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If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was a werewolf. But that would mean that werewolves are real.
I’m not in a position to have an existential crisis about this right now. I just need to survive. All those years of playing “monster hunters” with the twins kick in.
Chase is between me and the door. I search for an object I can use as a weapon. There’s a huge plunger leaning up with a bunch of janitor’s tools in the corner. I lunge for it, just as Chase lunges for me.
I scream as his teeth gnash the air, right where my arm was a moment ago. He crashes into the shelves of medical supplies, sending thermometers and bandages skidding across the floor. I land hard on my side and roll toward the plunger. I grab it with one hand and swing it around just as Chase comes for me again. The plunger hits him in the side of the face.
He howls again, but my triumph is cut short. I’ve only made him angry. I back up, certain that any moment now, his teeth are going to sink into my skin, when I hear a familiar voice before me.
“Lily!”
It’s Brooks. Of course it is. He’s always here when I need him.
And Jackson and Orion are with him. Relief surges through me as they rush at the thing that was once my prom date. I make a run for the door, but as I do, I’m plunged into darkness…
A void so deep and fathomless that I’m afraid I’m lost forever…
I blink, and I can see again. But what I’m seeing makes my already racing heart pound even faster.
I’m standing behind the couch in my living room. It’s dark, and I’m wearing the tattered remains of my prom dress.
And there is a figure kneeling in the center of the dark living room.
“Mom? Dad?” I ask in confusion, unable to see which one of my parents it is with the blinds drawn shut.
The figure freezes.
Trepidation uncoils inside of me, but I try to tamp down my growing unease as I reach for the light switch beside me. My heart bangs against my chest hard enough to crack a rib, and I can’t get my breaths to come in anything other than shallow, choppy pants.
Light suffuses the tiny living room…
And the dead bodies in the center of it.
The dead, mutilated bodies.
A scream builds in my throat as horror like I’ve never felt before crashes through me.
The first thing I see is my father sitting on the armchair, his wheelchair resting beside it. But his eyes… His eyes are wide and unseeing, and there’s blood—so much fucking blood—seeping through his navy-blue bathrobe. Both of his arms have been cut off, though I have no idea where those limbs went.
I stumble back a step in horror as my gaze flicks to the figure in the middle of my living room. With its back to me, I can’t see its face—can’t even tell the gender—but the mysterious stranger only captures my attention for half a second.
Because it’s then I notice my mother’s body.
“Mom!” I scream in anguish, staring at what remains of the woman I love.
Her decapitated head rests in the center of what appears to be a pentagram. The remaining five points each hold a different body part of hers—both of her arms, her legs, and…oh god… Is that her heart?
Tears trail down my cheeks as a strangled, desperate sob lodges in my throat.
No. No. No. No.
The figure rises, and I can’t help but note it looks tall—taller than the average human. It’s dressed entirely in black, the cloak swirling around its legs like mist.
Without a word, the stranger grabs something from its pocket, pours it on its head in a barrage of ashy flakes, and then disappears before my very eyes.
The black void closes in around me once more. I’m pulled down, down, down, into the murky depths of my own torment. An elephant sits on my chest. Not an actual elephant, but some dark, heavy, invisible force that shoves me lower and lower and lower…
I try to cry out, but my words are stolen from me by the darkness.
