When one of the males at last managed to shackle my wrist with his fingers, his grip was so strong I couldn’t bust free. He tugged me to the ground. I went down swinging, just as before, but he held on, flashing his teeth at me.
I couldn’t let him bite me. Couldn’t die like this.
But no matter how I twisted or how hard I bucked I still couldn’t free myself.
Both the female and the other monster dropped to their knees beside me. There were only three of them, but it seemed as though they possessed a thousand hands, holding me down, ripping at my clothing, their faces lowering…lowering…when they bit me, I screamed.
Blistering, sizzling pain struck, though it failed to melt the ice that encased me. I was a toxic mix of too hot and too cold, dying…wanting to die. Their teeth burrowed through my skin, their faces seeming to disappear inside me. It was as if they were actually gnawing on my bones without spilling a single drop of my blood.
I fought and fought and fought to no avail. One of them finally stopped chewing, then the other, then the other. Though they maintained a steady grip on me, they peered down at me in horror, as if they’d tasted something disgusting.
Suddenly one of the males seized up, an arrow protruding from his neck. He swatted at it as he fell forward and landed beside me. Without him holding down my ankles, I was able to kick the female in the chin. She stumbled backward. The other monster released me of his own free will.
Cole was behind the woman an instant later, reaching around and flattening his palm over her heart. A white light erupted between them, blinding in its intensity. It remained only for a moment, a single snap of fingers, but when it vanished, Cole’s arms were empty, the female gone.
He raced to one of the males, then the other, producing the same blinding white light. A second later, he was hovering over me, and our gazes met. We were both panting, sweating.
“I…I…” Couldn’t speak. Hurt too badly. Could barely breathe. Darkness swallowed me whole, and I lost sight of him.
Maim… The word whispered through my head, followed by another, just as bad.
Kill…
The urge to do both filled me. Maim…kill…
Destroy…
“Don’t say a single word,” Cole rasped. “Stay quiet until I can put you back together.”
I wanted to tell him to help me, to take me to a hospital, please, please, please, but no matter what I tried I could no longer force my voice to work.
Maimkilldestroy.
Yes, I thought next. Yes. I would. I must. That would make everything better.
Maim—
Something pricked at my neck, stinging. “This will help,” he said.
Kill—
Something heavy fell on top of me.
Des—
I inhaled sharply as my mind blanked and my eyelids popped open. Cole was still hovering above me, looking concerned and beautiful and so wonderfully alive. But the pain, even though it was fading, hadn’t gone away. I hurt.
“That’s the last of them, but more could be on their way.” He grabbed me by the upper arms and hauled me to my feet. My knees gave out, and he swept me up, carrying me to his Jeep.
“My body,” I managed to whisper. I looked toward the car, where I’d left it. And what a strange thought to entertain. Only, I wasn’t there any longer. How…when…
I glanced at my arms. My wrists were nicked and bruised, bleeding, as if they’d truly been bitten.
I glanced at Cole. He was just as nicked and bruised. “Are you…okay?”
“I’m fine.” He got me settled inside the car, claimed the driver’s seat and revved the engine. As he burned rubber onto the road, he made a call. “Parking lot,” he said. “Ten are down. I checked, but there aren’t any more nearby. Yet. I’ve got Ali, she was bitten, so you need to take care of this.”
That was it. The entire conversation.
“What about Kat and the others?” I asked, my voice stronger now, with far less grate. And besides a few minor aches, I was beginning to feel normal again.
“They’ll be rushed out of there and kept safe.”
As he maneuvered down the street, I twisted around to catalog the carnage we must have left in the lot. But…there were no bodies. No blood. There were people, though. Many living, breathing people.
A tremor moved down my spine as the thing that had bothered me while fighting at last crystallized. There were people walking around, talking and smiling, looking for their cars, but they were oblivious to what had happened.
“They didn’t see us,” I said. How could they not have seen us? We’d been right there, right in front of them, grunting, groaning—killing!
That last word echoed through my head. Killing. Killed. Kill. I’d helped him kill those monsters. And I was glad the monsters were dead, I was, but… “Will we go to jail for this?”
“People saw our bodies standing there, not the actual fighting. So no, you won’t go to jail or even to an insane asylum. Plus, no evidence will be left behind.”
I chose to believe him. I would have freaked out otherwise. Would have? I thought as a hysterical laugh built inside me. I’d hoped to talk to Cole about this, but not like this. “I don’t understand what just happened. We left our bodies.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
His gaze jerked toward me then back to the road. “Have you never done that before?”
“No!” I shouted. “Of course not.”
“Well, you’ve answered one question for me at least. You can see them. Therefore, I’ll answer this one for you.” How calm he sounded. “You can’t fight evil in your natural form. What’s in the spirit realm has to be fought in the spirit realm.”
Evil. Spirit realm. So…the monsters were spirits? That would explain how they’d disappeared inside my dad and mom. That would explain why they could move, even after receiving deathblows. That would explain why no one else had seen them. But that failed to explain how I had seen them.
“If they’re spirits, how’d they leave footprints in the forest?” I asked.
“I never said they left the prints.”
“But—”
“I wasn’t saying they didn’t, either. They can leave tracks. But you can’t always assume it’s them. There are always people chasing them.”
Wait. What? “You?”
“Plus a group of others, but that’s all I’m gonna say about that.”