Page 57 of Fanged Secrets
It took more than a minute for my frenzied mind to understand the holes appearing in the hallway around me. Small, black dots that appeared at random as I ran. A sudden, screaming pain shot up my leg as I scrambled around a corner and I glanced down to see a small gash sliced across my calf, blood streaming down to my heel. Then I understood.
The sound of the gunshots were silent to me but terrifying in their effect. I saw the walls splinter and the floorboards chip where the bullets hit, just inches from where I sprinted. Don was toying with me, driving me deeper into the house.
I ducked through a doorway, the egg clutched tightly in my arms as I tried to steady my breathing. Panic clawed at me, my mind racing as I tried to think of a way out.He was hunting me.
I fled through the hallways, slipping through the narrow spaces that had been my secret hideaways as a child. The house was a maze, but it was a maze I knew like the back of my hand. I had run from my father many times before.
I used every hidden passage, every trick I knew, to keep him off my trail. My heart raced as I reached the dumbwaiter. It was small, barely big enough for my body to bend into, but it was my only chance. There was a dead end ahead.
With trembling hands, I pulled myself inside and tugged the rope, hoisting myself upward as quietly as I could. The darkness closed in around me in the miniature elevator, the musty air cloying and claustrophobic, but I kept climbing, praying I would reach the top before he found me.
The dumbwaiter jerked as it reached the top floor and I crawled out, breath coming in shallow gasps. But I forgot one crucial detail from all those mad runs around the house back in my childhood. I had run from Don many times before, but my father always caught up with me.
As I stepped into the hallway, I froze. There he was, at the end of the corridor, his eyes locked on mine. The gun gleamed in his hand, and his chest heaved. His forehead was beaded with perspiration. His eyes were angry.
There was nowhere left to run.
He raised the gun, stony features cold and unfeeling as he aimed it at me. My mind screamed at me to move, but my legs wouldn’t listen. I clutched the egg to my chest, my heart battering against my ribcage. Some small, feeble part of me wanted to believe he wouldn’t do it.
But my father was decisive. He knew what he wanted, he always had. And he’d cut down his own daughter if he had to. I could see it in his eyes.
And then, beyond him, something strange caught my attention.
The darkness in the hallway behind Don seemed to ripple, like a shadow that was too solid, too tangible. For a moment my breath hitched in fear; something monstrous was lurking in the dark. But the twinge in my heart told me it was no monster.
Dylan emerged from the blackness, her eyes gleaming with a vicious rage. In an instant, she was at Don’s shoulder, her movements too fast for him to react. She slammed him to the floor with a force that rattled the walls, her fangs extending as she pinned him down.
Don’s face twisted in shock and anger, but I saw something else there too – a flicker of fear. Dylan leaned in, her fangs bared, ready to sink into his throat. But just as she was about to strike, Don’s hand shot out, pulling something from inside his coat. Red and bulky, with a nozzle pointed right at the woman I love. A flare gun.
Everything seemed to slow down as Don aimed the flare gun directly at Dylan’s heart. Before I could even blink, he pulled the trigger.
The flare shot out in a burst of blinding light and embedded itself into Dylan’s chest, a sickening sizzle eating at her skin. The flames sparked and burrowed into her flesh, the fire spreading quickly along her front.
“No!” The scream tore through me, though no sound reached my ears. I rushed forward, instincts screaming at me to help, to do something. Dylan’s grip on Don tightened, her nails digging into his flesh, drawing blood as she fought to stay upright. But the pain was clear in her eyes, and her body trembling as the fire consumed her.
Catching my eye, Dylan shook her head, halting me in my tracks. The red flames reflected in her pupils, lighting them up like cinders. She mouthed words I couldn’t hear but understood perfectly: “Get the egg to Oksana.”
I hesitated, my heart breaking at the thought of leaving Dylan behind. But her expression was one of desperation and resolve, silently begging for me to listen, to do what needed to be done.
Swallowing hard, I nodded, my body stiff with reluctance. I edged around her, my eyes never leaving Dylan’s, not until my back hit the banister behind me. Beneath her, Don writhed, but there was a twisted glint of victory in his eyes. He’d hurt her. And he was proud of it.
I wanted to hurt him back. Instead, I turned and ran, dashing down the stairs, each step taking me further away from the woman I cared about more than anything.
The house seemed to blur around me, my focus solely on finding Oksana and completing the ordeal I had started. I had to trust that Dylan would survive, that we would see each other again. But as I ran through the mansion’s twisted corridors, my heart ached with a fear that I might not.
I burst through another doorway, sprayed with the blood of one of Dylan’s victims, my breath ragged as I frantically searched for Oksana. I found her a moment later, lying in the middle of the room, her dragon form battered and wounded, but she was alive.
The room was carnage, the air thick with the scent of blood and scorched wood. But Oksana and her fellow shifters were already beginning to heal, their wounds closing up with each passing second. They all turned to look at me as I screeched to a stop. Oksana bared her teeth, and the white-haired crowd around her did the same.
I didn’t hesitate. I held up the egg, the precious cargo that had driven me to this point.
The shifters stilled on the spot, their aggressive stances softening as they realized what I was holding. Oksana’s eyes widened in disbelief, and then a look of pure relief and joy washed over her scaled features. With a tentative hand, shereached out and I stepped forward to place the egg in her open hands.
Oksana held it to her chest, cradling it with reverence like a mother with a newborn.
But it wasn’t over yet. My breath caught in my throat, my hands trembling as I tried to convey the urgency of the situation. I gestured wildly, trying my best to speak through my fear and exhaustion.
“You owe me. Help Dylan – kill my father.”
