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Worryingly, when my hands caught my fall, they barely felt the cold and I knew then I was in big trouble if I didn’t get warmsoon.
But that thing was mere yards away, and I needed torun.
Scraping up willpower and a survival instinct I had no idea I possessed, I staggered into a painful loping jog. Every step was agonizing, but I could hear the monster gaining on me, and so somehow, I began to run.
From my rock, the landscape had seemed pristine and beautifully white, but I felt the large rocks and roots hidden under the snow and ice threatening to trip me with every step.
An eerie howl rent the air. I glanced over my shoulder, slowing when I realized the beast was not chasing me. Instead, it was runningpastmy rock.
I squinted, trying to make out the shadows it was racing toward, and my breath caught when I realized it was a tree line.
I hadn’t seen it before with my back to it, likely because I’d been in shock, but I could see it now—a thick line of fat trees with lush growth along their branches.
I looked back from where the beast had come from, noting the orange flames growing brighter and the drums louder. I looked back at the trees.
They were covered in snow, but it was better than being stuck out in the open when those drums caught up, so in a strange change of events, I began chasing after the beast.
Up close,the beast was just that—abeast.It was not of earth. It looked like it had come straight from hell. It was the only explanation. I must have died at some point, and this must be hell.
I didn’t think I’d ever done anything in my life to warrant this afterlife, but I was no saint either.
I never stole anything significant as an adult but I did bend to peer pressure as a child. But only a few candy bars here and there, and I felt real, really bad about it afterward.
And as ashamed as I was to admit it, I did cheat once. On a math test but also on my twelfth-grade boyfriend, Henry.
He cheated on me first, though, so I had thought it justifiable.
I also smoked pot as a teen and had one hell of a filthy mouth…but both of those things were legal, at least in most states. But really? Hell?
I wasn’tthat bad.
The beast disappeared into the first set of tall trees, and I was hot on its heels when a sharp whistle pierced the air from behind me, tearing me away from memory lane.
I watched in horror as a massive pike shot through the air and pierced the beast’s side that was darting ahead of me. It howled and thrashed before it slammed into the trunk of a tree and fell onto its side, kicking up gusts of snow all around its body.
That spear had come from behind me. My hands slapped the ground as I rolled over from my butt to my knees and gaped at the bobbing lights now drifting into the trees.
The lights were attached to a wooden sled of some kind. But this sled was massive, and it looked likea longboat on skis.
An enormous statue crowned the bow of the sled-boat. And there were over a dozen bodies moving about the deck of the boat, some of them holding some kind of weapon.
But the sled?
It was headed straight for the trees and…me.
I saw the glint of metal and heard a rumbled battle yell and dove out of the way just in time…or almost.
My hair parted by my ear, and the tip of a thin spear scraped against my icy cheek.
I barely felt the sting over the fear racking my body. I was paralyzed by panic and confusion.
I shivered, a low keen of fright meeting my ears—that of the dying beast.
I gaped as the boat-sled slid to a stop just outside the tree line, blasting me in loosed snow. It was so tall it blocked out the moonlight and the bodies that moved about the deck were stomping and shouting in a strange language, but those drumbeats started up again, drowning them out.
I blinked as leather boots jumped down from the sled to land heavily into the snow, and fear took over, forcing me to react even though I’d grown numb and dangerously lethargic.
I fell back, lying flat to try and disappear under the snow.
