Page 37 of Cursed to Be Mine
Bitten.
“Ma, what’s wrong?” she shouts, scrambling to undo her seatbelt. But when she turns to me, her arms reaching, I jerk away, flinching against the door.
She’s been bitten.
She will turn.
My death in twenty-four hours makes more sense now.
My own daughter is going to kill me.
Grabbing for the door handle behind me, I pull it free and tumble out of the car. My legs twist as they try to keep me standing, but I stumble around on the dirttrack.
“Get out!” I shout, my chest choking on the words, crushed by the weight of their purpose.
“What?”
“Get out!” The words are high-pitched and frantic. The gun heats in my hand, drawing my attention even as a part of me wishes to throw it away. To toss it into the woods and drive off with my daughter.
But I can’t.
She’s been bitten.
There is no saving her.
Only mercy.
The children from the hospital fill my thoughts. All sick and dying with no monster to slay. All terminal. Already dead, just living on borrowed time.
And then that girl on my knee, she starts to cough, and her mother comes up and smacks my face.“You’re letting her suffer,”she says.
No. I won’t.
I won’t let my daughter suffer.
My eyes drop to my gun, and I raise it just as Scarlett steps around the hood of the van to reach me, concern in her watery blue eyes. Blood down half her face.
“Ma?” Confusion and fear overrides the concern as her legs root her in place. “What are you doing? Why are you pointing that at me?” she whimpers, and I nearly drop the gun and run to her.
But a mother must make sacrifices.
I must stay strong for her.
She’s been bitten.
There is no cure.
There is no cure!
“There is no cure!” I shout, begging her tounderstand, begging her to know that I’m doing this out of love. To become a werewolf is to toss away your soul. An afterlife of eternal damnation. I will save her.I will save her.
I.
Will.
Save.
Her.
