7

EVERYTHING SEEMED TO HAPPEN MUCH TOO FAST.

Zak grabbed the front of Benny’s shirt with icy white fingers and pulled. Benny jammed his palms against Zak’s chest just in time. Zak’s teeth snapped together an inch from Benny’s windpipe. Benny shrieked in terror. Zak moaned in hunger and frustration.

“Benny! Down!”

Suddenly there was a flash of brown hardwood and a sound like a watermelon falling off a wagon onto asphalt. Zak and Benny fell in opposite directions. Benny’s head hit the floor again, harder. Zak pitched backward away from him, his face gone, replaced by an inhuman mask of blood and damaged tissue.

Benny felt like his own head was shattered. He heard a voice screaming his name.

Nix?

Benny tried to say her name, but the world spun around him and all his internal lights went dark.