Dana was really about to trade places with me. I could kill her.
The Master chuckled in the distance. No doubt our misery was an entertaining show to him. “Please do decide quickly,” he said, his lips a mere inch from Cora’s cheek. “I have waited long enough.”
I pulled Dana in close to me and whispered, “Go back with the group. Now.”
“Yeah, scram, you total waste,” Veronica called from across the yard. “No one is gonna miss you anyway.” Under her breath, she chuckled and said, “Makes the kill less fun that way, if you ask me.”
We ignored her, and I gestured for Priscilla to come to us. “Take her,” I ordered. Priscilla approached us and attempted to drag Dana back, but Dana clutched onto my shirt.
“Max, you promised! You promised nothing would happen to her!” Dana cried.
This was about Melanie. This was always about Melanie for her.
Dana’s face went red as a tomato and her eyes slowly tinted to a shade of yellow. It was uncontrollable anger that was doing this to her. I knew because I had seen it happen to our kind, and I’d felt it too. The frustration, the rage…it was forcing the beast to come out of her.
The more Priscilla urged her away from me and the gate, the more worked up she became. “No! They won’t take her!” she yelled. In a flash, she pulled back Priscilla’s jacket and grabbed hold of a hidden silver butcher knife before shoving Priscilla to the side. Dana then dashed through the open gateway, and that’s when I knew exactly what she was gonna do.
She was going to stab one of them.
Goddamnit! Dana wasn’t thinking. Dana wasn’t even waiting for us to back her up.
I couldn’t even make a step forward to catch up and stop her because she was running so fast. It was a speed that wasn’t at all human. Instead of going for someone weaker like Veronica or Molly, she went straight up to the leader. I yelled for her to stop and came chasing after her, but it was like the universe had slowed down and I was pushing through quicksand to get to her.
Dana let out a guttural scream as she raised the knife above her head and jammed it into The Master’s eye in one quick stab. His grip on Cora loosened and his entire body whipped around, the pain not registering for him at first. Seconds later, it was him that was screaming as his own hands shook and attempted to pull the knife out of the oozing wound. The instant he touched the blade, a small mist of smoke trickled from his skin, and he gave up trying to remove it. The silver was actually burning him.
“Holy shit, it worked!” Daggett excitedly noted. We didn’t think silver would work on him at all. If it did, it meant he was turned from a werewolf as well.
Maybe this fucker wasn’t as powerful as we imagined.
But there was no moment for celebration, because even with the knife in his eye, he was on the attack. He backhanded Dana so hard that she took flight across the yard, soaring for several feet before crashing into a statue made out of stone. The impact was so brutal that it busted in half as soon as she hit it. Dana was out like a light.
Now was the time to fight. Their leader was momentarily weakened, and we had the advantage.
The gate suddenly slammed shut without anyone even touching it, and the three of us that remained ran to push it back open, only it wouldn’t budge. Some kind of bullshit mystical force was gluing the bars together so we couldn’t get in. The Master dragged Melanie toward his castle while Molly grabbed hold of Cora and followed. If they were to get inside, they’d kill them both. I didn’t even have to question that.
“Max!” Cora yelled as she struggled to get out of Molly’s grasp, her hand reaching out to the air that was between us. She was waiting for me to break down this gate and come to her rescue.
I screamed at the top of my lungs as I attempted to bend the steel with my bare hands. I had strength, I had power, but whatever they had done to the gate made it feel like I was trying to move the Earth. I wouldn’t let them hurt her… Not again.
It was time to unleash the beast.
I tore open my flannel and let the buttons snap from the material and fall to the snowy ground. I pounded my fist against my chest, beckoning for the turn to take place. Within seconds I felt my flesh heat up and my bones begin to shift beneath my muscles. My joints popped and cracked so loudly that it rattled my eardrums.
“Oh my god, what is he doing?!” Priscilla shrieked.
“I think you know what he’s doing,” Daggett replied.
The two of them nervously backed away from me as I clutched onto the steel of the gate to keep myself standing. Cora’s screams echoed in the distance, and I cursed at myself for not shifting quicker to get to her. Normally, I’d let my body ease into the transition, but if I did it that way, I’d never get to Cora and Melanie before they were killed. I beat my chest over and over and over until my body snapped at the waist like a pretzel. No matter how many times I did this, it always hurt like a son of a bitch. Every. Fucking. Time.
Like a cyst being popped, I exploded out of my human flesh and dropped to all fours. I let out a long, sharp wail to let them know I was coming, and then I broke that
