Dawn didn’t break; it bled into the room.
The storm had finally exhausted itself, leaving behind a silence so profound it felt heavy, pressing against my eardrums like water. The gray light filtered through the gaps in the barricaded windows and the gaping hole in the roof where the chimney had collapsed, illuminating the battlefield in grim, high-definition detail.
I sat on the floor next to the sofa, my back against the overturned coffee table. My hands were black with soot and dried blood—some of it Julian’s, some of it mine, and some of it belonging to the monster who had fallen from the sky.
“Julian,” I whispered.
He didn’t stir. His breathing was shallow, a wet, rattling sound that terrified me more than the silence. His face was the color of old parchment, his skin clammy and cold. The splint I had fashioned from the legs of a dining chair and duct tape held his leg straight, but the blood had soaked through the bandages, turning them a dark, rust-red.
I forced myself to stand. My body screamed in protest, every muscle locked tight with lactic acid and bruising. I limped toward the center of the room, the glass shards crunching under my boots.
The living room looked like a bomb had gone off inside a chimney. Soot coated everything in a layer of greasy black dust. The hearth was a pile of rubble.
But it was the floor that held my attention.
Leading away from the fireplace, dragging across the Persian rug and out the shattered front door, was a trail.
It wasn’t just footprints. It was a smear. A wide, dark swath of blood mixed with ash.
I followed it to the porch. The morning air was crisp, smelling of wet pine and ozone, a sharp contrast to the metallic stench inside.
I looked down at the blood. It was thick. Dark.
“I got you,” I whispered, a savage satisfaction curling in my gut.
I had stabbed him. With a shard of the very glass house he tried to trap me in—or a metaphorical piece of it, anyway. I had driven the glass deep into his shoulder. He was hurt. He was bleeding.
The trail continued off the porch and vanished into the dense undergrowth of the Weeping Woods. He had gone to ground. Like a wounded animal returning to its den.
But I couldn’t hunt him. Not today.
I turned back to Julian. He let out a low groan, his head lolling to the side.
“Stay with me,” I said, rushing to his side. I placed a hand on his forehead. He was burning up. Infection? Shock? I didn’t know, but I knew I had to get him to a hospital.
“The truck,” I muttered.
I grabbed the keys from the floor where they had fallen during the fight. I ran out to the driveway.
My heart sank.
The truck sat at a lopsided angle, looking pathetic and defeated. All four tires were slashed, the rubber gaping open like gill slits. The truck bed was filled with debris from the storm.
“No,” I said, hitting the hood with my fist. “No, no, no.”
I looked at the tires. They were ruined. There was no fixing them. And there was no spare—or rather, there was one spare, but that wouldn’t help with four flats.
I looked back at the cabin. At Julian.
If I stayed here, he died. Elias would come back, or infection would take him. If I walked, I’d never carry him.
I looked at the rims. Steel. Heavy duty.
“Sorry, Julian,” I whispered. “This is going to be a rough ride.”
I climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The engine roared to life, a defiant growl in the morning silence. I put it in gear and inched forward. The truck shuddered, the metal rims grinding against the gravel with a sound like teeth being pulled.
It moved. It was horrible, loud, and shaking, but it moved.
I backed it up as close to the porch as I could get.
Getting Julian into the truck was the hardest thing I had ever done. He was dead weight, limp and heavy. I had to drag him, his good leg scraping the floor, his bad leg held suspended by my arm wrapped around his waist.
He screamed when I lifted him into the passenger seat. A high, thin sound that tore through my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, buckling him in. “I’m so sorry.”
He passed out again instantly, his head thumping against the window.
I ran back inside for the gun—Julian’s .38. I found it under the sofa. I checked the cylinder. Three rounds left. I shoved it into my pocket and grabbed the journal from the floor.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, my hands slick with sweat and soot.
“Okay,” I said to the dashboard. “Don’t die. Just don’t die.”
I eased the truck onto the logging road.
The sound was deafening. Crunch-grind-screech. The steel rims chewed up the wet earth, sending vibrations rattling through the steering wheel and up my arms until my teeth ached. We were moving at a crawl, maybe five miles an hour.
The road was a disaster. The storm had washed out sections of the gravel, leaving deep ruts and mudslides. Branches littered the path.
I navigated the first switchback, the truck sliding sideways in the mud. The lack of rubber meant zero traction. I fought the wheel, overcorrecting, praying we wouldn’t slide off the edge and tumble into the ravine below.
“Come on,” I urged the machine.
Julian groaned beside me.
“Hang on, Jules. We’re almost there.”
We weren’t. We were miles from the main road.
The descent was a nightmare of physics. Gravity wanted to pull us down fast; the mud wanted to slide us off the cliff; the rims wanted to dig in and flip us.
I hit a straightaway and gave it a little gas. The speedometer climbed to ten.
Then I saw the tree.
A massive hemlock had fallen across the road, blocking the path completely.
I slammed on the brakes.
The pedal went to the floor.
Nothing happened.
“No brakes,” I whispered, the realization hitting me with a cold, clarifying shock.
Elias hadn’t just cut the tires. He had cut the lines. Or maybe the vibration had shaken something loose. It didn’t matter. We were a two-ton sled of steel hurtling toward a wall of wood.
I pumped the pedal. Nothing.
“Hold on!” I screamed, throwing my arm across Julian’s chest.
I yanked the emergency brake.
The truck spun. The rear end swung out violently, the steel rims catching a root. We drifted sideways, mud spraying over the windshield.
The passenger side slammed into the fallen tree.
CRUNCH.
The impact threw me against the door. Glass shattered. The world spun.
Then, stillness.
The engine stalled. steam hissed from under the hood.
“Julian?” I gasped, shaking the stars from my vision.
He was slumped forward, held by the seatbelt. I reached over, checking his pulse. It was there. Thready, but there.
I tried my door. Jammed.
I kicked it open, tumbling out into the mud.
I ran around to the passenger side. The impact had crumpled the fender, but the cabin seemed intact. The fallen tree had absorbed most of the force.
But we were blocked. We couldn’t go forward.
I looked down the road. The fog was thinning. Through the trees, maybe a half-mile down, I saw the gray ribbon of County Road 4.
And sitting on the shoulder of the road, lights flashing, was a sheriff’s cruiser.
Miller. Or one of his deputies.
I didn’t care if they arrested me. I didn’t care if they threw me in a hole for the rest of my life. They had a radio. They had an ambulance.
“Help!” I screamed, waving my arms. “Help us!”
My voice was swallowed by the distance.
I looked at Julian. I couldn’t carry him that far. Not with his leg like that.
I reached into the cab and laid on the horn.
HOOOOOOOOOONK.
The sound echoed through the valley, bouncing off the ridge. A mournful, long wail.
Down on the road, the cruiser stopped moving. The door opened. A figure stepped out, looking up toward the treeline.
I honked again. HOOOOOONK.
The figure got back in the car. The siren blipped—whoop-whoop—and the cruiser turned onto the logging road.
Relief crashed over me, so intense my legs gave out. I slid down the side of the battered truck, sitting in the mud.
I looked back up the mountain, toward the cabin. Toward the deep woods.
The fog swirled around the trees, forming shapes that looked like men.
“I’m not done,” I whispered to the forest. “You didn’t kill us. And now I know you bleed.”
I looked at my hands. The soot was mixed with fresh mud now.
I reached into my pocket and touched the journal.
I had survived the night. I had survived the siege.
But as the cruiser bounced up the road toward us, lights flashing, I knew the hardest part wasn’t over.
Survival was just the intermission. The curtain was about to go up on the final act.
And I still had to convince the world that the monster was real before he finished his wedding preparations.
The cruiser pulled up, tires crunching on the gravel. It wasn’t Miller. It was a deputy I didn’t recognize. He stepped out, hand on his holster, eyeing me warily.
“Ma’am? Step away from the vehicle.”
I raised my hands.
“He’s hurt,” I croaked, pointing to Julian. “Officer down. He needs a medevac.”
The deputy looked into the truck. His eyes went wide.
“Jesus,” he muttered, grabbing his radio. “Dispatch, I need an ambulance at the logging road. Priority one. I’ve got Detective Thorne. He’s in bad shape.”
He looked at me. “You Elara Vance?”
“Yes.”
“You’re under arrest.”
“I know,” I said, leaning my head back against the cold metal of the truck. “Just save him.”
As the deputy moved to help Julian, I closed my eyes. I could still smell the peppermint and rot of the cellar. I could still hear the scratching in the walls.
Elias was wounded. He was desperate.
And a wounded animal is the most dangerous thing in the woods.