I hit the door at full speed. The wood shatters outward, hinges screaming as they tear from the frame.
I am airborne.
I leap off the porch, sailing through the blinding white light of the flood beams, descending into the chaos of the mud and the blood below.
23
MIRANDA
It feels like I’m losing my grip in reality as the cabin screams around me.
Wood splinters and shreds as silver-tipped bullets chew through the reinforced logs, turning the south wall into Swiss cheese. The air inside is a choking haze of sawdust, pulverized drywall, and the acrid, metallic tang of ozone. Every impact shakes the floorboards against my chest, a rhythmic, violent percussion that rattles my teeth.
I am pressed flat against the floor, the Mossberg 500 clutched in hands that are vibrating so hard they blur. But it’s not fear shaking me. Not anymore.
It’s rage.
My blood feels carbonated. It’s bubbling in my veins, hot and pressurized, pushing against the inside of my skin like steam in a sealed boiler. The noise outside—the wet tearing of flesh, the roar of engines, the screams of men dying—doesn't make me want to curl up and hide.
It makes me want to hunt.
I crawl to a knot in the wood near the base of the wall, ignoring the splinters digging into my elbows. I peer through.
The yard is a nightmare lit by stadium floodlights. The mud is churned into a bloody slurry. I see black shapes—Wolves—tearing through armored men like they’re made of paper. I see a wolf take a bullet, stumble, and get back up to rip a man’s arm off.
A chaotic, warring instinct rises in my chest, seizing my diaphragm.
Part of me wants to arch my head back and howl, to join the chorus of the Pack and rip throats with my teeth. That part feels like cedar and loyalty. It feels like Jax.
But another part... a colder, darker part... watches the blood spray from a Hunter’s severed artery and feels a sharp, painful cramp of hunger in my stomach. I don't just want to kill them. I want to catch the red spray. I want to drink the essence until the fire in my veins cools.
"What am I?" I whisper, my voice sounding distorted, guttural to my own ears.
Movement catches my eye beyond the fray.
Standing at the edge of the tree line, untouched by the mud or the violence, is Matilde.
She is wearing a pristine white coat that glows fiercely under the UV lights. She isn't fighting. She’s watching. And she’s smiling.
Her gaze snaps to the cabin. To me. She can’t see me through the wood, but she knows.
Come out, little spare part.
The voice slides into my ear, oily and cold, bypassing my eardrums entirely to slither directly into my brain stem. It feels like a violation. Like maggots moving under my skin.
Come let Auntie fix you. Come let me drain that dirty mongrel blood out of your veins.
The psychic intrusion hits me like an ice pick to the temple. Nausea rolls over me, thick and cloying. The hunger spikes,demanding I run to her, demanding I kneel and offer my throat just to make the pain stop.
No.
My hand flies to my pocket. My fingers clamp down around the rough, cold iron of the railroad spike Jax gave me.
I squeeze.
I squeeze until the rusted edges bite into my palm, breaking the skin.
The sting is sharp, immediate, and grounding. The iron burns against my flesh, searing away the cold, oily voice in my head. The mental fog clears instantly, leaving only the red haze of adrenaline.
