Stumbling out of the veil, I only managed a couple of steps before the ground suddenly disappeared beneath me. Screaming, I fell to my knees, quickly losing my balance and tumbling head first into the ditch. I gasped when I hit bottom, landing on my back in a stagnant pool of rainwater. Stunned I laid there for a second staring up at the sky as the cold, musty water seeped into my clothes, soaking them.

Could anything else go wrong tonight? I wanted to yell, wanted to scream into the night in frustration; instead, I rolled over and pushed myself up, my hands sinking into several inches of mud. Disgusted, I gagged slightly as I yanked them free and quickly scrambled up the other side of the embankment and out onto the pavement.

I crawled out towards the middle of the road leaving a wet, muddy trail behind me. I ached all over, and my entire body trembled uncontrollably as what remained of my dinner made an abrupt appearance on the concrete. Groaning, I moved a few feet to the side before collapsing onto the pavement. I stayed there with my cheek pressed against the cold asphalt, a strange crying laughter bubbling forth from my throat. Unable to stop, I laid there on that dark country road, muddy hand clamped over my mouth, laughing almost manically as thin tears streamed down my face.

I laughed and cried until there was nothing left; until the exhaustion that I had been holding back threatened to overtake me, and I was in serious danger of falling asleep right there. Images of a car driving by and flattening me flittered across my mind for a moment, but I couldn’t muster enough energy to even care let alone move. I just wanted it to be over, and I wasn’t sure if I meant tonight or everything. My life had been in a tailspin for over a year now and tonight just felt like the inevitable conclusion of one bad decision after another.

The sounds of labored breathing and dragging feet interrupted my emotional spiral and brought me crashing back to reality. Lifting my head, I was stunned to see a bloody, stooped figure lurching out of the ditch. How was he still alive? I hadn’t worried about closing the gate. I didn’t have enough awen left to do it, and the odds of someone accidentally falling through it before it dissipated on its own was virtually nil. It had never occurred to me that he might have survived.

He was clearly struggling. One hand clutched at his abdomen, and from the amount of blood seeping between his fingers, there was a chance he was holding in the twisted ropes of his intestines. His other hand reached out ahead of him, towards me, his fingers bent like claws as if his only goal before death was to rip out my throat with his bare hand.

Suddenly finding the energy that had escaped me earlier, I jumped to my feet, backing away as I watched him shuffle towards me. He was a mess, stopping every few steps to sway unsteadily on his feet before continuing to stagger his way out of the ditch. I debated whether I should rush him, he was in bad shape, and I would probably win, or just run and let the blood loss do the job.

I wasn't a violent person by nature and had pretty much decided on running when he relieved me of the need to make a decision. Tripping over his own feet, he fell to the ground. He didn’t even try to get back up. I watched for a moment, wary it was some kind of trap, but his crumpled form continued to lay there unmoving.

Tentatively I crept towards him, ready to run if he made the slightest move. The shifter had barely reached the road before collapsing, and most of his body was still in the ditch, partially hidden by the tall grass. I had been stunned that he had made it out of the veil at all, but now that I got a closer look at him I could tell that he hadn't, not really.

His clothes were ripped to shreds, and blood seemed to saturate every inch of the fabric. He had fallen on his stomach, but his head was turned so that I had a clear view of his face. Bone showed white through bloody gashes on his forehead, half his nose was missing, and I didn't even want to think about the thick yellow ooze that was seeping out from under his right eyelid. I had always been a little squeamish about things happening to my eyes. That coupled with the fact that I was pretty sure he had been holding in his intestines, he was laying on his stomach, and I wasn't willing to roll him over and check, meant he had basically been a dead man walking.

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A few kicks to his shoulder brought no response or signs of life. Sighing with relief, I stepped back. Even dead I wanted some distance between him and me. What I really wanted was to lay back down, but I knew if I did I would probably never get up again. The shock of his appearance had snapped me out of my emotional paralysis, but I could still feel it hovering there on the edge of my conscious ready to reassert itself if I gave it a chance. The only way to keep it at bay was to keep moving and focus on the task at hand.

With the pressing matter of survival taken care of, I was now faced with the dilemma of what to do with the body. As much as I would have liked just to leave it where it was, that really wasn't an option. What would whoever found him think happened? Mauled by a rabid raccoon, bobcat maybe?

Southern Illinois didn't have any large predators that might account for the state of his body, not unless something escaped from a zoo. Not to mention there would most definitely be an autopsy and though I didn't know that a Faye wouldn't physically pass for human, I also didn't know that he would. Having just saved myself from treason charges I wasn't eager to instead be responsible for the exposure of our kind to the humans.

I didn't know what I was going to do with him, but the first order of business was to find my car. I couldn't do much of anything without it. Kneeling next to his body, I gagged slightly as I pushed against his side, shoving him away from the road and further into the ditch. It had been a mild fall. The grass was turning brown, but it was still tall and thick. I didn't have to push him too far before I was reasonably confident any passing motorist wouldn't be able to tell that there was a dead body there, as long as I got back before the sun was up.

Reaching into the pocket of my mud-crusted jeans, I pulled out my phone. For a second I was worried the electric shock or the water might have damaged it, but the screen quickly sprang to life. Time ran differently in Otherworld and the Veil. I was surprised to see that it was almost three in the morning. I would need to get this taken care of quickly. This probably wasn't a busy road, but there was bound to be some morning traffic as people made their way to work. I entered the intersection where I had left my car and groaned when it came back with a nearly four-mile route to my destination.

Since being on my own, I'd taken up running as a way to relieve stress, and I could usually average a little under an eight-minute mile, but in my current state, I was happy to be pulling open the door of my tan focus in just under an hour. Starting the car, I cranked up the heater and turned the heated seats on max hoping the warmth would ease some of the tension from my back and shoulders.

Grabbing the water bottle on the passenger seat, I opened my door and quickly rinsed the mud from my hands before pouring a little onto a clean part of my coat and wiping the crusted dirt from my chin. I wanted nothing more than to say screw it and drive home, but instead, I threw the bottle back onto the passenger seat and pulled away from the curb. I followed the GPS route back to where I had left the shifter. As I drove, I tried not to focus on the fact that I was about to have a bloody dead body in my trunk with no plan on what to do with it afterward.

When I reached the spot, I slowed down, scanning the ditch but there was no sign of the body. I made a quick U-turn and drove back, unsure that I remembered exactly where I had left him. After a couple of passes, I pulled over and grabbed the flashlight from the glove compartment. Walking along the side of the road, I shined my light into the grass. Maybe he had slid further into the ditch. It didn’t take me long to find the spot where I’d left him. Blood and a body sized indention still marred the grass, but there was no actual body.

I pointed the flashlight out towards the field, my trembling hand causing the beam to bounce erratically as I swung it back and forth. The fields were empty this time of year, but that didn't mean he wasn't crouched down, hidden from view by the mounds of uneven ground. A mental image of the shifter waiting somewhere in the shadows, liquid leaking from his ruined eye while his other one watched me, crowded out all other thoughts.

Trying not to look like I was fleeing in terror, I backed away to my car. Once inside I locked the doors and sat there for a moment, my eyes glued to the field. Should I go out and look again? Even if he wasn’t as dead as I’d thought, he was seriously injured and shouldn't have been able to get far. I had a tire iron in the trunk and could finish it if I had to. Well maybe. Probably not. Leaving him to die in the veil wasn't the same as doing it myself.

Could his shifting ability also mean he was able to heal quickly? It wasn't a stretch. If he could change his body so completely, what would prevent him from merely binding the skin of his wounds back together? Was every moment I sat here a moment in which he grew stronger until he was able to come after me again? Screw it; I thought as I threw the car into drive.