Page 2 of Savage Hunt

A shudder slinked down my spine at the images filling my head. Mrs. Miller would do more than make me pick a switch from the tree outside. Acid oozed up my throat as I remembered the screams coming from the basement when one of the other girls was caught kissing a boy at school.

Mrs. Miller stood, shut the lights off, and trekked out of the kitchen, her housecoat trailing behind her like a villain’s cape.

Tears blurred the kitchen, and I tried to breathe through the throbbing in my knees. How would I last until sunrise? It was hours away.

Movement on the edges of the room caught my attention, and I quieted my sobs. One of the little kids probably snuck down here. Seeing how much this hurt would scare them, and I didn’t want them to be more frightened than they already were.

“Go back upstairs,” I whispered, sucking back the tears. “Everything’s fine. I’m okay.”

Silence stretched, but eyes seared me, prickling my nape. This wasn’t one of the little kids.

“Who’s there?” My voice came out in a strained hiss as I tried to choke down my fear.

A form coalesced in the darkness, stepping forward into the shaft of moonlight pouring in through the window above the sink. Ebony curls drifted around a soft face, and a smile stretched her mouth.

“Jayla bear?”

This wasn’t right. Jayla never lived at the Millers. Plus, she looked thirteen while I was only eleven.

“What are you doing here?” I shook my head as she stepped closer, that smile becoming a demented grin. “What’s happening?”

“Oh, Tate, did you really think you could murder me and not pay the price?” Jayla withdrew a knife behind her back, the blade looking like molten metal in the silvery moonlight.

Icy talons ripped into my chest, and I pressed my palms on the ground to stand, but I remembered Mrs. Miller’s threat.

I eased back onto the rice grains, biting my tongue against the whimpers that wanted to spill out. “I didn’t kill you, Jayla. I couldn’t save you. The demon had already taken too much of your soul.”

Wait. Demon?

Chaotic thoughts of monsters—real ones—assaulted my mind. Demons, vampires, witches, shifters, fae. A man with one blue eye and one golden amber called out to me in the storm of confusion. The left side of my neck tingled. Something was there. Or supposed to be there.

What’s going on? None of this makes sense.

“You did kill me, Tate.” Jayla stepped forward, her brown eyes darkening to bottomless pools of black.

Demon black.

“But here you are, going on with your life as if I never existed. Was I nothing to you? Just a runaway you were forced to take care of.”

“No!” I shouted. “You were my family. You were all I had.”

She tsked and waved the knife. “Were being the word. You have other people now, and you forgot all about pathetic little Jayla.”

Hot tears streaked my cheeks. “I could never forget you.”

Jayla leaned down and pressed the tip of the knife to my throat. “Then how could you be with that hybrid creep when his brother is the one who stole my soul?”

Numbness crept through my muscles, and I froze under her vicious scowl. “It’s not what you think. I can’t help it. He’s not like that. Fane is?—”

Fane.

Where was Fane?

Her laughter ricocheted through the kitchen, mocking the usually sweet sound. “Fane Maverick is just like his brother, and you should be disgusted you let him touch you. Then again, you’re a killer too. You killed me. And them.” Jayla tilted her head toward the left.

Mike, Josh, Shelly, and Van slinked through the shadows, their flesh peeling off and dirt coating their clothes and hair as if they’d crawled out of their graves.

Panic dripped over me, and I choked on the suddenly rancid air. “This isn’t real.” I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping the nightmare would evaporate, but when I opened them, my four friends who also died that hot, sticky night closed in on me.

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