We Are Monsters 🌕 Book 1 || gxg

Dusk

Twilight crept over the woods, rich with the music of birds and crickets. The whispering leaves soothed her. Sam probably should have shifted right away to cover more ground, but she couldn't bring herself to it. Staggering from trunk to trunk away from the setting sun gave her purpose, action. If she stopped now, she might not get up again. She blinked away tears as her mood swayed from apathy to anguish and back again.

Before she could register what was happening, she lurched to her hands and knees, ribs flaring angrily from the jolt. It took a moment for her to find her breath again. Her skin rippled, the change coming on faster than she was prepared for. Her broken bones and deep bruises became lava beneath her skin, scalding her so deeply she was sure she would combust. Denim ripping to a hundred shreds drowned out the night life, and silence stretched on after.

Sam fell flat on her belly, tongue lolling as she tried to catch her breath. Deep, acute burning continued in the spots she knew, or suspected had broken in the fall. It was a fraction of the intensity as during the shift, so she shook it off. There was a stillness in her, a sort of comfort she couldn't quite place. It was something entirely independent of Noah, something new. Slowly, she rose to a sit and turned her face skyward. She howled at the top of her lungs even as the aches threatened to knock her out. It was her first true howl, and she stretched it out for as long as she could manage. Moments later, a faint, familiar voice called back in the same pitch. Relief swelled in her heart.

She continued to put one foot in front of the other for as long as her body would allow it. There was a lot of ground to cover on her shaky paws. She couldn't ignore the grief weighing her down. The look in his eye as she rounded the stump would stay with her forever. Fear of the unknown mingled with love. Love. Not for her, she understood that, but for the girl whose face she shared ... Cora. The sight of her had brought him pain once, she was glad it could give him some relief in his suffering. That look, though ... it was going to haunt her.

She couldn't deny how upsetting it was to learn his first victim had been her doppelgänger. She had come too close to the same fate, multiple times. Now that the danger was gone ... well, she would have traded this outcome for just about any other. Damn it, why did she have to go and talk to him? She could at least have been ignorant of the truth, maybe avoided this irreconcilable empathy.

Hold the phones, her consciousness hadn't shut off. Not as deeply, at least. She was still very much aware of the constant narrative in her mind, though the emotions and complexity that went with it was definitely suppressed some. Was this what it was like for Aidan all the time?

She hoped they weren't too worried about her. After all, she had survived. She made it. The wolf had judged her and she had faced it. She made it through that fucking night for the second time. Milo ... she never talked about him. She never told anyone, besides her therapist, what she saw that night. Not even Charlotte knew the full story. Maybe she would change that. He deserved to be remembered as much as Amalie and she certainly hadn't been doing that for him.

That night was the worst night of her life. Not her bite, not falling off that fucking cliff. Those had given her something valuable to walk away with. Milo's death was senseless, avoidable. It wasn't her fault, but it took a long time to understand that. She couldn't control what other people do, she could only control what she did. So yeah, she had behaved poorly in the face of stress and ran from her problems when facing them would have been the best solution; but that was life. She made mistakes, she adapted, she moved on.

Her legs collapsed a few steps down the deer path she'd stumbled upon. She lay there for a few minutes, catching her breath. Aidan howled again, closer now, but too far south. She lifted her head as high as it would go and responded weakly. They would find her soon, she could keep on resting, which was good, because her spine was aching something fierce.