I took off running through the woods, my feet slapping against the forest floor in rhythm with my pounding heart.
There was no way I was going to survive this night. If this thing didn’t devour me, something else would.
Even though my hope of survival was shrinking with each terrifying second that passed, I forged on. I couldn’t let Titus’s sacrifice be for nothing. As I ran for my life, I drew more and more attention.
Eyes of all shapes and sizes appeared through the dark, blinking at me through the shrubbery and from the treetops. Everywhere I looked, there was something that wanted to make me its dinner.Or worse.
Hope soured in my chest as I broke through the dense trees into what looked like a town. I raced down the street, disappointment making me sob between gulps of breath.
It was abandoned. No one was here. I knew the Pine Barrens were known for their abandoned towns and ruins, but did this have to be one of them?
Why couldn’t I have stumbled across someplace populated?
I knew the monsters chased me from out of the woods, but I didn’t dare look over my shoulder. I had to keep running. Maybe I could lose them if I found someplace to hide…
I took a sharp turn behind a stone structure that looked to have been a factory once, and found myself standing in an overgrown graveyard.
There was nothing in front of me except for more trees. I could keep running, but I got the sense that my chances were better out here.
Chances.Who the hell was I kidding? I was going to die tonight. At least I was already standing in a graveyard. How was that for irony?
The funny thing was, I wasn't scared anymore. I felt completely numb without Titus.
I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I was going to make it to sunrise.
Taking in a breath, I slowly turned to look behind me. The monster approached, its spindly legs stepping into the graveyard while its drool rained down over the mossy headstones. I stooped down, picking up a thick branch from nearby. Too bad I’d left the wrench back in front of the cabin.
The creature made a skin-crawling sound. Was it laughing at me? I didn’t blame it. A branch wasn’t going to do shit against a forest spirit older than most of the trees here.
It spoke to me again. My brain couldn’t make sense of the words, but there was some instinctual part of me that understood. A little alarm went off in the back of my head, screaming at me torun. And stupid me, I ignored it.
I was sick of running.
I stood my ground, holding my stick at the ready even though putting up a fight was futile. It didn't matter if I died and went to Hell; Titus would be there, though he’d never let me hear the end of it.
“Come at me, fucker.”
I regretted the words the second they flew out of my mouth. The creature rolled up onto his hind legs and, for a moment, he looked like a tree—the tallest in the entire woods. His hind legs were tipped with hooves, but his fronts were hands with freakishly long fingers. He stretched out an arm, reaching for me.
Before he could touch me, something exploded from the tree line behind me. A much smaller monster leaped onto its back, his stance wide at the back of its neck and, with all his strength, snapped one of the creature’s horns off.
My heart thudded hard in my chest. It was Titus.
With the jagged side of the broken horn pointed toward the creature, my half-devil stabbed downward, spearing the creature through the back of the skull. It screeched and began to fall in slow motion. Titus leaped off and landed in a delicate crouch before the gigantic creature collided with the ground, making the earth quake.
I dropped my stick and ran toward my stepbrother. This was Titus, but he seemed different. He was covered from head to toe in blood. His dark hair was caked in it, and his skin was streaked with dirt and sweat.
He'd managed to kill the cultists by the feral look behind his eyes.
None of that stopped me from going to him. Before I could throw myself into his arms, though, he caught me by the throat.
“Careful. I’m not in control right now, little lamb.” His voice had a grit to it that hooked in my belly.
“You’re alive…” I rasped in disbelief.
“For now. I told you to keep quiet. Fortunately, all the noise you were making made it easy to track you. But I wasn't the only monster of these woods to take notice.”
“Thank you for killing it.”
