“Okay.” My voice trembled, betraying how shaken I really was.
I wasn’t losing grip. I didn’t fuck up yesterday.
He was real.
That was when the harmony of male screams echoed off the trees.
Chapter 9 :
Weracedthroughthetrees, following the screams for help. Only a few feet away, around the bend, we found the monster with Drew’s thigh in his mouth, slowly pulling him into the water. Drew clawed at the mud as he tried to hold on, but the mud slid with him.
The screams of his team echoed from deeper in the woods. They abandoned him to save their own skins. I couldn’t even see who he was with. They were long gone.
The monster’s eyes locked on me, shaking his head back and forth as if to say that’s what he wanted to do to me instead.
Shannon and I each grabbed a shoulder and Drew howled in agony, “It’s going to rip my leg off.”
We slid across the mud as the monster pulled all of our combined weights like we were nothing. I grabbed a bush as we passed it, but it only took one yank from the creature and the branch snapped in my hand.
“We can’t stop him!” Shannon yelled.
Fuck.
I reached back to my bag for my heavy-duty flashlight and licked my suddenly dry lips. Did I really have the gall to try my luck for a fourth time with this thing?
A squeal from Drew and the sickening rip of flesh made that decision for me.
I scrambled to my feet, almost slipping in the mud in my haste, and raised my weapon high above my head, ready to knock the creature out. As I swung the light downwards, something grabbed a hold of my nerves, and I stopped inches above his head.
Do it.
But instead of finishing the swing, my hands trembled as they stayed in place and my muscles locked as if I had a cramp.
You can do it, Talia.
Fear clenched my stomach, and the visual of the monster’s head bashed in threatened to make me vomit. My thoughts recoiled from the vision, as if I should care if this thing was hurt or not.
I inhaled as deep as I could. He’s a monster. I had to do what needed to be done. Survival, nothing personal.
I lifted the weapon high again and attempted to swing downwards a second time. Only for me to stop in the exact same spot as before.
My hands shook. Fuck.
You can’t hurt us.
Where did that thought even come from? That wasn’t me. The place in my chest that hadn’t felt right since I touched that nest clutched my heart painfully, threatening to squeeze me.
Why? Self betrayal bubbled in my chest and made me want to growl at him the way he did to me.
“Hit him!” Shannon screamed.
My mouth opened to answer, but my voice refused to come out.I can’t.
I can’t do it.
Still no matter how much I willed my bones and muscles to finish the job, they remained frozen. This piece of shit.
I’d never failed to survive before, and I wouldn’t start now. Not with so much to fight for. I wouldn’t die here, when I was on the edge of freedom.
