Pulling the last two knives from her belt, Eleven held them between her fingers. “I’ll do it.”
“You’re coming with me; there has to be a way,” I pleaded. “I refuse to let more people die tonight.”
She shook her head. “With all this activity, the Dogs likely notified their pack, so more will be here momentarily. This is the only way. Tell my sister I love her.”
My mouth opened to argue with her again, but I knew she was right. Cool wetness enveloped my eyes as I closed my mouth, nodding to her.
A nervous twitch played on her lips, her pale face a mask of fear. With an audible gulp, she fled around the side of the house, far from the parked van, her lungs releasing a high-pitched shriek which cut through the night. “Here I am, you mother fuckers! Come get me!”
Their ears pricked up, heads swiveling to pinpoint the source of the unfamiliar sound. With eyes blazing red, the Dogs bolted toward the girl, who vanished into the blanket of darkness and snow.
With a rush of adrenaline, I scurried to the van, my hands slick with sweat as I yanked on the heavy metal sliding door. Inside, Jude and Twelve’s frightened, pale, and strained faces turned toward me.
“What—” The girl in the driver’s seat began to stutter.
“Go!” I yelled, throwing myself in the van. “We need to go! Everyone’s dead.”
Without a second thought, Twelve slammed her foot on the gas, the engine roaring as the van lurched forward, accelerating to maximum speed in a blur. We haphazardly sped down the road with nothing but our heavy breaths to cut the silence. The snowfall was heavy, and the wind swirled each snowflake into a blurry white blanket across the windshield. The weak beamsof the headlights barely cut through, offering little more than a hazy white expanse in the deepening darkness.
Gazing at the swirling snow through the windshield, a sense of déjà vu settled in, and I held my breath. Sixty-five years of memories resurfaced, and I was back in my dad’s car, fleeing our house. A loud, jarring knock clanged from outside, rattling the van as it sped along. Peering out the window, three Dogs with glowing red eyes were chasing us.
“What do we do?” Jude’s voice cracked. “They’re running beside us, trying to hit us off the road.”
The impact of the Dogs sent us sliding wildly across the slick, icy road, our bodies shifting from left to right. We all stared at each other in silence, unsure what to do, hoping the Dogs would get tired and leave us alone.
I knew that wasn’t a possibility.
Our eyes were glued to the road in front of us when a flash of red caught our eye. A large Dog stood ahead, its teeth bared, attempting to block our path. Twelve yanked the steering wheel, and the van swerved sharply, tires screaming against the asphalt. A slick patch of ice, unseen beneath a dusting of snow, sent us skidding wildly out of control.
None of us had it in ourselves to scream as we slammed into the thick trunk of a tree, and a swirl of red lights surrounded us.
Chapter Eighteen
Iwas lying on the floor of the van when I came to, feeling nothing but the soft touch of snowflakes on my cheek. Glass crunched like a thousand tiny bones under my head, and its jagged shards were woven into my hair. I wondered if I opened my eyes, I’d be looking down at myself, like an out-of-body experience. The silence around me was deafening and scary.
Where’s Jude? Is he okay?
Garnering courage after my first thoughts since waking, I slowly peeked through my eyelids. My brain pieced together the battered, vinyl seats of the van, and my body started shaking from the shock. I lay there momentarily, collecting myself and trying to stabilize my breathing, wondering if Dogs were around before making any moves. A high-pitched whistling wind was the only sound cutting through the otherwise still air around me.
Finally, I lifted my body, shaking bits of glass from my hair and clothes, the tiny, sharp shards bounced on the floor like deadly hail. I placed a hand on the smooth seat, then contorted my body to see the front of the van, completely overturned. In the driver’s seat sat Twelve, her bloodied head bashed against the broken window. A thick brown tree branch extended fromoutside into the van, ending its descent through her temple. Twelve’s face was ashen, her eyes vacant, the scarlet blood blooming on the snow visible through the shattered glass.
Hopelessness and fear washed over me. My throat tightened as my salivary glands surged, and I turned away, fighting the urge to be sick, silently praying Jude hadn’t suffered the same fate. A massive tree branch ripped through the front seat, leaving behind a devastating scene of destruction, making it impossible to see Jude.
At least he wasn’t impaled, right?
Lifting my body from the floor, I pulled myself over the cold bark. Straddling the tree, I leaned over and saw a man hanging outside the van by his seatbelt. “Jude? I scrambled over the branch, the rough bark scraping my skin, with Arthur’s threat echoing in my head. My heart was in my throat, silently willing him to say something stupid. Anything. “Jude.” I stared at his face, the involuntary warmth of tears blurring my vision as I searched for the slightest flicker of life.
A pained moan escaped his lips. “Va-Vin? What happened?”
Relief flooded through my body. He was alive. Kicking my foot over the side of the tree, I reached up and jumped to open the van door above me. Finding a place for my feet on the worn leather headrests, I climbed to the open door, the cool night air hitting my face as I exited onto the side of the vehicle. With the van completely overturned, I squeezed through the shattered glass to reach Jude’s door. I noticed a jagged line of cracked glass snaking from the top of the window to the bottom, and without a second thought, I smashed my fist through it. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces, and I dove headfirst through the gaping window.
I knew I needed to get him out of the seatbelt—the only thing that likely saved his life—and my fingers trailed along his body, feeling the frantic pulse of his heart beneath his skin. I foundthe button, pressed it as hard as my fingers would allow, and unhooked the latch, grabbing his body before it fell over into the tree branch. A grunt escaped my lips under the strain of his weight; however, I summoned every ounce of strength to heave him through the window. Gravity was against me, but I needed to ensure Jude was alright.
I hoisted him out the window, his limp body a dead weight against my arms. My body slid against the freezing, metallic side of the van, and we tumbled together onto the cold, snowy ground. “Vincent?” Jude mumbled. “What happened? Where are we?”
He was stirring, and I let out a sigh of relief. “We’re fine. We’ll be fine.” I was trying to sound reassuring, but I was anything but. We’re in the middle of nowhere at night with the potential of a herd of Dogs to pounce on us at any moment. If someone described this scenario to me, I’d have said without a doubt, we were doomed.
And maybe we were.
