Bad News Blogfest

I totally forgot that I had signed up to participate in the Bad News Blogfest!(Thanks, Francine, for hosting!!!) I feel so bad! But better late than never, right? Below is my submission to this blogfest. It's a scene from my WIP, Faerie Fate.  This isn't the actual scene in which the bad news is delivered, it's a scene the next morning where the MC, Holly, is finally reacting to the news.

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Holly woke the next morning to bright sunlight blinding even behind her closed eyes. She rolled over but now that she was conscious the first thoughts in her head were about her father.  She’d fallen asleep with dreamy thoughts of flying and living in a magical faerie world, but now, in the harsh light of day, it occurred to her that her father was hunting her down so he could kill her. Her eyes popped open. Despite a frisson of fear, though, she had to wonder how he could have harbored so much hatred after all these years for someone he'd never even met. She suddenly felt very unsafe.

She sat straight up, nearly shoving Bamboo off the bed in the process. He meowed; she thought indignantly. Her father knew about this house, didn’t he? After all, he’d been in it. How could she expect to hide if she was in plain sight? Her heartbeat jacked up a notch as she hopped out of bed and struggled to thrust one foot into her jeans while hopping on the other to peek out the window. What if he was out there right now, looking for her? She really didn’t want to be murdered by her own father. After spending her whole life wanting to know who he was, what he was like, and wanting to meet him, and it would suck if their first meeting turned into an execution.  

She managed to get her jeans on and zipped, and while she hunkered down beside the window she grabbed blindly for the t-shirt she’d tossed on the floor the night before, scanning the yard for anything that looked out of place. She didn’t see anything unusual, but a sense of uneasiness still hung over her.

She glanced at the bed where Bamboo was still lounging. “I’m just being paranoid, right Bamboo?” He didn’t answer this time. She turned, still crouched by the window and sniffed the tee in her hand, making a face at the used smell of it. She made her way to the dresser to find a clean one, staying out of the line of sight of the window. “What the heck is he up to, anyway?”  Overnight Bamboo had become her own personal therapist. “I mean, what’s he doing that he thinks I’m going to get in his way?” She wondered aloud, pulling a clean tee out of the drawer and slipping it over her head. Hadn’t Dusty and Shadow implied that her father was hiding out somewhere among humans plotting something diabolical? Revenge? World domination?  And yet, despite everything – evidence of his treachery, and the fact that he wanted her dead - she still felt an overwhelming urge to find him and meet him. She still had an empty hole that needed a father peg plugged in. “I clearly have Daddy issues, huh Bamboo?”  He opened one eye and gave her a ‘duh’ kind of look .

“But I should be able to decide for myself about him, shouldn’t I?"

Bamboo grunted a muffled meow. He didn't sound convinced.

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Now, go check out the rest of the entries!