Page 124 of When Death Whispers

The thing skids to a stop, twisting to face me.

It’s fast. Too fast.

My breath shudders as I push myself up.

I catch too many eyes—milky, lidless, gleaming like oil—and too many teeth, jagged and crammed into a jaw that splits wider than it should. The body is worse… hunched and gaunt, all jutting bones and slick, blackened skin that stretches too tight over a skeletal frame.

And the clicking isn’t coming from its mouth.

It’s coming from its bones.

Each sharp, spasming twitch sends another stuttering crack through the air, as if the thing is breaking itself just to move.

A cold shiver crawls up my spine, like the thing is already under my skin.

And Rad?

Rad is grinning, his eyes gleaming in the dim light like a wolf that just found a wounded rabbit. The shift in his demeanor is enough to make me pause—whiplash-inducing, crazy fucking demon.

I scramble back, trying to get some distance. “This isn’t funny,” I pant, my heart pounding.

Rad rolls his shoulders with casual grace, a look of pure amusement spreading across his face. “It’s alittlefunny.”

The creature snaps its jaws, lunging again?—

But Rad moves first, faster than I can blink. In an instant, he’s on it. One clawed hand wraps around its throat, effortlessly stopping its advance. The thing writhes, snapping, clawing, but Rad doesn’t flinch. He barely seems tonoticethe struggle.

His claws sink into its flesh, and black ichor pours between his fingers like oil.

He tilts his head, examining the creature. “Haven’t seen one of you in a while.”

The creature hisses, limbs thrashing, its too-many eyes narrowing as it lets out a series of guttural, slithering sounds.

Not a scream, I realize.

A language.

Rad responds, voice low and guttural, something inhuman that makes my spine stiffen.

“What the fuck—are youtalkingto it?” I ask, bewildered.

Rad barely glances at me. “It’s saying it wants to eat you.”

The thing hisses louder.

Rad’s grin widens, his teeth flashing as he leans in closer. “I told it you taste like stale bread, but it doesn’t believe me.”

“Youwhat?”

Before I can even process what’s happening, Rad snaps its neck like it’s nothing. The creature goes limp, its body hitting the ground with a sickening thud—a lifeless heap of bone and sinew.

The second its body hits the dirt, the clicking sound intensifies, turning deafening, like a thousand insects buzzing all at once.

“Fuck,” I whisper, barely able to breathe.

Rad doesn’t say a word. He wipes the ichor from his claws with mechanical precision, eyes locked on the darkness ahead.

Then, suddenly, his head snaps in a different direction, the glow in his eyes sharpening to a dangerous gleam. Something just shifted. Somethingbigger.

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