Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
I shake my head wordlessly, paralyzed by the impossible choice before me. Behind me, I hear the metallic click of Jensen checking his rifle.
“Jensen,” I say without turning, my voice barely audible. “Don’t.”
“She’s suffering,” he says quietly. “And she’s right. Once the transformation completes, she won’t be Lainey anymore. She’ll be one of them.”
“For a while. Then she’ll change back.”
“But then you’ll be dead,” Lainey cries out, spittle flying.
“I can’t do it,” I whisper, tears flowing freely now. “I can’t burn my own sister.”
“You don’t have to,” Jensen replies, his voice gentle despite the grim resolution underlying it. “I failed her once. I won’t fail her again.”
Before I can react, he raises his rifle, aiming at Lainey’s head. Our eyes meet for one brief, charged moment—his filled with apology and determination, mine with horror and disbelief.
The shot cracks through the night like thunder, echoing off the surrounding mountains.
Lainey crumples, a small, neat hole appearing in her forehead, the back of her skull exploding outward in a spray of blood that stains the pristine snow. Her body falls sideways, suddenly lifeless eyes still open but the unnatural blue already fading as death claims her.
“NO!” The scream tears from my throat, raw and primal. I lunge forward, catching her body before it fully hits the ground, cradling her head in my lap, heedless of the blood soaking into my already freezing clothes. “No, no, no…”
The world narrows to just her face, still recognizably my sister’s despite the partial transformation, the changes that had begun to overtake her features already softening in death. I rock her gently, words failing me, grief so overwhelming it feels like a physical weight crushing my chest into oblivion.
“I’m sorry,” Jensen says from somewhere far away, though he hasn’t moved. “She was right, Aubrey. It was the only mercy we could give her. She deserved that.”
“You didn’t even warn me,” I manage, voice cracking. “You just…killed her.”
“If I’d warned you, could you have let me do it?” he asks, his voice rough with his own grief. “Would you have stood aside?”
I have no answer. He’s right, and I hate him for it. Hate him for doing what I couldn’t, for ending Lainey’s suffering when I would have selfishly prolonged it rather than let her go.
A strange warmth spreads through my lap, and I look down to see Lainey’s blood spreading across the snow, steam rising from it in the frigid air. Her blood runs hotter than human blood should, another sign of the transformation that had been changing her.
“We need to burn her,” Jensen says gently. “Like she wanted. To make sure…”
“To make sure she doesn’t come back,” I finish dully. The horror of it all is too much, my mind struggling to process everything that’s happened.
I look down at Lainey’s face, peaceful now in death. The sister I lost and found and lost again all in the space of a few hours. I brush a strand of her matted hair away from her face, remembering how I used to do the same for her when we were children, when nightmares woke her screaming.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to give you peace myself.” A sob catches in my throat. “I love you, Lainey.”
For a moment, I swear I see a faint smile touch her lips, though I know it’s impossible, just a trick of the moonlight and my own desperate grief. Still, I cling to the image, to the hope that wherever she is now, she’s at peace. Free from the hunger that tormented her for so long.
At least momentarily.
“We need to move,” Jensen says quietly, his silhouette dark against the moonlit snow. “The shot will have attracted attention. We need to reach the cabin, get warm, prepare.”
I nod mechanically, beyond arguing, beyond feeling anything but the hollow ache of loss.
Jensen hands me his axe, then reaches down and picks up Lainey’s body, his movements careful, gentle, as if she can feel him. He adjusts the grip on his rifle, then turns to face the direction of the cabin, visible as a dark peak in the distance. When he speaks, his voice has hardened, grief giving way to determination.
“If we’re burning her,” he says, each word precise and heavy with resolve, “we’re burning all of them. Every last hungry one in these mountains. Starting with Adam.”
I follow his gaze to the cabin, then back to Lainey’s body, small and still in his arms. A matching resolve crystallizes within me, cutting through the fog of grief with startling clarity.
“Yes,” I agree, my voice steady for the first time since the shot. “We burn them all.”
The night stretches around us, cold and unforgiving. Somewhere in these mountains, Adam and his pack of hungry ones continue to hunt, unaware that they’ve created their own nemesis in their pursuit. They’ve taken everything from me—my sister, my peace, my future.