Page 20 of Marked for Extinction
“They are the twin girls I dream of at night when you’re asleep,” she explained, caressing the side of my face. “They have your eyes and nose but everything else is me.”
I leaned up on my elbow and listened to her explain her dreams. It was bittersweet.
“I could vividly see them growing up, playing and running into our arms…” she trailed off, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Let’s get dressed.”
We both quietly redressed. A not so subtle shiver ran through her body and I stopped my movements, staring at her. The change was starting. She was my wife, but according to this world, it wasn't meant to be. We were at war and one person could jeopardize our victory.
Against my heart’s wishes, my mind shut down and I went into resistance fighter mode. Her lips trembled as I cradled her face and planted one last kiss on her lips, then her forehead. “I love you.”
I swiftly pulled out my handgun and shot her in the head.
She dropped to the ground and my body fell into a crouch. I sobbed into my hands angrily at what this blasted world had forced me to do.
She was gone, but she died as a human.
Burying my sorrow, my mind was clear enough to grab her corpse and toss her over my shoulder. I carried her for miles to the place where we first made love. Dropping her body onto the ground, I winced and grimaced but told myself that it was only the husk left after her soul had departed.
Falling to my knees, I began to dig with my hands, clawing at the ground, letting out all my frustrations and anger. Time became hazy and the next thing I knew, I was climbing out of the ground, rolling her body into the hole.
A few rebar rods were scattered nearby, part of the supplies we had stashed away from Black Hollow. I couldn’t chance her surviving the headshot wound. Disaris was known to heal quickly and I wasn’t sure which clan bit her. With grim determination, I grabbed one of the metal spikes and drove it through her heart, cracking her ribs.
Maybe it was wrong of me to not bury her where we usually placed our loved ones and children. That was a different hole closer to Black Hollow.
Katherine deserved more. She was my everything. We had fought valiantly but we were losing the war to those bloodsucking bastards as evidenced by the resistance constantly burying our dead. And now, I had to bury my sweet Katherine, my warrior, the one woman who matched me in every way.
A life stolen by a single bite.
Dropping to my knees once more, I laboriously began to shove the dirt over her. Halfway through, I wasn’t sure if it was sweat or tears that ran down my face but my eyes burned as if there were coals inside of them. Every time my arm moved forward, the hand carved wooden band around my wrist representing our union reminded me of my loss.
The other band was buried with her.
ChapterEight
The ground rumbledand we all dove down. I placed my finger to my lips, signaling to Angel to remain quiet. After a few moments, I signaled to the other men and we low-crawled on our stomachs until we could get a better view of what just happened. We couldn’t chance getting captured, the number of resistance fighters was at an all time low. We couldn’t afford to lose any more on a simple scouting and retrieval mission.
With Angel low crawling by my side, disturbed dirt came into view. I lifted my head up just enough to witness a sinkhole in the ground.
Slowly getting to my feet, I looked around us to make sure there weren’t any surprises hiding in our midst. The location was far enough from enemy territory to curb my suspicion that this was a laid out booby trap. Plus, vampires were too cocky to think that way, always choosing instead to take us head on in battles.
The other men followed my lead and got to their feet. We crept slowly to the sinkhole and looked down.
“What the hell happened?” Amir asked.
“Looks like the ground collapsed by itself,” I supplied.
“Sinkhole. How often does that happen around here?” Carson was right. What were the odds? It was how we came about Black Hollow, but to find another sinkhole?
“Where do you think it leads?” Amir questioned again, crouching down to try and get a better look.
“Only one way to find out.” I jumped down and gave a low whistle for Angel to follow. She leapt into my arms and I pulled one of our solar powered flashlights out of my back pocket. I turned it on while grabbing one of my shorter blades in my hand before illuminating our way down what looked like a man made tunnel.
“How far do you think this goes?” Carson whispered.
“Fuck if I know.” Slowly we kept moving forward, taking careful steps, making sure not to add too much noise. Without any knowledge of what lay ahead, we kept moving until we came to a fork in the tunnel.
“This shit is like an underground maze. Which way we going?” Carson asked as he faced behind us to cover our backs.
Moving my flashlight between both tunnels, I observed that one looked more used while the other showed signs of overgrown vegetation. Angel paced back and forth, lifting her nose up to sniff the air.
