Taken Over (The Ravening #2)(34)
Author: Erica Stevens

What was wrong with me?

I didn’t mean what was wrong with my blood, but simply what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I be like the others? Why couldn’t I put on a smile and at least attempt to fake happiness? Was it because there really was something wrong with me? Wrong with my blood?

I shoved myself off the ground, refusing to lay there and be miserable. Refusing to be weak and broken anymore. The woods were my place, this was my time. I would not allow it to be ruined, not now, not ever. There was nothing wrong with me. I had to believe that. There was nothing wrong with me other than a broken heart, wounded spirit, and a body depleted of the essentials it needed. I saw better at night now because I was a part of the night now in a way that I never had been before. I could hear better now because I had learned to listen better, because it was a sense I needed for survival and I had honed it. I was stronger and faster because I had been training, I had lost weight and gained muscle, and I had been fighting.

I sat panting, my lungs burned, my legs ached from the run, but it felt good. I felt alive. I wasn’t trying to run from myself, wasn’t trying to escape something inside of me, I was simply seeking some kind of freedom from a world that terrified me now.

And these moments were the only moments of freedom and solace I had.

I ached for Cade, longed for him fiercely. He wouldn’t have the answers to the fears and questions that plagued me, but his presence had always been comforting, reassuring; strong. He’d always been so strong, so calm, so collected and cool even when I was breaking down and falling apart. He’d made me stronger. He wouldn’t have the answers, but I knew he could ease the doubts, the fears, the crawling horror building within my belly. I closed my eyes and lay down. The ground was so cool, so blissfully cool against my heated flesh.

I could smell him; smell the wonderful scents of wood and earth and spices he’d exuded. I could almost feel him; almost touch the hardened muscles beneath his smooth, soft skin. Those eyes, so black and beautiful they had seemed as endless as the night sky, seemed to stretch into an infinity of love and understanding. A tear slid down my cheek, I did not try to stop it. Aching loneliness spread through my chest, I did not try to push it away, did not try to rebury it. It felt good to grieve, I needed to grieve. For the first time it actually felt good to think of Cade again. It brought agony with it, but it also brought a rush of joy so bittersweet that I almost laughed aloud with it.

My arms shook as I pushed myself up. I sat on the ground, my legs crossed before me as I finally caught my breath. I opened my ears to take in the sounds around me, but I was horrified to realize that the forest was quieter than normal. Rising to my knees, I caught the faint sounds of animals moving about, but they were far more remote and hesitant. The breath froze in my lungs as I slowly surveyed the woods, looking for the danger that must be lurking within the dense cluster of trees.

I frowned, uncertain and confused. I shoved myself up; my legs still trembled slightly from the exertion of my run, but they were strong enough to get me out of here if I needed it. My hands went to my waistband, instinctively pulling out one of the guns tucked there. Something seemed to shimmer as it moved on my right; I turned in that direction, leveling my pistol on the tree line. I waited breathlessly for a few moments but I didn’t see anything more.

I frowned as I turned in a slow circle, searching for something lurking in the darkness. My sense’s hummed as I strained to hear, or see, anything out of the ordinary. Though both of those senses failed to detect anything, I was certain there was something there, something haunting me, stalking me. I hated the fact that these creatures seemed to enjoy playing with their food before pouncing.

I swallowed heavily; my body was thrumming, fairly vibrating with tension and fear. I cursed my stupidity for having run this far. No one would even hear my gunshots out here. I was alone and I had no one to blame but myself, and my desperate need to feel something other than trapped and broken.

I spun to the left, my hands clenching on the pistol as the rustle of leaves rattled through the trees. There was no breeze tonight; the animals had gone to ground. My eyes narrowed, my hands began to sweat as I took up a shooters stance. I might be able to outrun one of them, might be able to lose them in the woods, but I wanted to know exactly what it was that I was going to be outrunning.

And then it shimmered from the trees, moving with an eerie grace that left me mesmerized at the same time that I felt everything inside of me curl up and die. My insides shriveled, my mouth became as arid as the Sahara. I felt as if someone had just walked over my grave. My entire being became as cold as ice, gooseflesh covered my entire body. If someone had pushed me, I either would have fallen over or shattered into a million ice shards.

My heart, the organ that had been beating so rapidly just moments before, seemed to have stopped. I felt as if the thing had shriveled to the size of a raisin. I could no longer feel the blood pulsing through my veins; no longer hear the beat of it in my ears. Every bit of my heart hurt, every beat of it was anguished and lumbering. There was a strange ringing in my ears; I could no longer make out any other noises.

The thing kept coming closer, but I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move as it emerged with eerie grace. It was so unfair, so awful. That they could take on human form had become painfully apparent, but that they could take on this human form was just heart wrenching. And that they even knew to take on this form was truly horrifying.

We had always known that they were intelligent, that they were far superior to us in many ways, but now it seemed that they could also read minds, or knew far more about us then we had ever thought possible. That they knew far more about me, and my mind, than I could have ever imagined possible. In that moment, if I had been able to move at all, I truly would have pissed myself, or curled up into a sniveling ball of snot and tears as my mind shattered completely. Was it because I had just been thinking of him? Did they somehow now have the power to conjure him because I had been thinking about him so vividly? His eyes, his smell, his skin. Had I somehow revealed to them the thing they had sent to kill me?

I remained immobile, half mesmerized and half revolted as the image of Cade came closer to me. It could be a dream I thought absently, I could have fallen asleep on the forest floor. I had done it before, and just because I hadn’t dreamed of Cade for the past week didn’t mean that it couldn’t be happening now.

But I knew that it wasn’t a dream. I was too cold, too broken, too wounded for this to be a dream. In a dream I would have run to him, I would have thrown my arms around him and kissed him senseless until the cruel reality of waking interrupted us. In a dream, I would have been elated.