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The bugs take my focus away from the thread, and Lily catapults forward like a beast, knocking me to the ground. She holds me down, her hands shove my palms into the earth, keeping the thread smothered, like she knows what I am.
Her fingernails dig into my arms, and at the breaking of my skin, the bugs ascend, mouths attaching to my body with a jab. My screams join Lily’s shrieking.
And then Jake is over us, the shovel in hand.
“Jake! No!”
But it’s too late—the shovel makes a loud thud as it comes into contact with Lily’s head. Bones crunch, and she twists, vaulting toward Jake. He uses the shovel like a baseball bat and hits her again mid-flight, she goes down, but on bent legs, springing toward him again.
I scramble to my feet and brush the latched bugs off me in a fury, my body stings. Lily launches at Jake, navigating the swing of his shovel. As soon as he hits the ground his screams fill the air, then he is silent.
I reach for the flashlight in the grass and hold it up. Lily twists on Jake’s chest, blood and bits of skin hang from her mouth.
She’s ready to come after me again when something lands in front of me. Crouching low, it rises, wings stretching. The moon illuminates a silver halo of hair.
Shy.
He draws both blades from the holsters on his back.
“Lily,” he says.
Another Valryn lands behind her—Jacobi. Lily, still crouching on Jake’s chest, acts like an animal, caged. Her head bobs back and forth between the two Shadow Knights and her mouth pulls back into a fierce growl.
They always come back wrong.
Something grabs me from behind and I scream, twisting to find Natalie.
“Come on!” She commands.
We rush to help Jake, but it’s pointless. Lily tore his throat out. He’s dead.
I turn from him, vomiting in the grass and when there’s nothing else in my stomach, dry heave.
“Get in the truck, Anora!” Natalie commands, as she laces her arms under Jake’s and drags him toward the pickup. I take several deep breaths before I join her, helping her settle Jake in the bed of the pickup.
“Get in the truck!” Her voice is raw, thick with fear.
I scramble into the passenger side and Natalie slides into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. The headlights flood the field and she floors it. I fumble for my seatbelt as we bounce over the pasture. Natalie makes a sharp turn, the engine revs—she’s moving faster, on a path straight for Shy, Jacobi and Lily, locked in battle.
“What are you doing?” I scream.
At the last-minute Shy and Jacobi zoom into the air and there’s a bang as we hit Lily head on.
Natalie brakes, throwing me painfully against the seatbelt. She backs up and the truck jolts as we roll over Lily’s body again. Then we sit. The only sound is our breathing. I can't take my eyes off Lily's motionless body, heaped in the headlights of Jake's truck.
And then my passenger side door opens and I scream.
“Shh!”
Shy says, grabbing my wrists and holding them to his chest. I throw my arms around his neck and he holds me close. He’s sweaty and breathing hard, but his nearness comforts me. How did all this happen? How did we get here? Minutes ago, Jake was sitting beside me on the bed of his pickup, sharing his blanket and Capri Sun. Now he is dead in the back of his own pickup, and Lily lies on the ground in front of it.
I’m close to breaking. My chest shudders with unshed tears and the only thing holding me together is Shy’s embrace.
“Shy,” Natalie says. “We have a problem.”
We look up to find six pairs of eyes in the darkness, followed by a chorus of howls.
My Hellhounds have found me.
