“Maybe if I make you less pretty, I won’t feel so bad when I devour you,” he said, studying my face curiously. He dragged the knife across the flesh of my bicep, cutting deep enough to send more blood running down my arm. Tears were rushing down my cheeks, and I heard a loud, desperate sob escape my lips.
He acted like he didn’t notice, like he couldn’t even see it. “When I was a man, I would have wanted you. I would be doing different things to you right now, and I could. I always took what I wanted. But I don’t want you like that.” He sounded curious. “I don’t have those kind of desires anymore. I just want to eat. I’m so hungry, and you’re full of so much flesh.”
I whimpered loudly as I tried to use my legs to push him off, but his knees pressed too tightly against my thighs, keeping me in place. The knife bit into the skin of my cheek, drawing blood there. I was becoming numb, and I could feel the sticky blood all over my body and wondered when I would die; when he would just kill me?
“I can’t look at your pretty face,” he said, his voice full of insincere sorrow. “How can I eat something that looks like you?” He started to slice the knife across my face, starting at my temple and dragging it deep across my forehead, over the tip of my eyebrow, across the bridge of my nose, down my cheek to the corner of my mouth.
I strained against him, trying to pull away from him. The pain ripped through me, worse than I could have ever imagined. Blood ran across my face, into my eyes and in my mouth. I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stop screaming. The pain was never ending, and I wanted it to stop; I wanted to just die. I didn’t want to feel anymore. He bared his sharp teeth, and they came down toward me, and I welcomed it, anything to stop the pain, to end it all.
I felt free for a moment, and I realized he was no longer pressed on me. Ash was yelling, stabbing the Awakened over and over again before pulling his gun out and shooting him in the face, sending a spray of blood across the dirt ground.
Ash sprinted over to me. “Oh god, Zoey, are you okay? Oh my god.”
I was sobbing, sobbing so hard that I was having a hard time breathing. I couldn’t see anything. The world was a haze, a haze of pain and blood. I didn’t know which way was up or down. “No, no, no. Ash, it hurts. It hurts so much.”
“I know, baby,” he said, his voice breaking. Through the fog of my vision, I saw him pull his shirt off, and hand it over to me. “Keep that on your face, okay? We’re almost safe. I’m going to keep you safe.”
I pressed the white shirt, already covered in dirt and blood, tight against my face, covering my vision of Ash standing guard in front of me, shooting anyone who came near him. The white shirt soon became soaked with blood. I felt faint. I was losing too much blood, and I wanted to sleep. Sleep sounded so good; sleep sounded perfect.
A scream came from Ash’s mouth, a sound of pain and torment that I had never heard from a person in my life, let alone from Ash.
“Ash? Ash!” I said, panicked, dropping the shirt.
He reached for me and picked me up, easily, scooping me up in his arms. “We have to go. We need to go now.” He started to run, his breathing heavy as he carried me away.
“Ash, wait, where’s my dad?”
He didn’t answer, just continued to run.
“Ash!” I screamed. “Where is my dad?” I shifted in his arms, causing his balance to tip, and we both went spiraling to the ground. I lifted myself onto my arms, my stomach pressed to the hard ground and looked back over to the scene behind us.
My dad’s body lay across the overturned car, and he was limp as the remaining two Awakened bent over his body. Their teeth were buried deep into his flesh, pulling him apart. I was in shock. I couldn’t react. It was like watching a movie. It didn’t seem real because it couldn’t be real. There was no way. I had just seen him fighting. Blood was dripping onto the dirt in front of me, gushing from my wound, and for a moment, the pain in my face was gone. I was paralyzed. I could do nothing but watch them tear apart the body that belonged to the most important person in my life.
“Zoey,” Ash whispered, his wet, tear-stained lips near my ear, his body pressed on top of me. “We need to move. We need to go.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t agree or disagree. I felt broken, fixed to the spot, incapable of movement, incapable of feeling anything. I watched, horrified, listening to the moans of pleasure coming from the Awakened. Their harsh, loud wails struck through me, and I pushed myself up and took the gun from Ash’s hands before he could protest. I walked slowly toward them, limping with each step. They were so involved in their meal that they didn’t notice me, not until I was right next to them.
Before they could say a word or make any sort of movement, I shot both of them, perfect shots in the middle of their foreheads. They fell to the ground dead, but the damage was done. My eyes landed on the wreck of blood and flesh that was once my dad and felt my knees grow weak. I had lost too much blood, and I slipped into darkness, collapsing to the ground. The last thing I remembered was the whisper of my name on Ash’s lips.