THREE: The Murderer

His hands drip crimson. His jaw’s clenched as if he just came and killed someone in the same breath. His shirt’s gone, pants soaked, body tense as if a string is about to snap. He doesn’t even look at the corpse.

He’s sniffing the air. 

My blood freezes. He’s a werewolf? He’s definitely a fucking lycan like me.

Wait, no. Whatever he is doesn’t matter right now. He could kill me in any form or shape he’s in. 

No no no. I’m in the shadows. He can’t see me. He doesn’t know—

His head jerks up.

Eyes glowing blood.

Bang! Thunder strikes continuously, reflecting those orbs that’s looking straight at me.

Fuck.

My breath leaves my lungs in a gasp. My feet move before I can think, slipping, sliding, smashing through the underbrush. I drop the goddamn bat. Branches whip at my face. My heartbeat is a war drum in my ears.

He fucking saw me.

I don’t know what his purpose is being in the human world. Werewolves have packs to stay in. Why-why is he here? Why is he murdering humans?

But that wasn’t just some dude taking his rage out.

That was something else.

Animal. Predator. Monster.

And I just watched him kill.

Oh my God.

Oh my freaking God.

My lungs are on fire. My ankle twists on a root and I go down hard, scraping my palms. I push up, scrambling like a feral thing, mud caked on my knees, heart punching holes in my chest. Please, please.

A growl cuts through the rain.

It’s not human.

It’s not fucking werewolf either.

It’s far more primal than both combined. Who is he? What is he? Oh God, what am I thinking. Move you stupid fucking legs! I smack one of my paralyzing thighs.

I don’t look back.

I run.

Harder.

Faster.

I think I scream. I think I cry. I don’t know. I don’t care.

All I know is I saw him.

And he saw me.

And whatever the hell he is—

He’s coming.

He’s smelling me.

I don’t know how I know that—I just do. The way the air goes still, how his neck cranes ever so slightly as his nose lifts, nostrils flaring like a fucking hound locked on prey.

Like I’m meat.

And not even cooked. Raw, twitching, bleeding.

My breath shudders in my chest. I don’t move. I can’t. If I breathe too loud, he’ll pounce. If I twitch, I’ll fucking die.

Then it happens.

Another leaf cracks.

His head snaps toward it.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck—go.

I bolt.

I launch from behind the tree, swinging the bat back over my shoulder like I’m about to fucking play pro league baseball and this man is my goddamn home run. I don’t think. I don’t breathe. I run like something from the pit of hell is on my ass—which, to be fair, he is.

But his footsteps don’t sound frantic.

They sound delighted.

He’s not running. He’s just . . . pacing behind me.

Following.

Playing.

“Thought I smelled sugar,” he calls from somewhere behind me, almost like he’s laughing. “Sweet little thing.”

God. His voice. It sounds like sex and knives. Like if a moan and a murder had a baby.

I push harder, legs aching, lungs tearing apart. The ground slopes, pebbles sliding under my shoes. My hands are white-knuckling the bat. I don’t even know where I’m going—I just know away.

But this forest? This fucking cursed ass forest?

It doesn’t end.

I whip around a cluster of rocks and feel it before I hear it—my ankle turns, catches, fuck—I go down hard. My knee slams against the dirt, skin tearing, and I let out a guttural scream as pain shoots up my leg like fire.

“Goddamn it!” I hiss, rolling, dragging myself forward.

Leaves scratch at my face. My jeans are soaked in blood. My palms are slick with it now, torn open from scrambling over branches and stones and hell itself.

And he’s still coming.

Not running.

Walking.

The kind of walk that says I already own you.

“Keep crawling, sweetheart,” he says, voice closer now. “I love a girl who plays hard to get.”

I turn to look.

He’s smiling.

Wide.

Manic.

Beautiful in a way that should be illegal.

Eyes glowing in the dark like twin blood moons, wild and glowing red, like he's not human. Because he’s not.

And I’m so fucking screwed.

I scream and kick backward when his hand swipes out—and catches my ankle.

“No, no, no, no—” I twist and slam the bat down, hard—right across his jaw. There’s a satisfying crack and he lets me go with a grunt, stumbling a step back.

But he doesn’t stay down.

Of course he doesn’t.

He just tilts his head and licks the blood from his lips, eyes gleaming. “Fiesty.”

I scramble to my feet—limping, dragging my busted leg—and that’s when I see it.

The edge.

Cliff.

No trees.

No ground.

Just sky.

And drop.

My stomach lurches.

There’s nowhere to go.

My steps slow. “Shit,” I breathe.

Behind me, I hear the brush move.

He’s close.

So close I can feel the heat of his breath sliding up my spine.

And then—snap.

Something wraps around my neck.

Thin.

Rough.

Wire?

“N-no. Please, ah—!” I was about to scream, but it gets cuts off as he pulls it tight from each side. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna fucking die. I din’t think my end would be at the hands of a serial killer but here we are. Please, please, please.

My bat falls from my hands, uselessly, my fingers scratching at my throat. It’s not rope. It’s a thread—thin, sharp, digging into my skin as though it wants to carve me open from the neck.

I can’t breathe. I can’t scream. I can't—

He pulls tight.

My legs kick wildly. My nails find his hands—rough, calloused, inhumanly strong.

I feel blood. My blood.

“Stay still, bunny,” he hisses behind me. His lips touch my ear and I could puke from how calm he sounds. “I just want to see your insides. Real quick.”

Fuck. Fuck no.

My hands scramble on the ground from where I let go of the only weapon I have. There I slowly  find the bat. I tighten my hands on it. Okay, Eris, you’re definitely not dying today.

Don’t think.

Just swing.

Hard.

The crack echoes like a fucking gunshot.

He growls—a deep, monstrous sound that rattles my chest like thunder—and the thread slackens just enough. Goddess, help me.

I turn, gasping, dragging oxygen as though it’s my first breath out of the womb. I don’t even know what I hit—shoulder? Head? Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

I move. I move fast.

But I wasn’t able to take a step away when he lunges towards me.

The next thing I know, I shove.

My palms slam into his chest.

And he . . .

Falls.

Right off the fucking cliff. Holy shit.

It’s not real.

It can’t be real.

But I see him—arms flailing, that shocked grin still stretching his lips like a fucking psycho as the wind swallows him.

I stand there, swaying.

The silence is deafening.

My vision goes fuzzy. Legs shake. Something inside me just . . . shatters. A piece of my soul peels back and screams.

My knees hit the ground. I drop like a puppet whose strings just got cut.

And I black out.

* * *

Darkness.

Then—

Voices.

“ . . . you . . . do you have any fucking clue who that man was?”

The voice is sharp. Cold. Dangerous.

I try to open my eyes. Everything feels . . . wrong. My head pulses like it’s been run over by a truck.

“ . . . the man you almost killed?” The voice comes closer. “You just attempted to kill the Alpha King.”