Broken Nightmare

Chapter 31

  I wish I could listen. I wish I could turn around and run, never looking back. I wish I could leave Nathan behind and book it out of here as fast as I could. I wish I could listen to my brother's council and just leave.

But I can't.

The smoke had started to thin as Johnathan's silhouette disappeared. "Wait, no!" I cried. My aching feet propelled me forward and I stumbled through the dead grass. My feet still burned from the left-over heat forcing its way into my cuts. The smoke thinned more and more as I kept hobbling into the empty night. "Wait! Come back!" I called to his destitute presence.

He's not coming back, the all-too-reasonable voice in my head bluntly declared. My feet snagged on something on the ground. Dismissing it, I struggled to right myself and push forward. The black grass sizzled as the final flames were distinguished; camouflaged into the black grass was a pile of bodies.

The fog caused me to trip on something on the ground again. Finally stopping, I looked at what had caught my balance. Wait, something isn't right.

I stepped closer to the first body I saw. The putrid stench of burned flesh that layered the air was now suffocating my senses as I came closer. There were deep, red patches the only places there wasn't black. Big, yellow blisters covered the body from head to toe, including the face, which was indistinguishable by now. Burnt yellow fabric was melted into the blistered and burned skin.

The stomach lurched, finally having enough. I turned my back to the body as my stomach emptied its contents.

I slowly straightened, surveying the massacre. About twenty scorched bodies laid motionless amongst the burnt remnants. Every now and then, you could see a flicker of yellow, white, and black fabric.

I bent back over and disposed of anything left in my stomach. Averting my eyes from my vomit, I quickly scanned the area again, trying not to pay too much attention to the detail. "What the . . ."

Scorched grass crunched from behind me, making me jump. Dimitri emerged in the field of bodies, studying me with a scrutinizing gaze. He looked worse than the vampires we had just fought. The wound on his shoulder and calf were still there from when I first watched him fight with the others. His arm was almost completely ripped off, just barely hanging on by a thread as he cradled it to his chest. Blood oozed from a white shirt he had on, darkening the fabric to an almost black color. His face was still distorted as long canines hung from his sneering mouth.

"What did you do to them?"

Dimitri cocked his head to the side. "What do you mean?"

My temper flared. I was absolutely done with all the games everybody has been playing lately. "What did you do with the rest of the pack?" I demanded.

"They're still back there."

I straightened my spine. I don't know why he wasn't dead, but I was sick of having him and Gavin destroy my life. "Nathan didn't harm Gavin." I said confidently. I don't know where I got that reassurance or confidence, but it sounded solid.

"I know, don't worry."

Don't worry? What happened to the angry Dimitri we just fought? "Then why are you still here?"

"Because I'm part of this, too. As much as you may want to deny that. And you're never getting rid of me."

I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they would chip. "Not anymore." I lunged at him, aiming for his arm. He moved skillfully aside, but I still managed to grab his loose limb. He howled in pain and brought his good hand to my right shoulder and shoved me back.