Page 111 of A Land So Wide
Ellis lunged at Greer, knocking her over as he tried to sink those teeth into the crook of her neck.
“Ellis, stop! Ellis, get off me!”
Her legs thrashed as she tried to dislodge him, but he was so much bigger, so much stronger. His hands wrapped around her wrists, holding them down as he pressed his face to her throat, snapping and trying to find purchase. When Greer felt the points of those wicked teeth graze her skin, she did the only thing she could think of and screamed.
The sound roared from her, flinging Ellis across the clearing. He struck a piece of machinery hidden in a thicket of thorns. There was the horrible sound of something wet squelching violently open, then a gurgle of blood and breath, mixing together in ways they were absolutely never meant to.
Too scared to move, Greer pulled her knees to her chest, burying her head in her arms. She didn’t want to see what she’d done. She covered her ears, jamming her fingers painfully inside, but nothing she did could mask those sounds.
A howl of despair ripped from her, setting the ground around her to tremble and startling a roosting flock of nuthatches. They took to thesky with shrieks of dismay that seemed to echo everything screaming in Greer’s soul.
She’d come so far, endured so much, to have it end like this.
Ellis, turned.
Ellis, killed.
By her.
By the one who loved him most. By the one who had done everything she could to save him.
The irony was too cruel to bear.
So she let out the pain, shaking the world apart, wanting to hurt it as much as it had hurt her. She screamed past the ache and the fury, tearing into her grief with bared teeth and balled fists. She screamed until she could no longer draw breath, until the sound of her voice choked everything inside her and black stars filled her vision. Her head listed heavily, weighted with too much pressure, too much angst.
Just before she passed out, succumbing to the welcomed promise of oblivion, Greer opened her mouth and screamed again.
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Greer came rippingout of the silent aftermath in a rush of colors too bright and sounds far, far too loud.
She opened her eyes, wincing at the blinding white outside her shelter. The storm had not let up as she’d slept, tucked away in the compassionate embrace of unconsciousness, and the snowdrifts now piled high enough to make hiking out of the forest without snowshoes next to impossible.
From beneath the shelter of the fir tree, she watched as flakes the size of silver coins rained down like shooting stars. She heard each one land upon its fallen brethren, growing their number, multiplying into a frozen army intent on immobilizing her.
Greer blinked, curiously removed from the scene. All her focus had been on reaching the camp, on reaching Ellis. Now that he was dead, what was she meant to do?
Part of her thought about rolling back over. She could let the snow cover her in a blanket too heavy to move, too deep to breathe through.
It didn’t matter to her now.
But she was thirsty, and the whole of her throat ached, red and flaming and flayed apart by those screams. She blinked again, wondering what to do.
“Water,” she decided. She could barely push the word from her. Itsounded like a bird’s egg, small and fragile and so impossibly easy to break.
She felt the same way.
With a groan, she sat up and instantly regretted it. Her head spun, as if she’d spent the night downing cup after cup of Steward Bishop’s lauded juniper spirits.
She reached blindly through her pack, searching for the canteen. It was a quarter full, and she guzzled back most of it in one long swig, crying in relief as the water cooled her throat. She swayed slightly, thinking through what must happen next.
Though the storm raged around her, sitting on the frozen ground with only Ellis’s flannel shirt over her clothes, she did not feel the cold.
Ellis.
It had all gone wrong so terribly fast.
Greer wanted to forget every moment of it. She wanted to erase those last horrible seconds, his mouth at her neck, his gasps for life as the iron impaled him. She only wanted to remember him as he’d been before. Warm and human and wholly hers.
