Page 123 of Death Valley

Five feet from the burning cabin.

Three feet.

Two.

Adam feints to the side, trying to circle around me, to find a gap in our defense. I anticipate the move, cutting him off, my burning timber catching him across the chest. His clothing ignites again, flames spreading across his torso with unnatural speed.

A shriek of agony tears from his throat as he claws at the burning fabric, at his own searing flesh. The sound is hardly human anymore—a high, keening wail that resonates in my bones.

“Now!” I shout to Aubrey. Together, we lunge forward, our burning weapons connecting simultaneously with Adam’s chest, driving him backward with combined force.

He stumbles, arms windmilling as he fights to keep his balance. One more step back—directly into the heart of the cabin’s burning remains. The flames leap to welcome him, engulfing his form in a searing embrace.

Adam’s scream rises to an impossible pitch as the fire consumes him—not just his clothing, not just his flesh, but the very hunger that animated him. His struggles become frenzied, inhuman, his transformed body thrashing against the inevitable.

Then, suddenly, he goes still—a blackened silhouette against the raging inferno, arms outstretched as if in final supplication. Then, finally, he crumbles from his eerie pose, collapsing into the heart of the fire, ash mixing with ash, returning to the mountains that created him.

I turn to Aubrey, relief flooding through me.

“We did it,” I breathe. “It’s done.”

But as I reach for her, the ground beneath our feet shifts violently. The intense heat from the fire has destabilized the snow pack, triggering an avalanche on the slope above us.

“Oh, fuck. Run!” I shout, grabbing her arm and pulling her parallel to the slope.

We sprint away from the burning cabin, snow cascading down toward us in an unstoppable wave. The roar is deafening, like a freight train bearing down upon us. I pull Aubrey alongside me, both of us struggling through knee-deep snow toward the tree line.

I risk a glance and see a wall of white bearing down, gaining on us with terrifying speed.

We won’t make it.

Aubrey stumbles, her exhaustion from the fight finally catching up to her. I grab her arm, trying to haul her forward, but the delay costs us precious seconds. The leading edge of the avalanche is almost upon us.

“Go!” she shouts, pushing me away. “Jensen, run!”

Instead, I shove her toward a massive pine tree just ahead. “Climb!” I order, giving her one final push before turning to face the wave of snow, as if my body alone could somehow shield her from nature’s fury.

The avalanche hits me first, the force of it sending me tumbling. I manage to grab the trunk of the pine, anchoring myself as the snow rushes past. But Aubrey isn’t as lucky. Though she’d reached the lower branches, the sheer power of the snow tears her away before she can climb higher.

“Aubrey!” I scream, helpless as she’s swept away in a churning mass of white.

When the initial surge passes, leaving me half-buried but alive, I tear myself free and stagger in the direction I last saw her. The landscape is transformed, smoothed into alien contours by the avalanche’s passage. Even the cabin is gone.

“Aubrey!” I call again, desperation mounting as silence answers me. I search frantically, looking for any sign of her. A dash of color against the white catches my eye—the edge of her black jacket, barely visible beneath a mound of snow. I dig with bare hands, ignoring the pain as ice crystals tear at my skin.

She’s unconscious when I uncover her, blood streaming from a gash on her temple. Her chest rises and falls with shallow breaths, but her skin is already taking on a bluish tinge from cold and lack of oxygen.

“Stay with me,” I murmur, gathering her limp form in my arms. “Don’t you dare die on me, Aubrey Wells.”

I can only hope she’s still good at taking orders.

37

AUBREY

I’m dreaming.

In my dream I’m with Lainey, my mother, and my dad. It is the year before my mother died, the last family vacation we took. We drove to Santa Cruz for the first and last time. Lainey and I were so excited about the idea of the boardwalk and the pier, the amusement park rides and the cotton candy. I had just seenThe Lost Boyson TV the week before and I was hoping I might run into some punky vampires, too.

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