Resistance Read Free Page B

coming back.”
    “You don’t know that,” she snaps back at him. “They
might. There’s no proof anything happened to them—”
    “Fi…” He’s softer this time, but still holds his
ground. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
    She deflates a little and nods; looking into her mug
of coffee. He ruffles her dark hair, which hangs loosely around her
face today, and walks away, nearly stepping on me as he goes. I
shoot out from under his foot and hiss at him before taking off up
the tree I’ve been hiding in all this time.
    “God!” he cries; stumbling back and cursing up at me.
If I weren’t so irritated with his ignorance I would laugh at
him.
    “Sean, calm down,” Fi huffs. “It didn’t bite you or
anything.”
    “I hate rats,” he says. Rat? I knock an
abandoned bird nest out of the tree and watch it explode on his
head before leaping into the next oak; making it look like an
accident.
    “I don’t think it’s a rat,” Fi snickers as Sean
freaks out, smacking twigs and eggshells from his hair. He is
thoroughly pissed off now, and I’m finding way too much pleasure in
that. “I don’t think it liked being called a rat, either.”
    Sean scoffs and continues swearing at me; something
about how he’s going to fry me over hot coals. I’d love to see him
try. He looks utterly ridiculous right now, screaming into the sky,
and part of me wishes video cameras were still in existence just so
I could watch this repeatedly.
    I’m not sure why I don’t like him. I’ve only seen him
a few times now, and this is the first time I’ve heard him speak.
Perhaps it’s because I cannot pick up any emotion from him. Even
now as he spews threats my way, I don’t feel any energy. It’s a bit
unsettling, and I don’t like that.
    After a few more minutes of bitching he finally
stomps off, promising Fi he’s bringing me home for dinner tonight.
I am unimpressed with his bratty attitude, and positive he won’t be
catching me any time soon. Fi doesn’t seem to believe him, either,
but she just nods and waves. Seamus, who stood in the door watching
the whole encounter, moves to sit beside her. “It’s not a rat.”
    She startles for a moment before staring at him.
“No?”
    “It’s a fox,” he continues. “A little one, but it is
a fox.”
    She nods. Neither of them is curious about me, which
is a relief. I don’t need anyone shooting arrows at me. I really am here to help, and being shot in the head is not on my
agenda.
    “They’re not coming back, are they?” Fi asks quietly;
glancing in his general direction but not actually meeting his
gaze. Again, she is asking questions she already knows the answer
to. She just wants someone to tell her she’s wrong.
    “I’m not answering that,” Seamus replies. “Frankly, I
think your father just managed to get lost. I’ll bet Maeve is
yelling at him right now.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders and
pitches his voice into a screech. “Patrick, I’m telling you, we’ve
seen this tree before!”
    Fi snickers but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She leans
into him and sighs, and they sit there in companionable silence. In
spite of their joking they both look absolutely miserable, and in
spite of their optimism they both know the truth… Patrick and Maeve
aren’t coming back.
    Not in one piece, anyway.
     

 

     
    Chapter 2—Fi
    January 2102
     
    The moon is full overhead; its pale light
illuminating a macabre scene unfolding in the valley below. I hear
sounds of a struggle, a woman’s terrified scream and then the sound
of a blade meeting resistance in the form of flesh that rips and
tears. From where I’m standing at the top of a hill, I see my
mother fall in a heap to a bloody patch of grass below. Her
assailant bolts to the south, and stifling a cry of disbelief, I
race down the hill determined to save her. I see her struggle to
move as I run as fast as I ever have, trying to reach her to see
how badly she’s injured. I’m still twenty feet away,