They lunge.
I shove her behind me.
The first strikes fast—bony fingers curled into claws, jaw dislocating with a shriek that splits the night. I sidestep, catch its arm, twist, and send it crashing into the dead grass. Another leaps from the left—I parry with the butt of the spear, knocking out cracked teeth.
The third is fast.
Almost too fast.
It grabs my arm andbites. I roar, slam it into the ground with a crack that echoes like thunder.
“Don’t kill them!” Olivia shouts. “They’re sick, not evil!”
It takes all my will to listen. My instincts scream to end them—mercy through steel. But I twist my grip, shift my stance. Blunt strikes. Nerve holds. I subdue them, one by one, until they lie writhing and weeping in the dirt. Their sobs are not human. Nor are they beast.
They arein between.
Olivia kneels beside the smallest one—a girl, no older than seventeen, her face gaunt and streaked with blood.
“I knew her,” Olivia whispers. “Tasha. She used to bring in art books. Said she wanted to design tattoos for a living.”
Now the girl claws at the ground, moaning, whispering fragments of words that twist and fold in on themselves.
“Is thereanythingwe can do?” Olivia asks.
“No,” I say. “Not now. Their minds are fractured. Their souls, tethered to the corruption.”
She closes her eyes. One tear. Just one. But I feel it more than any scream.
“We need to evacuate the town,” she says. “Right now. Get everyone out before they end up likethis.”
I look away.
“No.”
“Are you kidding me?” she snaps, standing, furious now. “You’ve seen what’s happening! They’returning. We have to do something!”
“If we empty the town, we give the Vorfaluka exactly what it wants.”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
“It hides in fear, yes. But itfeedson it too. Evacuate Walnut Falls, and the fear will spread like wildfire—town to town, state to state. Panic breeds chaos. The Veil fractures further. It willfollow the fear and root itself somewhere worse. Somewhere unprepared.”
Her fists tremble.
“You mean… we’re the line in the sand.”
I nod.
“Then what do we do?” she asks, softer now.
“We end it here. Weslayit here. Or your world dies screaming.”
For a long moment, she doesn’t speak. Just looks around at the twisted remnants of humanity. The ghosts of what once was. Then she exhales.
“Alright,” she says. “Then we finish this.”
Later, the moonlight filters through the window, slipping between the wooden slats, washing Olivia’s hair in silver. She lies beside me, slow breath, soft chest rising and falling—that fragile, beautiful sign of life. Her eyelashes flutter in sleep. Her lips part just a little. Smell of pine and lingering warmth of her skin still in my mind.
