Page 100 of Whispers of Helena
Six figures stand by Shadow, their presence thick, tangible, like the intensity of an oncoming storm.
“Silas.”
Lee Everly steps forward, his gaze fixed on me.
Bennett is still blind and deaf to it all. With his gun raised, his eyes dart through the darkness, oblivious to the gathering souls around him.
“Lee,” I greet, voice flat.
“We know why you’re here.”
“Then you know I’m here to finish what I started.” My voice hardens, my fingers flexing around the rope. “You experienced death at my hands. So will your brother.”
The six move as one, a single, synchronized step closer. Lee at the front.
“We can’t let you do that, Silas.”
I don’t acknowledge his words. My focus remains locked on Bennett. My voice drops, cold and unforgiving.
“Death is here, Bennett. Death is here.”
A violent shudder rips through him. His gun clatters to the wooden porch. Hands fly to his head, fingers tangling in his hair as his body shakes.
“Who are you?” His voice is raw, breaking.
“I’m your punishment,” I whisper. “Your reckoning.”
Lee moves forward. I move toward Bennett.
I raise the rope once more.
Then, a piercing howl splits the night.
Another joins. Then another.
The symphony of crazed cries echoes through the trees, close. Too close.
We all freeze.
Bennett’s body trembles, a wet stain spreading down his leg.
Then the underbrush erupts. A flash of dark fur, glowing eyes, snapping teeth.
The breath stills in my lungs.
No one moves.
No one breathes.
A single shadow breaks from the trees, flanked by the wolves.
Caroline.
Command
Helena
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
