Melanie smiled. “I get to die in the arms of someone who loves me. Who would have thought?”
I could feel her getting heavier and heavier in my arms, like she was letting go.
“Cora,” she trembled, and slurped a leaking trail of blood back into her mouth. “You were…” I could hardly make out what she was saying. “You were always my favorite cousin.”
“I didn’t think you liked me,” I said, using her own words.
Melanie smiled once more, and it was the last thing she ever did.
In one quick moment she passed away.
It happened so fast I went into shock.
I screamed, mortified. It was happening all over again, just as it had with Owen. I never thought I would have to endure something like this ever again, yet there I was, and it hurt like hell.
Barely seconds had passed before I heard the guttural growls of an animal. Travis had returned.
I scooted out from beneath Melanie’s lifeless body, retrieved the shotgun, and got to my feet. I propped the gun in my hands, aimed at the dark abyss of the city in front of me and waited as the growling kept getting louder and louder. I turned to my left, to my right, behind me, but he was nowhere, yet the sound remained. I had had enough.
“Come out, you asshole!” I ordered so loudly the next county could probably hear me. “Just do it already!”
I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. Was I asking him to show himself or was I asking him to put me out of my misery?
A flash of darkness passed the right side of my body, and sure enough, Travis’ limping, dirty, furry body came into the light, stalking me at a slower pace than he had before. His hair was gray and bloody from the accident, and his eyes were absolutely maddening looking. He was injured, but still had more strength than I could ever hope for.
He leapt at me, but I wasted no time in firing the shotgun in his direction. His jump had thrown his body so close to my gun that the shot nearly put a hole right through his chest. Travis fell backward, still growling, and went for one more pounce in my direction, but every time he tried to move I fired the gun. One shot, reload, two shots, reload, three shots, click. I was out of ammo, but Travis was dead.
His body was absolutely mangled, appearing like clumps of fur floating in puddles of blood on the cement. I had completely annihilated his body and I didn’t give a damn. That wasn’t an animal, that wasn’t even a man, that was Melanie’s killer. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible for his body to shift back into human form. There was hardly anything left.
There I was, injured from the wreck and standing between the body of my cousin and the body of the man I had just murdered, not knowing what to do or where to go. A part of me wanted to drop to my knees, sob, and admit defeat.
Where were the cops? Why was no one coming to help me?
I had to remind myself that there was still someone I needed to protect—Daggett. If I didn’t find help or get him to a hospital, he was going to bleed out and die. I wasn’t about to let someone else die under my watch.
I punched my fist into my leg in an attempt to rev it up like a broken down vehicle and then hobbled my way back to the flipped truck where Daggett was resting. It wasn’t that far of a distance, but with the amount of exhaustion I was experiencing—both physical and emotional—it felt like I was crossing a football field.
Once I had reached the truck, I opened the back doors and held my breath as I jumped inside, praying to whatever God may exist that Daggett was at least still breathing.
He was still so very pale and sweaty, and when I pressed my hand to his chest to check for a heartbeat, his skin felt as cold as a refrigerator. Thankfully, beneath the cold, moist flesh, was a weak, but existing thumping. He was alive.
“Daggett? Daggett? Wake up!”
Daggett’s head swayed back and forth feebly and then his brown eyes poked out from beneath his heavy eyelids.
“Try to stay awake, please. I need to go and find some help. Please keep breathing.”
Everything I said sounded so stupid and juvenile, but at that point, all I was doing was begging him to stay alive. I didn’t have time to sound poetic or adult. I wanted my words to echo through his brain every single time he thought about slipping away. I wanted it to motivate him to keep fighting for his life.
I slid out of the back of the truck and with all the strength I had left, managed to shut the doors behind me so no one would find him.
What was I to do now? I knew I needed to get help, but where? The entire city was abandoned and I didn’t have a vehicle to leave, and even if I did leave, I couldn’t risk leaving Daggett by himself to bleed to death.
I found myself dragging my body down the street, headed for an unknown destination, but running off my adrenaline and unwilling to stop. I knew I was in some kind of shock, because I had just been in a horrible car accident yet, kept trucking on like there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with me. My legs began to give out before my brain registered that something was wrong.
“Help!” I yelled, even though I knew the nearest pair of ears were probably the last creatures I wanted being drawn to me. “Somebody help me!”
I was no longer walking and had now gone into a catatonic state of sorts, standing in the middle of the road, my arms spread out wide, my clothes soaked with Melanie’s blood, just pleading that someone would come to my rescue. Not very feminist of me, I’ll admit, but I was no action hero. I needed help more than I could even describe.
And that’s when I saw it.
Two bright headlights beamed brightly into my eyes. They were incoming from the street that led out of the city and they were driving right toward me.
Suddenly, that feeling of wanting to be rescued was replaced by sheer panic. I didn’t know if this was Paul or Corbin returning to finish me off after hearing all the commotion. What if they went searching for me to make sure I didn’t leave the city to call the cops?
The vehicle slowed down twenty feet in front of me and parked. Its lights remained on and the engine continued to run. I stayed in place, unsure of what move to make, and unsure if my body even had the strength to attempt an escape.
The car door clicked open and a shadowy figure jumped out. I heard what sounded to be a gun clinking in his hands as it rose toward me. I closed my eyes and waited to be shot.
“Were you bitten?!” the figure yelled.
My eyes peeled open slowly and the headlights hit my retinas harshly.
“Did one of those things bite you?!” they yelled again. It was a man’s voice and he sounded a bit older.
“No,” I answered, trembling.
The object in his hands, which I assumed was a gun, lowered and he stepped out of the shadows and into the light. As soon as our eyes met, I knew I recognized him.
“My name is Lyle,” he said, introducing himself. “I’m Max’s father.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Where is my son?!” he called out to me. His voice was low and controlled, but powerful enough to cut through the atmosphere like a blade. I had been through such an ordeal I questioned whether he was really standing there or if he was a figment of my imagination.
He charged toward me after I stared at him for a few moments without uttering a word, and once we were a couple feet apart from each other, his whole demeanor changed. The color faded from his face real damn quick, and I can only assume it was after he saw that my shirt was soaked with Melanie’s blood. Hell, maybe it was a bit of Travis’ blood, too, I couldn’t be sure.
Lyle’s voice dropped and his brown eyes settled on my face. “Are you all right?” he asked softly. It was eerie how similar he was to Max whenever they looked worried.
I shook my head as I wrapped my arms around myself, unable to come up with a proper way to tell him my cousin had just died in the middle of the street. Thankfully, her body was nearby and I didn’t have to explain a thing.
“Come here,” he whispered and grabbed me by both shoulders and guided me to his van
. He pulled open the side door and forced me halfway in, letting me sit down with my legs hanging out, and then wrapped a blanket around my body. It was flannel—Max’s favorite thing to wear, and the soft cotton against my tired muscles felt like heaven.
Realization hit me quick and a panic set through my bones. “Daggett,” I said.
“Who’s Daggett?”
“My friend. He’s injured in a flipped truck down the road. I was looking for help. Please, you have to do something.”
Lyle snapped his fingers and appeared to be waving over someone. I heard footsteps jogging in our direction and a couple voices that were quickly drowned out by Lyle ordering them to find Daggett. I had been so out of it, I didn’t even realize there were two men traveling with him.
“Please, he’s bleeding. He could die,” I continued.
Lyle knelt down and hushed me. “It’s taken care of. We’ll find your friend, I promise.”
“We have to be quick. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
I was rambling at this point, and Lyle had to set his hand on top of mine before I was able to stop. “Sweetheart,” he said very carefully, “where is Max?” Every word in his question was enunciated, forcing me to pay attention like my life depended on it.
“I don’t know,” I answered, trembling. “We were separated…” I swallowed deeply, and my throat felt like it was made of sandpaper. “He was turning into a werewolf and they forced us in a room together so he’d kill me.”
“Who did?” he asked. He was trying to keep his composure but I saw the fear in his eyes.
“Paul,” I answered. “I don’t know his last name…”
“He from the Clementine compound?”
I lifted my head up and stared at him, perplexed. He knew?
“How did you find us?” I asked him.
He tilted his head, as if ashamed of the answer he was about to give. “I had one of my coworkers tail you after you left the hotel. I’d been looking for my son for so long, you were my last chance.”
“How could you be sure I’d go looking for him?”
“Sheer luck,” he admitted. “I had tried every other avenue and came up empty, but when he reported back to me about where you had gone and Max’s location, I did some digging about the occupants living there and found some very seedy stories about this place.”
“Go figure,” I said gloomily. “Why were you looking for Dana if it was only Max you were interested in?”
“She was my link to him. I knew the two of them had disappeared and my best guess was that they left town together.”
“So, you know everything?”
“Yes.”
“And Max and Dana were never in any danger?”
“Not from me. I’m a cop.”
My head fell and I wanted to cry again.
“Hang tight, kiddo,” he told me, patting me on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
I closed my eyes and he was gone.
Everything felt like a dream at that point. Had I really just watched my cousin die in my arms? Was I going to wake up tomorrow and have her not be there? At that point, was any of it even sinking in?
But then I felt it. Pain. It shot right through my chest and it was horrific. I had been crying, but most of the tears were reactionary. It was like a part of me knew what had happened, but the weight of it hadn’t kicked in it. The pain that was accompanying the tears in that moment, however, was acceptance. Reality. Melanie was gone and I knew it.
I broke down and sobbed.
Our relationship had been so, so very flawed our entire lives, and just as a glimmer of hope had appeared that we could finally be family, it was all taken away in one brutal moment that never should have happened.
I blamed myself for ever getting her involved in the first place. She followed me to Lunar City because she didn’t want to be alone, and now she was dead.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out in the distance and my entire body jolted forward, startled. Soon, there was another, followed by the sound of a man screaming in terror, and his voice kept getting louder and louder, and I realized it was because he was running this way.
The windshield violently shattered like someone had tossed a brick right through it, and a bloodied, bitten body had been thrown right onto the front of the van and pierced the glass. It was one of Lyle’s men, and his face was absolutely mangled. He was dead, but his eyes remained open, peering at me as his body oozed blood through the cracks of the glass and dripped onto the front seat.
I didn’t even scream. I was too mortified to make a noise.
There was shouting and more gunfire, and it was clear as day they were under attack by another werewolf. Travis and Kat were dead, so I knew whoever was out there with them was most likely Paul or Corbin.
A werewolf was terrifying enough, but it being one of those two men was panic inducing.
As quickly and as quietly as possible I pulled my legs into the van and slid the door shut. I crawled behind one of the seats, curled my legs into my chest, closed my eyes, and held my breath as I waited for the noise to stop. I had no weapons, I was physically spent, and my best option at that point was to hide.
There was so much noise—screaming, growling, shouting, gunfire, and I could feel the ground of the van vibrating from the commotion outside. I just wanted it to end and I wanted to survive. I covered my ears with both my hands and went into a ball on the floor, tears streaming down my face like a child.
Why couldn’t I have gotten five minutes to recuperate before being under attack again? I needed that time so desperately, because without it, I had nothing left in the tank. If Paul or Corbin yanked open that van door to kill me I wasn’t sure I had the stamina to run again, and I didn’t want to die. Not this way.
Not this way.
That’s when it dawned on me. If I died in that moment, it happened while I sat in the backseat of a van like a coward as the father of the man I loved was torn to shreds protecting me. What kind of person did that make me? If I was going to die, the least I could do was go out with my head held high.
I barely had anything left to lose, anyway.
I slid the van doors open, climbed out, and was stunned to hear silence. I spotted Lyle and the other man he arrived with knelt down in front of a bloodied corpse. I noticed the body that had been thrown into the windshield was now gone, and knew they had pulled him down and were trying to revive him. From the headshaking they were doing, I knew he was dead.
But where had the beast gone? Why were Lyle and his friend still alive? Had they killed it?
Lyle saw me walking toward him and quickly threw his hand up. “Cora, get back in the van!”
“Where is it?” I asked, ignoring his demand. “Where did it go?”
His comrade looked at me and said, “I don’t know. I was shooting at it and then it disappeared.” With excitement he turned to Lyle and said, “I’ve never seen one look like that before. It was a big one.”
What did he mean by before? They had seen werewolves in the past?
“Oh, shit, there it is!”
They both jumped to their feet and aimed their guns up high, aiming at the building behind us. Twenty feet above, standing on two feet on top of a rooftop, was a black, shaggy werewolf. It was so still it was statuesque, peering down at us silently as the smoke from the chimney chugged out clouds that swirled around his menacing frame.
I had never seen a werewolf remain in one place like this, not in any kind of rush to get down to us or to even hurt us, simply scoping us out in the most inquisitive way. The manner in which he stood looked more human than animalistic.
My heart was racing. It knew exactly where we were and there was no hiding or running.
But what was it doing up there, watching us like that?
“Why isn’t he attacking us?” I whispered.
“Because he’s hunting us,” Lyle answered. Somehow, that was more horrifying than him trying to shred us up right then and there. “He’s picking us off on
e by one.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To rid of us our ammunition? To exhaust us? For fun maybe?”
“How can you be sure?”
“It’s what I’d do.”
How quickly I forgot I was dealing with a hunter.
“Kill him,” I hissed angrily, and Lyle slowly turned his gaze to me like he was surprised to hear it. “Shoot him.”
“Our weapons are long range, but not that long range. We’ll be wasting bullets for no reason.”
“So, you’re just going to wait for him to come down here and kill us? No, screw that! If we’re going to die, why drag out the inevitable?” I threw both my hands in the air and began waving them back and forth frantically. “Hey, we’re right here!”
Lyle’s coworker grabbed my entire body and slammed me against the van. “Have you lost your mind?!” he raged.
“Let go of me!”
“Let go of her, Ron,” Lyle calmly said to his coworker and then yanked him off of me. He took Ron’s place in front of me and said, “We’re not going to die tonight, but you can’t be reckless like that. Someone could get killed.”
“Someone already has been killed!” I yelled. “Those bastards killed Melanie! She’s dead! And now they’re lurking around in the shadows playing games like this is fun to them, when it’s not fun to me! I can’t take it anymore. I won’t let them get off on this!”
“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” He sounded truly sympathetic, but it was of no comfort to me.
“Don’t…”
“It’s gone,” Ron said. The rooftop where the werewolf had once stood, taunting us from a safe distance, was now vacated. All that was left was a cloud of smoke.
“Jesus Christ, it could be anywhere,” Lyle exclaimed. He peered through the scope of his rifle and scanned the nearest rooftops, but evidentially, spotted nothing. “Dammit,” he said as he lowered his gun.
“It didn’t make a noise. How could something that big be so quiet?”
“They’re agile little shits, that’s for sure.”
Ron’s face went white and his hand suddenly tightened around his gun. “Behind you,” he whispered to Lyle.
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