Page 63 of The Songs of Fate (War of Fate)

“Can I have more?” I asked.

“Not until you start telling me the truth.”

He perched on the edge of the table again and leaned closer to me. “What happened in the gorge?”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

I leaned back into the chair as far as the cuffs would allow me. I hated the man in front of me as much as I hated myself. I was a failure, not even strong enough to save Logan, just like Jason three years before. Both were dead. Both were my fault. What was the point of it all?

The man remained posed like a pigeon on a park bench. “What do you know about these creatures?”

Silence. I could hear the hum of the air conditioning unit pumping freezing currents into the room.

“It is pure rage and grief. That’s all I know.” It was the truth. Through the connection, it was all I could sense of the creature.

In the dim light of the room, I saw the man’s eyes squint. It was the only visible sign of fear from him.

“There are more of those creatures out there. And they don’t stop coming. They don’t eat. They don’t sleep. They don’t die.”

The gasp from my side of the room must have been audible on the camera. I couldn’t close my mouth. There were more. I thought I’d killed it. I thought the connection was severed forever, but if there were other creatures, then this wasn’t over. This curse, my curse, wasn’t over.

He thought, no, he knew about these creatures. He had seen them. Like me, he feared them, and he knew there were more. The look on his face told me he was terrified of them.

His words rolled over and over in my mind. Down to the very last sentence. They don’t die.

The light inside me turned it to ash. These men couldn’t kill them, but I could.

“Everything dies,” I said.

His grimly shook his head. “No. Not these creatures. We don’t know where they come from, and we don’t know why they are here, other than to reap. They are taking our soldiers.”

We were fighting the same thing, but they’d chained me to a table. They weren’t on my side. I would’ve wanted to help them, if I didn’t see so much hate in the man’s eyes. How did they know where the creatures would attack if they weren’t like me?

“Why were you in that valley? How did you know to be there?” I asked.

“The previous two nights, hikers went missing in that reserve.”

“But how did you know exactly where it would be?” I asked, staring into his eyes.

He darted his gaze to the camera for the first time.

“We didn’t, exactly,” he said, glancing down at me.

“How do you know so much about them?” I asked quietly.

“We don’t. But we learn more with every failure,” he said. “What else do you know about them?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie, Charlotte,” he commanded, edging closer to the table again. “Why did the creature go straight toward you?”

“I don’t know.” I twisted my wrists around the metal cuffs. They were too tight.

“Lies. Why have they only attacked males until you? Every single creature only goes for males. It has a profile. Young adult to middle-aged males, strong, athletic, until you. Why?”

“I wish I knew.”

“How are you the only one that’s survived? All the others are missing. Except for Logan.”

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