Then a horrifying possibility occurred to Simone; what if these monsters did have time to play these games? Killean and the others were always at the asylum before she arrived; what if these things had already launched an attack against them?
The panic she’d recently restrained flared back to life. She tried to mentally communicate with Killean but got no response. Her pulse raced through her veins, and her throat became dry as she struggled to retain her composure.
He’s okay; you would know if he wasn’t!
Taking a deep breath, Simone talked herself back from the edge of panic. She may not be able to communicate with him right now, but she could still feel him out there, somewhere.
And right now, she had to stay focused on the threat only feet away from her. Maybe these things didn’t know Killean and the others were close by, but she didn’t think that was true. She suspected this game was intended to torment them while these Savages waited for Killean and the others to arrive. And then when they came, the Savages would have the four of them trapped in this vehicle and would use them as a weapon against Killean, or at least they would useher.
She had to get out of this SUV.
Simone edged toward the window she’d sat beside. The broken pieces of glass stuck to her palms and knees but only a few nicked her flesh. She was almost to the window when Dallas’s head appeared beside the tree. Simone recoiled so fast from him that she almost fell on her ass.
“Boo,” he taunted before vanishing.
Simone blinked at where he’d been as the awful screeching stopped and their awful laughter replaced it.
“I hate these bastards,” Edgar muttered.
“We have to get out of here,” Felipe said.
Simone gazed out the window as feet danced and twirled by it. She realized they weren’t the mulberry bush; no, they were the sacrifice, and these things were devil worshippers dancing to satisfy their pagan God before slaughtering them.
She held her hand out to Sully. “Give me one of your stakes.”
He did a double take. “Do you know how to use it?”
Though the question annoyed her, she couldn’t blame him for asking it. When she resided in the stronghold, she’d never been a fighter. “Yes.”
Sully hesitated before reaching into his windbreaker and pulling a stake free; he slid it into her hand.
“You’re not going out there,” Edgar said to her.
“We can’t stay in here,” she replied. “Killean will come, and if we’re trapped in here, these things will use us against him when he does.”
“Wecan’t stay in here, butyoucan.”
Simone glared at him, but before she could respond, a strange look descended over Edgar’s face, and he was yanked backward. With his legs ripped out from under him, he crashed onto the roof. Felipe dove toward his friend, but his hands fell on the metal roof as Edgar was pulled out the broken front windshield.
Simone’s pulse thundered in her ears as she gawked at the place Edgar had been and silence descended. Then a scream pierced the air before abruptly cutting off. The coppery scent of blood filled her nostrils, before Edgar’s head landed on the ground in front of the SUV. It rocked back and forth before coming to a stop with its dead eyes and gaping mouth facing them.
Simone’s hand flew to her lips as bile rushed up her throat. Beside her, the warmth of Sully’s body did nothing to ease the ice permeating her bones. She didn’t have time to process what had happened to Edgar before Sully lurched awkwardly forward and released a garbled shout.
Thrown off by the sudden movement, the weight of his body shoved her back as his chest hit the ground and his breath rushed out of him. Simone lurched for him when he was dragged backward a few feet, but she missed grabbing his wrists.
Sully threw his hands out and gripped the edges of the window to stop himself from being pulled out of the vehicle. Simone and Felipe lunged forward; Simone gripped Sully’s forearms as she braced her feet against the SUV. Felipe wrapped his fingers around Sully’s wrist before letting out an oomph and collapsing onto the roof.
Felipe’s mouth formed an O as his fingers scrambled for purchase on the roof. His nails left gouges in its metal surface as he was pulled out of the vehicle. Simone’s grasp on Sully tightened as she used her legs to try to pull him back inside the SUV.
She hadn’t moved him an inch before Sully started screaming as if someone were eating him alive. She shuddered when she realized they actuallycouldbe feasting on him.
Sully’s scream cut off, and his dazed eyes rolled toward her. She felt his life slipping away as his grip on the window eased, but she was helpless to stop it. From outside, slurping sounds reached her as they consumed his blood. She spotted half a dozen Savages kneeling beside Sully while they fed.
Sully’s fingers uncurled, and his hands fell. When the Savages pulled him back, Simone kept her legs braced, but she was helpless to stop him from being pulled from her grip. When he disappeared, she found herself clinging to handfuls of his tattered shirt.
Tears burned her eyes, and a sob lodged in her throat as she released the pieces of cloth. She scrambled into the center of the roof and huddled there as she tried to figure out some way out of this mess, but all she thought about was the certainty of death in Sully’s eyes before he vanished.
Get it together, or you’ll be next, and they won’t just kill you. They’ll use you against Killean and turn you into one of them.
