“It’s coming,” Elliot gasped. “Esmer, it’scoming!”
The dark figure surged out of the trees with a growl.
I squeezed the trigger, feeling the release of the string beneath my touch. The bolt leapt from the crossbow with a fierce twang, slicing through the air with deadly precision. It struck true, embedding itself into the figure with a satisfyingthud. The figure halted, swaying as if it were drunk, then fell to its knees with a cry of pain. It made another sound, this time heart-stopping in its familiarity. I knew that voice.
I’d known it from the moment I was born.
“M-mother?” I gasped, dropping the crossbow. It slammed heavily against my hip, still attached by its leather strap, but I scarcely felt it.“No.”
My mother clutched the grass, steadying herself against the tremors moving through her body. The bolt had struck her soundly in her shoulder. Blood wept from the wound in a dark stream, nearly black in the torchlight.
“I didn’t know,” I choked out, numbly reaching for her. “I thought you were a—”
I froze, noticing the discoloration on her knuckles. The bloodyrabbit clenched haphazardly between her fingers. The feral curve to her back. The missing shoes. And then, when she looked up, the two smears of shadow staining the skin under her eyes. Corruption.
“Oh, Esmer. How pathetic of you to act like you care,” Mother growled, lips peeling back in a savage grin. Her teeth were red, stained bright by a cut splitting her lip. “You may be beautiful, but you’re rotten on the inside. Such a mockery of your sister. What a shame.”
Elliot shouted from somewhere behind me, his voice a strange, piercing warning.
I stood with a stumble. “Elliot,run! Get Father. This isn’t Mother.”
Mother shook her trembling limbs into stillness. “Oh, if you had just kept sleeping,” she said in a voice that was hers, and wasn’t. A demon’s voice, rattling like bones over gravel, layered over her softer timbre. “But you had to go outside, didn’t you? Had to meddle where it wasn’t needed. I was just gathering some provisions for our trip tomorrow.” I spun around, making to sprint for the house, but Mother was faster. She dropped the rabbit and grabbed my face, squeezing her fingers around my throat before I could even register the movement.
“I’ve come for you and your softhearted brother. I was going to take my time—savor your Corruption—but it’s too late for that,” the demon inside her snarled, its voice darkening. As she dug her nails into my skin, blood pooled from her fingers and slid down my neck. “I’d have one more babe to hunt, but she’s already dead.”
She pinned me to the damp, rot-smelling ground as I screamed, clawing at her face, kicking at her shins, but it was useless,useless.
“Let hergo!” Elliot sobbed, slamming his bucket hard into the side of her head.
Mother’s bloodshot eyes widened. I expected her to fall over—any ordinary person would have been knocked unconscious by the blow. But she merely stood up, spat some blood from her mouth, and snatched the blanket that had fallen from Elliot’s shoulders.
“Oh, Elliot. I would have saved you for last.”
Mother threw Elliot to the ground, easily overpowering him despite the injury to her shoulder, and pulled the blanket tight over his mouth and nose. I staggered to the nearest torch, head spinning and legs threatening to give out. Elliot was going todie, and this demon—thisanimalwithin my mother—would kill me next without hesitation.
But first she’d kill Elliot.
I heaved the torch from the dirt, fighting to stay conscious even as my vision blurred. A troubling decision was rapidly forming in my mind, desperate to sink its claws in before fear took over and rendered me useless.
“Your mother and father damned your village,” the demon inside her growled, stuffing part of the blanket into Elliot’s mouth and wrenching his arm away when he tried to pull it free. “Damned you, too. They made a desperate bargain for your safety, but I overcame. We always overcome.”
But first she’d kill Elliot.
The sound I made was unlike anything I’d ever heard: raw grief and primal terror. It propelled me forward as I raised the torch and swung it hard at Mother’s face. I hit her again, this time lighting her cloak on fire. She immediately fell to the side, rolling in the dirt as she fought to remove her cloak, but the fire was quicker.
“Esmer,” Mother moaned, this time sounding more like herself. She knelt while the flames crawled higher. “No.Did I…? What am I…?”
Elliot sobbed in my arms, utterly horrified. I needed to get him inside. I needed to get Father, and—
“Elena!” Father screamed, half running, half sliding into Mother. He hissed in pain as he threw her cloak aside, stomping it into the ground until the flames were nothing but smoke.
“Esmer’s a vile girl,” the demon inside Mother condemned, its voice breaking and stumbling into cries as smoke curled around her ears. She clung to Father’s arms, glaring at me. “She tried to kill me, Galen. I fear we’ve raised a monster. She’s Corrupt—”
“You’re the one who’s Corrupt,” I gasped, taking deep breaths andtrying not to pass out. I dug my feet into the ground, desperate for sensation to return to my body. “Father, just—just look at her.”
“Stop talking,” Father snapped. “Enough.”
“But she’s right,” Elliot cried. “Mother hurt us. She’s not herself.”
