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“Yeah? So was Dennis.”

Mary wrenches her head away, but not before I spot the tears glistening in her eyes. For several moments, neither of us speaks. The anger and betrayal inside me remains, but bone-deep exhaustion almost cushions it. I’m too tired to hate her properly.

Eventually, she turns back to face me. “Why did it let you go?”

“He didn’t. I left after…” After I sucked the cum from his knot and he almost drowned me with it. “... I left while he was asleep.”

“You escaped?”

That word doesn't sit right with me, but I guess there's no other way to put it. “Yeah.”

“And it didn’t follow you, did it?”

“I don’t think so.”

Her gaze sharpens on me. “What do you mean, you don’t think so?”

The sudden ominous tone of her voice has me tilting my head. “I kept feeling watched while I was hiking down the mountain. Figured it was just my imagination after spending so long underground.”

The blood seems to drain from her face. With a pained groan, she slowly rises from her chair and moves toward the window, peeling back the curtain.

I follow her gaze outside, but find only inky black shadow. “What? What is it?”

“Tell me exactly what happened the night Earl shot you,” she demands.

“Well, first, I hit Orion on the road. He crawled onto my roof and tried to break in through the windshield to get me.” Frowning, I ignore the ever-present void that aches in my middle. “He says it wasn't him, though.”

Mary's fingers tighten on the curtain as she eyes me sideways. “He said that?”

“Yeah. He was confused when I accused him, but there's nothing else it could have been. Sure as shit wasn't no fucking bear like Earl tried to make us believe.”

Her gaze fixes on something over my shoulder, and even though I know there’s nothing there, a shiver shoots down my spine. “What else happened?”

Feeling creeped out by her sudden change in mood, I swallow down a lump of fear. “We called it in to the sheriff. He told us to sit tight, and when Manny opened the door…” The memory of the gunshot makes me flinch. There was so much blood. “Earl killed him on the spot. Marched me out to the woods at gunpoint, we met up with my uncle, yada yada. Orion showed up right as they shot me.”

A deep, slow breath releases from her lungs. She turns her eyes toward the window again as her arms start to shake. “We always believed there was only one.”

My brows slam down. “Only one what?”

Mary opens her mouth, but before she can respond, a screeching sound comes from the side of the house, like nails on a chalkboard.

Or claws against glass.

Both of us freeze in place. Outside, something creaks from the front porch's direction as wood groans beneath weight. For one split second, I think maybe my monster tracked me down until a sharp snarl penetrates the air. “Jesus. I've never heard Orion sound like that before.”

He sounds downright fucking murderous.

Mary reaches into her basket and pulls out a revolver. I choke on my own spit as she slides a bullet into the chamber. “You keep a gun in your walker?”

The older woman tosses me a dark look. “Of course I do. I live alone.”

“Do you actually know how to use it?”

“I was married to the former sheriff for thirty-one years, young man. What do you think?”

Shock renders me speechless as I gape at her, blinking. The words she said slowly sink into my brain, registering at a snail's pace despite the loud thump that rattles the front door. “You… Wait, you were married to the sheriff? But… Earl said his father was the sheriff before him, and so was his grandfather⁠—”

Another angry bang makes me flinch, this time from above. The blood drains from my face when Mary raises the revolver toward the ceiling.