He looks at me as though he just realized I could be cruel like him then immediately smirks as he remembers I’m too emotional for that. 

“Enlighten me.” He rumbles in such an irritating manner that I know he’s amused by me.

“I saved his life he owes me.” I start.

“That only works for a little bit. How do you keep him?”

“Let me guess, use fear?” I roll my eyes sarcastically. 

“It works on you doesn’t it.”

“No actually.” I say stopping. I glare at him, “I’m only staying with you because I need you.”

I think I stump him because he walks silently, pushing me back to the camp. 

“And why do you need me?” He asks finally as he steps over the barrier.

“Because-” I cut off, ‘because a monster is after us and I don’t want to die from it.’ “But that’s not fear of you that’s fear of-”

“Leaving me-and I know you’re scared of me as well.” He lifts the machete a little and I step back from it, only for him to make a ‘see’ expression and to sheath it finally. “Not only fear but having something they care about that you can hurt.” 

He watches me instinctively glance at the fairy. I glance at the boar teen who is burping his sister and checking on me guiltily and then looking away. “Of course threatening pain and suffering also works.” He gestures to my chest and I wince.

“So what was that?” I gesture back to the woods.

He shrugs, “No idea.” Walking off with a cruel smirk.

I go to sit on my bedroll that I hadn’t used having chosen to stay in the truck instead. The madman comes over and I don’t notice until he sits and turns to look at me. 

“Eat and drink something,” he tells me, surprising me. “You’re shaking.” 

I look at my hands and then shrug and obey since I don’t really care right now. I eat moppily and then start, “I’m not going to obey your rule to not talk to him.” I look at the boar he’s been hovering near his sister and looking out into the woods uncomfortably. Still unnerved by whatever malignant creature that was watching us.

“If you won’t listen to me I can and will muzzle you.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?” I growl in frustration but keep my voice low. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve spoken to another normal human being?” I realize my mistake and gesture to the boar teen, “Or close enough.”

“You can talk to me.” He says.

I raise my eyebrow at him, “I’ve tried. When you’re done talking you just stop, you don’t want to nor care about anything I like and oh yeah you’re also a psychopath!” 

He sits up, “I can talk about things you like, for example Bird.” I hesitate and then slowly carefully say, “I would like to know more about fairies.” He smirks a little. “They’re surprisingly easy to catch. Just leave out a honey trap.”

I note the thing about honey. Staying quiet for a while. 

“So why don’t you want us talking exactly?” I continue. 

“He’s fae, first off, so nothing out of his mouth can be trusted. I’m sure he’s already convinced you to feel bad for him and to let him go.”

“I can’t believe I have to explain this to you.” I use my hands, “I will feel bad for anybody and anything that you hurt. It’s human nature. If you don’t want us to gang up on you and hate you or whatever then you have to stop hurting us.”  

“Not possible, besides I like hurting him.” He waves off.

“So now we both have a common enemy, you, and that’s going to make us rely on each other more. If you don’t want us to talk, scheme, and everything else it takes to protect ourselves from you then you really don’t understand how that works.”

“He hurt you though…” He gestures to my arm healed with only a scar now.

“You shoved me into him, it wasn’t like he did it on purpose.” My voice raises. I notice that the boar's head turns a little, ear twitching.

“But he wouldn’t have healed you if I didn’t know the cure.”

My eyes darken and I look away, “He doesn’t owe me that.”

“You’re the only one keeping me from really hurting him, you treat his wounds and give him water. If you die his life is going to get a whole lot worse.” The madman shrugs, “I’m guessing he’s not smart enough to think that far ahead though.”

I mess with my hoodie strings, “Another reason I don’t like talking with you is it always loops back around to how you love torturing and killing.” I shake my head, tuning out whatever it is he says next. “I need to socialize to be a normal healthy person, uncle.” He looks at me.

“I will make sure you are able to socialize…just not with him he’s going to use you.”

“To what?” I sigh looking up at the sky. The clouds.

“Let him go, or kill me, or something else equally as stupid. Maybe even to follow him into the woods to get eaten.”

“Fine then either way you’re happy.”

“What?” He says, annoyed. 

“Can’t kill you unfortunately I need you to survive, if I die you can just adopt another kid under another identity.”

He tilts his head considering it.

“You’re good with fae.” He says awkwardly.

I roll over, “What are you doing?” 

He shrugs. “Thought I’d tell you what you’re useful at, why I keep you around.”

“Were you trying to comfort me?”

“Did it sound convincing?”

“No, it sounded like it was painful for your mouth to make those words.”

He laughs. “So if he tells you to let him escape?”

“Then I’ll help him escape. I was going to do that anyway.”

“Even if I’ll beat you for it?” 

I go quiet and think about how much I could actually take, my pain tolerance sucked. I don’t answer. “You don’t want him anyway.” I mutter finally.

“I don’t want him around forever.” He huffs. I can sense him staring. I glance up and he’s actually staring at the teen. Probably thinking about whatever sick experiments he wanted to try. I close my eyes again and for some reason search for my plush bird. It must be in the car. I hide my face burying it into my arms and try not to think about the terrible things I’ve been through.

I wake from the nap as I’m nudged with a foot.

“We’re eating soon. I suggest you check on “Bird””, he mocks and then tilts his head strangely. I panic and hurry over to where the bird cage is and see with relief that not only as soon as the fairy senses me does it stick its head out from the blankets but it’s looking a lot better. I glance at the boar teen who is quick to glance up at me, his ears turn red and he goes back to what he was doing.

I crouch and look into the fairies' beautiful dark eyes, “Hey there.” I say and it looks towards the woods and then puts a finger to its lips, makes praying hands and points. I feel my eyes follow and see nothing. 'Something magic,' I guess immediately. 'Is it the menacing creature from before? Obviously not,' I realize immediately, 'if anything is there I can’t sense it. I don’t feel the sense of dread like before.' 

I lay my head on my arm, strategically shielding my actions from the madman. I offer the fairy my fingers and to my shock it starts rubbing against them affectionately. I put more of my hand in between the bars and wait a little for the sharp but necessary bite. 

‘Why? Is it still full? Does it not want to hurt me?’ I glance back at the woods and start when flowers are growing towards the fairy. 

“Nectar, I’ve been feeding it as much as I can.” The teen boar says almost too loudly, coming up behind me. I glance at the madman quickly and he glances up at us, eyes narrowing suspiciously. 

“His hearing is too good.” I whisper, “You should go collect what you can from those flowers and hide it but be careful…” I let my voice trail off and notice the madman smirk and roll his eyes going back to packing up the campsite. 

He doesn’t care if we’re plotting. He reminded me that I needed him and that he had all the control of everyone I cared about. Now that he’s decided the pig might be useful, if I get in the way of that- What? He wants to turn him into a henchman…a guard pig? 

I highly doubt that the sweet, soft-spoken teen, boar or not, would fight for him. Maybe if I could teach him to scowl more often he could be our bluff. I realize I’m staring at him as he slips back into the woods to pick the flowers for me. I’m shocked at how quickly he’s doing it too but I guess he knows just as well as I that if we get caught getting nectar for the fairy we’ll all suffer for it. 

Him slipping off to harvest things was the least suspicious thing, he was always foraging. But the madman seems to have a knack for knowing when something is up. 

‘Don’t look,’ I think to myself and the fairy offers an easy distraction. I look down as Bird’s wings spread and sparkle. I was always under the impression that fairy’s had bug wings but this one's beautiful feathers were unmistakable. He tries to climb my fingers and I laugh, “careful,” I say quietly. Leaning closer to see the tiny humanoid better. 

The fairy has a firm set expression as it lifts its hands and I widen my eyes a little right before it shoots some of that strange glowing pollen right into my right eye. I jerk back as it immediately hurts, burns. I knock the birdcage off the table as I fall to the ground. I already hear the madman hurrying over. I can't hide what’s hurt as I’m covering my watering eye, crouched on the ground. 

Still though when he grabs the cage demanding what it’s done to me I bark at him to leave it. ‘The fairy is in it’s right to hurt me.’ 

“I was stupid for leaning in close enough anyway!” I watch anxiously until the madman ruffly places down the cage, the fairy is cowering and snarling, sharp teeth bared as it holds its bruised body from the fall.

“Let me see.” He turns on me and yanks my hand away to see the red eye and me squinting. He calms a little and opens my irritated eye a little more, there being no immediate damage he lets me go. I pull away, rubbing my tears away. 

“It doesn’t even burn anymore, they just blew a little fairy dust into it.”

He narrows his eyes, “It’s magic, the little spiteful shit could make you blind, see things, blow that side of your face up if it wanted to, or worse.”

He turns back to the snarling fairy who now looks more concerned, looking back and forth between me and the madman, just staring and panting. 

“You are getting experimented on for that.”

“No!” I say forcefully and then offer placating hands. “As long as nothing bad happens to my vision let it go, it only hurts a tiny bit now.” The madman's lips twitch in a sneer. 

“If all it did was blow some sand in my eye, let it go.” I offer again. “It’s just mad it’s in a cage and I disrespected it’s personal space.” 

The fairy looks at me for a long time. Then puffs its feathers up aggressively at the psycho. “It’s hurting me to hurt you.” I sigh, “Which it doesn’t know doesn’t work yet.” 

I can’t say my feelings aren’t hurt, it manipulated me so easily rubbing against my fingers like that I thought it had finally realized I wasn’t a bad guy. But I haven’t done anything to release it and part of me doesn’t want to. I want to keep it so I guess I am a bad person. 

The madman surprisingly fuses over my eye all day even when we get back on the road. The teen is quiet not wanting to draw attention to himself when the madman is rearing to hurt someone and also when he’s carrying a small vial of nectar. I guess my eye was a good distraction. I sigh softly as I stare at the road, eye still feeling really irritated. 

I watch my uncle eat whatever else he caught in the woods and roll down my window a tiny bit to let the smell out.

The soft dark eyes that stayed downwards flick up to me, a knowing, grateful smile forms and he looks back down. The fear is back. Something about being trapped in the car again, he’s chained as well. I guess the forest was a nice distraction but-. I lay my head against the car and tilt my head up as my headphones block out all the noise. I had nibbled on something earlier but I wasn’t that hungry. I could always eat some of the meat later. 

I didn’t realize I passed out until the sound of a horn wakes me up. I look around wildly and realize we’re in another town. I glance at the uncle who also seems in shock that I woke up and it’s because he tranquilized me and the boar! I pull the needle out of me with a wince. 

“Hm makes sense.” He mutters. “Your tolerance is building but I don’t want to over-do it.” 

“Where are we?” I rub my neck. “Another town?”

“You’ve been asleep for almost a full 24 hours so yeah another town.” He pulls over at a very nice looking motel. “Before you lose your mind at me, most of that was your body catching up on sleep, I only drugged you for the last eight hours.” 

I look at him and then at the town and let out a slow breath, “Hey uncle, you know my eye?”

He looks at me quickly and then tilts his head, “What?”

“We’re still in the woods.” I cover my left eye and look at the towering trees then switch to my right eye and see buildings. “Weird.” 

He makes a weird expression and I see him nod slowly, “okay yeah see what I said about the fairy making it so you were seeing things.” 

I acknowledge him and as he steps out of the car go back and forth between both eyes as I see a lively town one second and a barren forest. I lower my hand and try to get one eye to work at a time without an obvious tell. 

A rustle gets my attention and I turn to see a human in both sides of my vision. 

“Hello?” They say kind of shyly and I blink when I see a flicker of something else. I can’t resist, I cover my good eye and a cute fae appears. Little horns and a more animalistic face. Their dark black eyes snap to fully focus on me and I’m suddenly aware that they know I can see their true form. I lower my hand and something about my shy, awkward behaviour causes them to relax a little. 

“Oh you’re one of those see-ers.” He goes to approach and then leans around to see that my uncle is talking to one of the illusions. 

“Is he playing along or…”

“Yes,” I lie immediately. I don't know why. “He always likes to keep other people's guard down and not show how much he knows.” The second part is true.

I notice the boy cough into his hand to hide his laugh, “Well you should probably take a note from his playbook and not stare, fae like myself can sense when you see our true forms.”

“Oh sorry for staring then.” Something about his reaction to me apologizing makes me uncomfortable.

“So were you gifted or born?”

“Uh…I think gifted.”

He relaxes a bit more but I’m remembering that I could see the boar teen’s true form before the fairy shot me in the eye. Still the fae is telling me to not reveal my full hand so I’ll just say gifted for now.   

“I’m curious to see how long he’ll play along.” He muses and then winks at me. “I have to go back to- he points to some random spot and when I close my fairy vision eye I see a building. “My place.” He makes quotation marks. “See you later.” He covers one eye and giggles before returning to his position. 

'Is this like some weird fae game?'