I took another hurried step back, opening my mouth to say something, anything, but it was too late. He closed his hand into a fist. I felt an ice-cold hand seal around my throat. Around my voice. I opened my mouth again, trying to say something or even just make a noise, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even whimper.

The boy laughed, the noise too loud for the small clearing we were in. It was deafening. His face became twisted, still beautiful but vicious. Brutal. I had to run. I had to get away.

“I told you!” he called, throwing his arms out wide and looking around. “I told you I’d get her.”

I glanced around, trying to see who he was talking to, but I couldn’t. The clearing was empty. We were the only people in it, but hissing reverberated through the trees, reaching out towards us. There were others there. They were hiding just out of sight.

I had to get away. I needed to get back into the forest and away from the boy who was smiling so smugly, enjoying the disappointment of the other monsters. The forest was safer. It felt so much safer than being in front of the boy.

“And,” the boy said, looking at me again, “In answer to your question… I know everything about you, Grace. I’ve been watching you for a long time, just waiting for the moment when you finally worked up the courage to come and find me. And here you are!”

It sounded almost friendly, the way he was greeting me. Like he was welcoming me into his home, but I knew there was more to it than that. His eyes were too hungry, his smile too wide. He was going to kill me.

My hand reached for my pouch again, throwing the last of the salt at him. I expected him to cry out in pain. For agony to twist his features and to be able to run, but it didn’t happen. He simply wiped the salt from his face, giggling.

“Wrong species,” he told me, his tone almost sympathetic. “You know, I really underestimated you. Most people don’t think to bring salt into our home. It does nothing to us, though. Silver is what you need, but… I guess it’s a little too late for that knowledge to help you, Gracie.”

Fear and desperation thrummed within me as I continued to back away. I could feel my heartbeat racing in my throat, making it harder for me to concentrate. I needed to do something. I had to run or find a way to escape, but I couldn’t think of anything. The only thing I could think of was how much I hated him calling me Gracie.

It was stupid, so irrelevant, but it infuriated me. My dad was the only person who could call me that. My hands started to clench into fists as my anger grew.

The fae stepped closer, closing the gap between us and stroking one long-pointed finger down my cheek. My hand shot out, and my fist slammed into his cheekbone. Pain exploded in me, tears sprung to my eyes immediately, and I opened my mouth, silently crying out.

The boy just looked confused. He lifted a hand to his face, touching the spot that I’d hit. It hadn’t even turned red.

“Are all humans that weak?” he asked, looking to one side. “I barely even felt that. It was nothing more than a pixie butting against me.”

A laugh came from the far side of the clearing. It was different to the boy before me. Richer, and more melodic, but it sent a shiver down my spine, and my blood turned to ice. I looked across at the woman, my vision blurry from the tears that welled in my eyes. My hand was still throbbing with pain, but I barely noticed as I stared at the creature walking towards me.

She was beautiful. Breathtaking, yet terrifying. Her long white-gold hair cascaded down her back in a fluid, rippling wave, and her face was flawless. Until she smiled. My breath caught in my throat. Like the boy, her mouth was full of thin, pointed teeth, but somehow, she had more. There were too many teeth in her mouth. More than should have fit.

“Truly,” she said, her voice making me want to step towards her. It was so hypnotic, so gentle. “All humans are fragile little creatures. That punch might have even broken its hand.”

Me. They were talking about me. I looked down at my hand, clutching it tightly. I was terrified that if I let go of it, the pain would get worse, and I didn’t want that. It was already so sore.

“Ew,” the boy said, looking at me in shock and alarm. “Will that ruin the meat?”

For a moment, I didn’t understand what he meant. I stared at him blankly, meeting his gaze, and then realisation crashed into me. He was going to eat me. I was the meat.

Fear exploded in my heart, and I spun around, finally able to move. I needed to get away from the clearing and the strange faes that spoke so casually about eating people, about eating me. My heart raced as I dashed away, but I barely managed to take two steps before the boy appeared in front of me.

He came from nowhere. One moment, I could see the trees and the next, they were blocked from sight by his body. It happened too quickly for me to be able to react or stop myself, and I crashed into his chest. It felt like I’d run into a brick wall. There was no softness or yield, just his firm body.

Dizziness exploded in my head as my forehead slammed into him, sending me reeling. I would have fallen if not for the hand that closed around my wrist. The ice-cold touch felt almost like a handcuff. I shouldn’t have known what they felt like. I’d never been arrested in that world, and I was pretty sure they didn’t even have handcuffs. Manacles maybe? I’d never been arrested in my normal world either, but the sensation stayed with me.

I tried to pull my hand free from his grasp, but I couldn’t. I felt his grip tighten slightly, the bones in my wrist crying out in pain. The boy wasn’t even looking at me, though. He was looking at the woman whose head was cocked as she examined me closely.

“No,” she said carefully. “I shouldn’t think so. It should still be nice and tender. But you need to kill it quickly before the stress ruins it. That happens too easily with humans.”

The boy before me pouted, and his grip on my wrist became crushing. He looked strangely young with that expression on his face, but that just scared me even more. A chill slipped down my spine as he looked down at me.

“Oh, that’s not fair! I wanted to have some fun with this one before I kill her!” he complained, but the woman just frowned, her expression turning disapproving.

“I’ve told you this before,” she told him, a hint of sharpness entering her voice. “Flaying and torturing makes the meat tough and chewy. You should know this by now.”

“But…” the boy said before trailing off.

The woman heaved a heavy sigh.

“Do whatever you wish, but I’m not going to listen when you complain about it later,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.

A look of delight came over the boy’s face before being quashed. I could see the longing in his gaze as he stared at me, mulling over his decision.

“Fine,” he muttered finally. “I’ll do it quickly. But I won’t next time!”

The woman chuckled and smiled indulgently.

“Good decision, Iohl,” she said.

“I’m going to really take my time,” he continued, looking at me but clearly talking to himself. “I’ll rip their fingernails off, then peel their skin away. I want to see how much I can do before their heart gives out!”

He let out a giggle, his eyes lighting up with excitement. I felt my own heart pound in response to his words. I didn’t doubt that he could do it. He was clearly strong; my throbbing wrist was proof of that, but I was so glad that he’d agreed to kill me quickly. Ideally, I wouldn’t die, but a fast death was the next best option.

But I was scared for whoever he found next time. I could feel the excitement radiating off of him. He was looking forward to torturing someone, yearning for it, and that terrified me. It was going to be someone from my village. One of the other people my age would be caught by him and would be forced to experience so much pain and suffering.

It was useless, and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself. The fae was still holding my wrist, but still, I darted around him, trying desperately to get away. I had to. I needed to get to my village; I had to warn them. They needed to know what kind of monsters awaited them in the woods. There were rumours, of course, but I had to tell them that they were real.

A hand closed around my throat, stopping my escape. I was yanked to a stop, coughing and gasping for air. I didn’t even see the boy move, but again, he was in front of me. His grip wasn’t particularly tight, but it held me still.

See. This is what happens when you don’t just snap their necks and kill them immediately,” the woman said, her voice taking on a lecturing quality. “It’s more hassle than it’s worth! Hurry up and do what you must do. I’ll prepare the fire for when you return.”

“Thank you,” the boy said, his smile growing.

From the corner of my eye, I watched the woman walk across the clearing. Part of me wanted to call out to her and ask her to stay. I felt safer with her there, in a strange way. I knew that I was going to die whether she stayed or not, but if she was there, he’d be less likely to make me suffer.

But I couldn’t speak. The boy still possessed my voice. I’d given it to him.

His smile stretched even wider as he met my gaze before leaning forward and inhaling deeply. I tried to move away from him, but the hand around my throat stopped me from being able to do anything.

“It really is a shame that I need to kill you quickly,” he said with a regret-filled sigh. “I don’t want to. I’ve spent years watching you grow and waiting for this very day. For this very moment. And it is an honour to meet you, Gracie. A delight.”

He paused as if he was waiting for me to reply, and I opened my mouth. I wasn’t sure what I planned to say, whether I would beg for my life or shout insults at him, but it didn’t matter. No noise came out.

The fae sighed heavily.

“I know. This is a disappointment for me too. You know, I had such great plans,” he said. “Would you like to hear them?”

He smiled, the expression almost friendly, if not for the rows of pointed teeth and the hand around my neck.

There wasn’t much I could do, but I nodded as best I could. Maybe if I kept him talking, that would be better. Perhaps he’d get bored of me or decide that I deserved to live for some reason.

“Fantastic!” he cried delightedly. “I was going to give you your voice back, then string you up in my tree. I’ve been growing it for months just for you! I needed it to be tall enough to hold you off the ground so I could peel you! It would have been so much fun!”

I couldn’t suppress my shiver that time. Images assaulted my mind. I could see myself hanging above the ground, branches twined around my wrists and ankles as the fae dug his pointed fingers into the flesh on my arm. They tore through too easily. His smile was radiant, victorious, as he slowly pulled the skin away, relishing in the cries of pain that escaped my lips.

“You would have sounded so beautiful,” he sighed, pulling me back to the present. “Those noises, those whimpers! They would have been delicious from your lips.”

He shuddered delicately, the thought of my dying cries clearly delighting me. It scared me, terrified me more than anything I’d felt in a while. I was too scared to do anything. I wanted to try and run again, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get far even if I managed to break away from him. I couldn’t do anything. There was no escape.

“But alas, I need to kill you quickly,” he said sadly. “I can’t disobey an elder, especially with so many people watching.”

He looked around the clearing, and I followed his gaze. There was no one there. I couldn’t see anyone, but the boy clearly could. His eye lingered on some spots for longer than others.

Panic leapt within me as the boy sighed again and shook his head, looking back at me. I needed to escape. I needed to leave the meadow and the world. I could do that. I could close my eyes and open them somewhere else. In my room. I could return home.

I reached out desperately for the familiar dizziness, but it was ripped away from me as the boy’s fingers started to tighten on my throat. My eyes opened again, and I reached up for his hands, trying to pull them away. If I loosened them just a little, that would be enough. I’d be able to go home.

But it wasn’t working. He refused to loosen his grasp, and my chest burned. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to turn my head, tried to suck in more air, but I couldn’t. There was no escape. Nothing I could do. The realisation terrified me, and my movements turned frantic. I clawed at his face, my fingers unable to find purchase and not even leaving a mark. I aimed for his eyes, his nose, anything that might be easier for me to break, but he was faster and stronger than me. He batted away my touch, sending me a disappointed look as his fingers gripped me even tighter.

Light exploded in front of my eyes, and his face started to swim out of focus. My hands bounced off his chest, the movements uncoordinated and barely controlled.

“This is no fun,” I heard the boy mutter before dizziness consumed me.

I sucked in a desperate gasp, sitting up so quickly that I felt a wave of vertigo rock me. I clenched my eyes shut, breathing in as deeply as I could. My chest ached. It throbbed with each scratchy and harsh breath. For a moment, I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was too scared of where I’d find myself. Slowly, I forced myself to do it, opening them just a crack so that I could peer out.

I recognised the room immediately. I was in my bed at my grandparents’ house, not in some cave somewhere with the fae boy standing over me, coated in my own blood. I was home. Safe. Relief washed over me so strongly that I fell back against the pillow.

My head hurt, my chest too, but I was okay. I wasn’t being choked. My hand went to my throat automatically, as if I needed to check to make sure, and a twinge of pain spasmed across my knuckles. I looked down at it in confusion. It wasn’t too sore, but the sensation still caught me off guard.

There was a shadow. A hint of a mark across my knuckles. But I hadn't done anything in real life to cause the bruise. I’d not punched anyone or hit my hand on anything. That must have meant that it came from the other world. It must have happened when I’d hit the fae.

Panic exploded in me, and I threw myself out of bed. I was still panting, and the movement made my head spin, but I needed to check. If I had a bruise on my throat, a hand-shaped bruise… I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I was scared.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, seeing the fear in my eyes as I pulled the neckline of my shirt down and turned my head from side to side. My eyes scanned my skin, scrutinising it and trying to spot even the slightest shadow. It was there. At some angles, I could see the faintest hint of a mark, but that was it.

I couldn’t help the sigh of relief that slipped from my lips as I continued to stare at myself. There was no bruise, I told myself, needing to hear it but not daring to say the words aloud in case my mom somehow heard. It was just a slight mark, and that was fine. It probably wouldn’t get any darker, and my mom would never notice.

That was good. If she did… I could already hear the argument. She would assume that I’d snuck a boy into the house, and he had done that. She wouldn’t worry about me or want to make sure that I was alright. She would automatically assume that I had done something bad, and that it was my fault, I knew it.

I stepped back towards my bed, reaching for my phone before stopping myself. I couldn’t google how to get rid of bruises on your neck like I wanted to. That was a horrible idea. It would probably be full of questions regarding hickies, and I wasn’t sure if they were the same as the bruise on my neck. They were formed differently. I knew that much. Would the answers help at all, or would they just be useless?

It didn’t matter. I didn’t want that question in my search history. Even if I used private mode, my mom might still find it, and that would be bad too. She’d never understand, but I got that. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I accidentally visited another world in my dreams where a boy, who wasn’t actually a boy, choked me to death. That sounded like a lie. It sounded like the worst lie possible. Anything, any other excuse, would have been so much better. Maybe I could say that I fell and hit my neck on something? No. That sounded like an obvious lie too.

I froze, holding my breath as I stared at the bedroom door. Noise. I’d heard a noise outside. In the hall. My mom was climbing the stairs. She was barely making a noise, just the softest squeak from the ancient steps. She must have been trying to sneak up on me.

My heart started to race. I didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to talk to her then. I was still too scared, too jumpy. My chest still hurt, my neck and hand too. I wouldn’t be able to have a normal conversation with her, and that would make her suspicious. She’d probably search my room again, despite doing it just hours before. My phone too.

As quietly as possible, I dove back towards my bed, being careful not to make any noise. I lay down facing away from the door and fought to get my breathing under control. It was a split-second decision, impulsive, but I knew it was the right one. I could pretend to be asleep. I was good at that; I’d done it so many times and gotten really good. She wouldn’t realise that I wasn’t actually asleep, and she’d leave me alone.

It was difficult, though. My body still ached from being choked. I must have been holding my breath in real life or something when it had happened in the other world, and that made it hard to breathe slowly and deeply like I normally did when I was pretending to sleep. I managed it, though. By the time my mom’s almost silent footsteps stopped outside my room, I’d perfected it.

The door opened suddenly, and I had to fight not to jump as my mom flung it open, clearly hoping to catch me in the act of something. There was a moment of silence, and I strained my ears, trying to pick up her footsteps. If she came around the bed to look at my face, I needed to be careful. That had given me away before, but I’d just about managed to play it off as if she’d woken me up. I didn’t want to do that again. It might make her suspicious.

A loud sigh came from my mom, the noise jarring. It sounded so similar, so familiar to the boy from before. He’d sighed before telling me how disappointed he was that he didn’t get to kill me. The realisation made goosebumps erupt on my skin, and I had to fight the urge not to roll over and check that it was her.

What if it wasn’t? What if I hadn’t gone back to reality, but instead, I’d been taken somewhere else? Somewhere else with faes who wanted to peel the skin off my body and eat it? Or maybe it was a trick. Maybe I was still in that world, but he’d made me think I wasn’t.

“Honestly,” my mom muttered, her tone irritated, but still, it filled me with reassurance. “It’s not even seven, and she’s already asleep. Toddlers don’t even sleep this early. This is ridiculous.”

I didn’t move. I didn’t roll over or react at all. My mom was waiting for it, I knew she was. She did that sometimes when she suspected that I might not actually be asleep. And she’d woken me up doing it a couple of times too. She’d stand at my door, loudly muttering insults or complaints, and then she’d get bored and walk away. I just needed to wait for that.

“Lazy,” she said, her voice slightly louder that time. “So lazy.”

Still, I stayed perfectly still and kept my breathing even.

Another sigh of irritation came from my mom, much louder that time. I wasn’t sure how she managed to sigh so loudly. It was almost impressive.

Eventually, I heard movement again. Footsteps, not bothering to be quiet that time, sounded before the door shut heavily. That should have woken me up. It was enough to wake anyone up, and I knew that my mom was waiting outside the door and listening to hear what I would do, but I was prepared.

I rolled over, sniffing slightly to make it sound like I was stirring, and pulled the duvet up around myself before focusing on making my breathing sound normal again. It was tense as I waited. Either my mom was going to throw the bedroom door open and call me a faker or a liar or something else like that, or she was going to give up.

My body sagged back against the bed as I heard her stomp down the corridor. I was so glad, so grateful, that she hadn’t insisted on waking me up and talking to me. It made me feel a little bad, but I was still shaken. I didn’t want to talk to her and have to worry about what I was saying and how she was interpreting it. I just wanted to go back to sleep.

Or not. The idea of it scared me. I was exhausted and needed more, I could tell, but I was worried about what would happen. Terrified, really. I’d gone to another world in my sleep. It hadn’t been intentional, and I didn’t even realise I was doing it at first. What if that happened again? What if I went somewhere bad again? Like that lab with that girl who had been chained to the walls or to any of the other worlds where I was being brutally murdered?

I tried to push the thought aside. I wasn’t going to do that. I’d go somewhere safe. A nice world where nothing was trying to kill me. I could do that, I attempted to reassure myself. I could find somewhere safe.