The Exorcism of Faeries (Morbid Realities, #1)

by J.L. Vampa

All right, Jane Bennet, get your shite together. You are a Lizzie, damn it. And this man is no fucking Darcy.

Outside, the campus was bustling with students, a hint of the approaching autumn on the wind, stirring the leaves that would soon lose their chlorophyll and show the world how beautiful it is to die.

“You know, these students are all spooked by you, but I don’t think you’re scary. I think you’re just a bastard.” One side of his mouth twitched and Atta stood, unable to sit there a moment longer.

He came to his senses and put everything back in order, but paused to look over the book titles in her bag, chuckling when he realised none of them were textbooks, but fiction titles. The Iliad, To the Lighthouse, Vanity Fair, a new title: The Secret History, and only one he had not read himself: The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde.

not tsh shout out lol

“The elite like to pretend that horrific events or circumstances make them equal with lower classes, but it’s only to pacify their own conscience and lull the lower classes into thinking they’re not just existing in an open-air prison.” A flicker of something glittered in Murdoch’s gaze as he levelled her with it. “Death comes for us all, Miss Morrow. There is no one left untouched by the Plague, not anymore.”

“That is a cop-out. Something the wealthy say to blur the harsh lines drawn between classes. You said yourself that we have too many lines. The elite use blue instead of red, but it doesn’t mean the harshness is actually softened, it only portrays the illusion that it is.” She knew the class had no idea what she was referring to, but Sonder Murdoch did. And if the look on his face was any indication, she’d struck a chord. Or a nerve. “And yet we all die,” he said evenly. “Do we not?” “Of course we do.” Atta gestured angrily at the cadaver. “But nothing short of a cataclysm, nature steamrolling even the elite, can make equals of us all as long as wealth and power rule the world. And they still do.”

“Has it not killed the wealthy as ruthlessly as the poor?” “Perhaps it has,” she argued, “but is it the wealthy who are going to be helped first, or the poor?”

“I won’t apologise for the debate. I rather enjoyed it, to be frank. But I insulted you and it was cruel. I’m sorry.” As far as apologies went, it wasn’t half bad. “I’m sorry I challenged you in front of your class.” Murdoch shook his head, a dark curl falling across his forehead. “If we were never challenged, Atta, we would never grow.”

“What time is it?” He looked around blearily. “How did you even get in here?” Sonder hung his mask on one of the posts of Gibbs’s bed. “It’s 4:56 in the morning and climbing a tree is not that fucking hard. Now get up.”

He donned the mask and ducked out the window, hand latching onto the large tree outside it before leaning back in. “Make sure she locks her fucking window, too. This was too easy.” “Most people don’t climb in other people’s windows like creeps,” Gibbs shot back.

Liar, liar, liar, a voice in her head sang. The one that sang to her of Wills-o’-the-wisp and hawthorn trees. Liars we hate, the liars we ate, under the hawthorn tree.

He reached for the edge of the mask, lifted it from his chin, and she gasped. “No.” She tightened her hold on his arm. “Don’t!” “I can’t see, Atta.” But maybe he meant that he couldn’t see her. Not properly. Not the way he wanted to. In one swift movement, he had the mask off. Atta’s lips parted. Her eyes went wide and glistening in the glow of the lamp. “Sonder.” The way she said his name was like a dagger to his heart. “Atta. You’re a brilliant woman. You had to know it was me.” She was looking at him with what he’d swear was relief, but then she said, “Of course I knew it was you, but now I have no plausible deniability!”

“If we need plausible deniability, we’re already fucked, a stór.”⁠*

girl what

“These are illegal,” she said, but took it nonetheless. “So is raping women, but the fuckers still try it.”

“I could ask you the same thing. Are you fucking the professor?”

what da fuq... Shd almost did lol

As he dialled, Gibbs sidled up to Atta. “Are you fucking him then?” he whispered accusatorily. Atta elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop talking.” “It’s a fair question,” he spat, rubbing at his side. Whirling on him, Atta spat right back, “Is this why you wouldn’t fucking look at me the last few weeks? You’re part of Agamemnon?”