“Help, me! Please!”
I’m not even sure why I started running towards her cries; it was probably the stupidest thing I could do, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“Taryn?” I hollered.
“Help!”
I rushed towards the sound of her voice, wishing I’d grabbed something to defend myself with just in case, like the wrench Nathan had placed in the back of my trunk.
“Taryn!” I called, slowing down as I entered through the tall trees. It was dark and difficult to see with the moon offering very little light. I began walking deeper into the woods, now petrified that I’d made a very bad choice, but still unable to turn away from someone needing help.
A strangled cry from behind a large oak tree stopped me in my tracks. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I slowly moved around it.
“Oh, my God,” I choked, staring at the grisly scene on the other side. It was definitely Taryn, or what was left of her. She lay on the dirt, staring lifelessly at the sky with her throat sliced open and blood oozing from the wound.
“Taryn,” I whimpered, backing away in horror, expecting whatever had attacked her to come after me next. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a shadow skirting around the trees and my heart stopped.
Scared out of my mind, I turned around to flee, but something heavy landed on me, slamming me to the ground.
“No!” I screamed in horror as my eyes locked with a pair of vivid yellow ones.
“Yes!” growled the monster, holding me down with its crushing weight. It raised a sharp, pointy claw and pressed it against my throat.
“Please,” I squeaked, feeling the claw rake over my skin. “Let me go…”
“Stupid fool,” it breathed, licking its putrid lips. “Very stupid.”
I tried to turn my head to keep from smelling the foul stench coming from its mouth. It reminded me of rotten meat and copper pennies.
“Look at me, girl…” it hissed.
I whimpered as the creature gripped my neck and forced me to meet its unholy gaze. As it stared at my face, its mouth twisted into a smirk. “Ah…I… know… you…”
I stared at the monster, whose face reminded me of some kind of reptile, with green scales, wormy lips, and freaky snake-like eyes. I definitely did not know this demon.
“Lucky…” it hissed, releasing its vise-like grip on my neck. “Oh… you are so… lucky… I will let you live… to suffer…but only… for now…”
Then, as clear as day, the word “bitch” echoed in my mind and my breath caught in my throat.
Faye.
Her lips curled into an evil smile, then she leaped into the sky, but not before I caught a glimpse of her gargoyle-like body, with wings that must have measured well over twenty feet.
Stunned that she’d actually let me go, I pushed myself up off the ground and then ran like hell back to my car.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Where were you?” barked Nathan when I stormed through the cabin door. “I was about ready to send out a search party!”
“Oh, my God, Nathan!” I choked, rushing towards him. I threw my arms around my brother and wept.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, patting my back.
I looked up at him. “I…I just found a dead body!”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
I brushed my wet cheeks. “It was Taryn Cooper,” I said, my voice shrill. “Faye killed her and then she went after me.”
“How’d you escape?” he asked incredulously.
I moved away from him and began to pace. “She actually let me go and said I was lucky, this time. You should have seen her,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. “She looked like some kind of dragon or reptile. It was horrible.”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “Fuck. I can’t deal with any more of this shit right now. I feel like at any minute, I should be waking up from this nightmare.”
I grabbed a tissue from the coffee table and blew my nose. “I know. I wish that’s all it was.”
He walked over to the window and looked out into the darkness. “I knew we shouldn’t have moved here. I just had this feeling that it was a mistake. With our luck, dad will show up next, and that would be the least of our worries.”
My heart stopped. I’d forgotten to tell Nathan about our dad, his body tossed somewhere in the lake.
“Hey, Nathan, where’s mom?” I asked, deciding to tell both of them at the same time.
He turned around and sighed. “She went to Caleb’s. I couldn’t stop her.”
My jaw dropped. “Nathan, what the hell?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I know. I tried to keep her here, but she said that he needed her. I even tried to tell her about the vampires.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She told me to stop listening to you or she’d send both of us to a shrink.”
I shook my head. “This is bullshit. We have to talk to her before she leaves tomorrow.”
“You try and talk to her then,” he mumbled. “She won’t listen to me.”