Page 106 of When the Woods Go Silent

Arlo says something, but all I catch is my name before someone groans wetly to my left, and my head whips to the house wall, which is studded with wide glass windows that offer a full view of the inside of the house. I go completely still, forgetting all about Arlo and Torrence as my mind struggles to understand the panes of shattered glass and streaks of oil-black liquid, still bright and shining in the sun.

Beyond the glass, bodies.

Legs twisted under torsos and arms bent at impossible angles, and... blood, I realize with a surge of fear. So much black blood, pooling thick and viscous on the tile floor of a massive kitchen. Some of the bodies don’t even have heads.

I bend sharply at the waist, bile spilling from my stomach as I dry heave. What the fuck happened here? Did Kier or someone else attack them? Did Arlo do this?

DidTorrence?

I stumble back a few steps, grasping blindly for the railing of the spiral staircase, and my head swims with dizziness. A thick laugh echoes across the space, followed by the crunch of bone on bone. I see Arlo go down on his knees again, no longer able to smile through the blood.

I drove here thinking I could stop two friends from fighting, but this? This is so much more than that. It dawns on me that Arlo brought me here on purpose. He wanted me here, wanted me to see this. To be witness to whatever it is.

But why? What does he gain?

“Don’t leave yet, Ruby,” Arlo calls suddenly, the words slurred against his mouthful of blood.

“Tor?” I call weakly, stumbling forward even though IknowI should be running down the stairs. I can’t make myself leave him.

He goes still at the sound of my voice, his back to me as I skirt around a long picnic table, his name echoing on my lips in barely a whisper now. When I’m close enough to actually see him, I freeze again, my voice caught in my throat.

The pure rage on his face tells me he’s barely aware of where he is, much less that I’m here, too. All he sees is Arlo, bloodied before him. Broken, but still laughing like a psychopath.

Torrence doesn’t even look human anymore. Nothing like the handsome man I saw this morning. Whatever I might have imagined a gobbelin to look like, it wasn’t this. His skin is mottled ice gray with rivulets of red like veins of fire, and his amber eyes have gone from glowing to molten lava. Rows of sharp animal teeth glint in the flash of sunlight on ice, and I stumble backward, nearly falling on my ass as I see the enormous ice dagger he’s holding, longer than his arm.

I try to move my legs to back away, to turn, to run. But I’m numb with shock, and it’s too late.

Arlo rallies and lurches to his feet, suddenly swerving around Torrence to reach me. My body is rooted to the deck, panic washing over my eyes as I feel his cold hands close over my throat and squeeze. My breath slams against his choke hold, and my arms flail uselessly as he lifts me right off my feet like I weigh nothing. I kick out at him, but he’s like a wall of stone, his icy grip so deadly tight I think my neck might snap before I suffocate. The edges of my vision are already growing dark.

Then Arlo is ripped away, his body smashed down onto the deck, and I tumble down, sprawling on my back, coughing and gasping. Scrambling backward, I’m still too slow, and I seeeverything.

A hoarse cry rips from my aching throat as Torrence plunges his ice dagger into the center of Arlo’s neck, letting out a chilling war cry as he forces it down Arlo’s chest, shattering bone, shredding the skin, and spilling blackened blood and coils of intestines across the pale wooden deck.

Arlo’s psychotic laughter dies in a gurgle of blood spilling out of his mouth. Nausea swells into my aching throat again, and I clamp my teeth together against it.

I have to get out of here. Finally, suddenly, adrenaline shoots through my blood, giving me the flight response I need. I roll to my feet and bolt back down the stairs, the thunder of my sneakers on the metal steps all I can hear over the heaving of my own breath.

Thank the Goddess my keys are still somehow clutched in one hand, and I’m in the car and slamming the door shut before I even look back to see if Torrence followed me. I don’t care if he did.

I don’t know why they were fighting or why Arlo tried to hurt me - all I know is that I have to get out of here, and fast.

I swerve the car in a rough turn, barely avoiding the rose bushes crowding against the house and peel out onto the dirtdriveway, my vision a mess of blurry tears as I fumble to get my seatbelt fastened.

What the hell did I just witness? What the fuck did I justsurvive?

And the question that won’t stop repeating in my mind, like the drum beat of an approaching army -why?

Why, Torrence? Why, Arlo? Why? Why? Why?

The sharp bend in the driveway comes all too quickly, and I over-correct the steering wheel, screaming hoarsely as the trees loom in my windshield, impossibly close and devastatingly solid.

The last thing that crosses my mind before the impact is Rose’s worried face as I left this morning.

I shouldn’t have run out, and now, I’ll never get to tell her sorry.

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