The bullet flew right past my ear, and I turned and ran to the edge of the ravine, preparing to jump into the waters below, when sothing slamd into from the side.
The impact knocked all the air from my lungs. I felt my feet leave the ground, and suddenly I was flying through the air like a rag doll. I crashed into a thick thicket of bushes, branches scratching my arms and face as I tumbled through them.
I groaned and tried to sit up, tangled in the thorny branches, to see what had happened to . When I finally managed to turn my head, I froze when I saw it.
The monster from yesterday stood there. The sa terrifying creature that had flung a man across the room like it was nothing was now standing a few feet away. Its amber eyes glowed like fire under the early morning sun, and it was looking at .
The gunn had stopped moving. All three of them just stood there, staring at the creature with their mouths hanging open. Their guns hung loose in their hands, forgotten.
The monster ignored them completely. It turned toward , still stuck in the bushes, and started walking over. My heart hamred so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest. I began to struggle to co out from the thicket, but every ti I moved, I sank deeper into the thorns that held ransom.
When it reached , it stopped. Then it did sothing strange.
It leaned down and looked at . It wasn’t just looking; it felt like he was inspecting , checking for injuries. My heart hamred in my chest. My limbs froze. Was it going to finish off? Eat alive? Rip apart like it did that man?
Its eyes moved over my face, my arms and legs.
After a long mont, the creature seed satisfied. It straightened up and turned back toward the n.
Then it roared.
The sound was nothing like yesterday’s. It started deep in its chest and exploded outward, shaking the trees and sending birds scattering from their branches.
I clamped my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help. The sound went straight through .
That’s when I noticed sothing odd. There were only two gunn now.
I looked around frantically. The quiet one—the third man who’d barely said a word since they grabbed —was gone.
The remaining two n finally snapped out of their shock. They raised their guns and opened fire.
Bullets rained down, pinging off trees, tearing through air and flesh. But the beast didn’t stop.
It just kept walking toward them slowly, like the bullets were nothing. I could see the impacts hitting its chest and shoulders and dark spots blooming in its fur, but it didn’t matter.
The n kept shooting, screaming at each other and backing up.
They ran out of bullets and stopped to reload. The monster was about twenty ters away when it suddenly moved. One second, it was walking, but the next second, it covered the distance faster than my eyes could follow.
It grabbed both n at once, wrapping its hands around their necks.
Their screams were cut off instantly. They let go of their gun as they reached for the beast’s hand, trying to pry it off their neck. I could see their faces reddening as their air supply slowly thinned. They struggled, flailing their legs.
The beast lifted them high into the air, then brought them down hard against a massive boulder jutting out of the ground. Their bones cracked with a deafening sound. Their heads rolled off their body, spilling blood and brain matter.
Unable to hide my fear, I scread.
The beast stopped imdiately. It turned its head to look at , still holding the limp bodies. Its amber eyes were wide, almost confused, like it didn’t understand why I was making that noise.
I slapped both hands over my mouth, trying to muffle the sounds still trying to escape. My whole body shook. I couldn’t look away from those bodies, from the blood, from the spilt brain matter that was all over the place.
The beast turned back to its work. It slamd the bodies down again and again and again, breaking their bones, ripping their body parts where it was joined, scattering pieces across the rocks and dirt until there was nothing left that looked human anymore.
I squeezed my eyes shut and started sobbing. I wanted to go back to a few hours ago when I was still in the city. I wished I’d declined coming here with Hansel. The beast growled one last ti, turned and started coming towards .
All I could think of was the Ward family. They knew I was going to leave and had sent the beast after . With the precision and cruelty the beast killed, no one would be able to piece my body together to identify .
No one would notice I was even gone, let’s start from there.
I started sobbing hard, my body shaking in the thicket where I was stuck. I don’t want to die, at least not like this. I hadn’t gotten around to avenging my mother, and now I was going to die the most shaful death.
I cracked my eyes open again and saw the beast was halfway towards now. It was moving on all fours.
And for a split second, I thought it looked different.
It looked more like an animal, maybe an overgrown wolf. It didn’t even look as harmful as it did last night, but then it had looked angry that night.
Did it double in size whenever it was angry?
It stopped a few feet away from and started watching .
I was still stuck in the thicket. Though I’d tried to free myself a lot of tis, I ended up getting more trapped, so I just gave up.
I closed my eyes again, trying to control my chattering teeth.
As the final realisation hit that the Wards had sacrificed . That’s what this was. They’d allowed into these woods to cover up my death. Hansel had lured to his house and had conveniently remained hidden despite my plea to see him.
Fresh tears spilt down my cheeks.
Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted in the gentlest of ways as if soone was picking up sothing fragile.
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