Page 134 of Unravel Me

"No," Silvio says, straightening up. His wrinkled face now looks almost carved from wood, proud and statuesque. "Enough, Rocco. You were never supposed to come back here! You're my grandson, but I can't let you hurt Mauro or—"

Rocco's face burns with rage. His lips press into a hateful line, his eyes fixed on Silvio.

"I don't give a fuck about your rules! Either I take him, or I kill him. Your choice. And if I kill him, then Mauro is fucked too. I don't care!"

Several soldati who got out of the cars are approaching us as well, stopping some distance behind Rocco.

Renato speaks in a calm voice.

"Three months ago, we warned you never to come back here, or you'd face the consequences. I think you understand that we can't give Jared to you. He already belongs to the forest."

"Stop with this fucking bullshit, Uncle. I'm counting to ten." Rocco raises his weapon and points it at me.

I tremble like a leaf in the wind. My entire life is falling apart in this one brief moment. Everything I've feared is materializing right now, and I can't do shit about it.

"Rocco, I'm telling you again, we can't give him to you… Jared carries the next heir within him, the new guardian of the forest."

I turn toward Renato, staring at him in shock, but I quickly push the thought aside. It's hard to think about something like that when there's a gun pointed straight at you.

"I don't give a fuck about any of your foolish mumbles about the forest."

"You will die if you do this. Two days at max."

"Pfff! I'm finishing my countdown. Five… four, three, two, one."

A gunshot cracks through the air.

I squeeze my eyes shut, certain that in the next instant an unbearable pain will explode through my chest, but it never comes.

Instead, when I open my eyes, I see Silvio standing in front of me.

He's looking straight into my face.

Then, slowly, he bends forward. His head comes to rest against my chest, and a second later his entire body slips from my arms and collapses onto the ground.

"No!!!"

It's Renato's voice.

Loud. Powerful.

Rolling across the clearing like the roar of the forest itself.

I watch him change in the blink of an eye, the energy vibrating around.

The ordinary human beta vanishes beneath a burst of fierce green light that erupts from him, expanding outward in rippling circles.

There’s no longer Renato, but a tall figure in a dark green coat with a crown of antlers!

The ground begins to tremble beneath my feet. The earth under Rocco and the soldati softens, quivering like jelly, and violent green vines burst through the soil. The soldati start to scream, but the thick, writhing tendrils wrap around the men's legs, yanking them off their feet as they thrash like furious snakes.

But Rocco is the fastest of them. The moment the gunshot rings out and he sees who was hit by the bullet, he immediately leaps back and sprints toward the vehicles, leaving his people behind, but one thick vine coils around his ankles and jerks him into the air.

He starts firing wildly, shredding the living vine with bullet after bullet.

He crashes back to the ground and immediately lunges toward the waiting cars again, the vines chasing him only a heartbeat behind.

His soldiers aren't nearly as quick. The vines wrap around them completely, pinning them to the ground, but Rocco has gotten farther ahead than the rest. He manages to reach the paving stones, where no new vines can break through the surface, yet the older ones keep lashing through the air toward him, reaching again and again, hitting him, trying to drag him back.