp that turned Cricket’s stomach, growing stronger with each step. She swallowed a sour mouthful of spit, ducked under a low-lying branch, and halted at the edge of a large, circular patch of churned and matted earth tucked up against a fallen tree. Flattened leaves and pine straw blanketed the bed, and her eyes easily picked out another trail leading away from the site.

She made it three steps onto the trail before the reality of that metallic scent smacked her in the face.

Blood.

“Oh, Gods.” Cricket slammed a hand over her mouth, limping as fast as she could away from the kill site, the bed. Away from where that creature had slept and eaten. Gods, what did it eat? A deer, a rabbit? An inhuman like her?

Her stomach twisted, all desire for waffles erased under the unignorable need to vomit and scour her body, erasing the stink of the hours-old kill from her coat with lye.

The trail spat her out on the edge of the parking lot, and she hurried across the gravel, glancing at the luxury sedan parked beside the gate. Her gaze lingered on the license plate, a soft orange at the bottom fading up to white, a peach for the O in the state’s name.

Georgia.

Cricket hastened along, following her cousin’s trail around the cabin. She ducked into the yard and up the stairs, letting herself in the back door. Strong cologne damn near smacked her in the face and, stifling a gag that only sent the lavender, citrus, and wintergreen scents burrowing deeper into her sinuses, she backed out onto the porch and collapsed in one of the rocking chairs.

Her hoof and ankle throbbed, the bandage stained and unraveling. Nurse Almaden was going to have a fit, and yet Cricket couldn’t be bothered to care. She dropped her head back, willing her heart rate to slow as she sipped the cool morning air, rocking the chair with her uninjured hoof. Voices drifted out of the kitchen window, muffled, and it took her a moment to realize they were coming from Mac’s office at the front of the cabin.

“—aware she was expecting anyone.”

“First, you don’t know where my daughter is, and next, you don’t know what your own employees are up to?” a male voice drawled. “What sort of freakshow are you running up here, Miss Murray?”

“Mrs.,” Mac’s voice, hard and cold, replied. “I don’t appreciate your calling Elkwater Music Camp ‘a freakshow’.”

“And I don’t appreciate your tone, ma’am,” the voice turned snide. “Payne Strategies is an influential firm among certain parties in DC. Parties that have shown an interest in this … camp.” He said the word like it was dirty. “Careful how you speak to me.”

Cricket sat upright at that, her hoof thudding quietly against the porch and both ears swiveling toward the window.

“Speaking of donations,” another voice cut in, slick and smooth like black ice. “Lunar Asset Management is always looking for a charity case to do a little pro bono work, and rumor is that you’re looking to expand this quaint operation.”

“I … yeah,” Mac answered, sounding startled. “I am, how did you—”

“May I take your card?” A beat of silence followed, in which Cricket could easily imagine Mac nodding. But imagining the conversation wasn’t enough. She wanted to see the faces of the men who talked to her cousin’s wife so disrespectfully and called this wonderful place a freakshow.

As quietly as she could, Cricket limped to the door, turning the handle all the way before easing it open and slipping inside. There was no easy way to spy on the office, not if she wanted to remain unseen, but the guest bedroom overlooked the parking lot, and these dickweeds had to leave eventually.

Floorboards creaked in the office, followed by the sound of shuffling. As Cricket crept up the stairs, the second man spoke again.

“Murray? As in Congressman Murray?” He huffed a laugh. “I heard he had a philanthropic daughter.”

“Something like that.” Mac managed a laugh of her own, but to Cricket’s ears, it sounded forced.

“Well, I’ll be in touch, Miss Murray.” Cricket frowned when Mac didn’t correct him. “We’ll set up a dinner. Here, I think. A decent amount of the team is in the area working on Mr. Payne’s project. It’ll be good to get a macroscopic view of what you’re hoping to accomplish.”

“Sounds wonderful.” The floorboards creaked again, and the door to the office pulled wider. Cricket scampered the rest of the way up the stairs, diving into the guest bedroom before she could be seen. “Avery should be done with her morning classes by now.”

“Avery?” she whispered to herself, head cocked and ears intent on the conversation. What in the hells did these men want with Avery?

“Shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes to grab her,” Mac continued. “You’re welcome to wait here—”

“Outside,” the first man barked. Footsteps charged from the room, and the front door creaked open. “We’ll wait outside, in the parking lot.”

“Great.” Mac exhaled. “Let me walk you out.”

More footsteps, on the front porch now. Cricket scrambled across the bed, peering over the window ledge and keeping as low as possible.

Mac led the way, dressed in her uniform denim button-down tucked into khaki shorts, her tan legs and running shoes churning across the gravel. Two men in suits followed, one of average height and build walking in a way that suggested he wore lifts in his shoes, and the other tall and broad in a perfectly tailored suit with slicked back, dark brown hair that oozed douchebaggery. Cricket’s eyes locked onto the hair of the shorter man, a bright orangey-red like fox fur. Avery’s hair.

Little pieces of the conversation she’d overheard clicked into place, and Cricket clutched the windowsill, startled and angered by the reveal. This man was Avery’s dad?

She snarled as much as a faun could snarl, her lip curling and a low hiss slithering from her teeth. The second man twisted at the waist. Sunlight glinted off the silver frames of his Ray-Bans, temporarily blinding Cricket. She shut her eyes, rubbing them with her fists before opening them again and immediately spotting Avery’s dad halfway to the luxury sedan she’d passed on her way in. Alone.

She scanned the lot for the second man and found him standing in the same place, staring up at her window with a slick, wolfish grin.