The following content is an exclusive first look at SAVAGE, the sequel to RAVAGE.

TRIGGER WARNINGS

graphic descriptions of gore/violence

torture

PREFACE

I RAN TO MEET THE end.

It was different than before, though. It didn't matter if anyone else thought otherwise. I knew it was different. That was enough.

The first time I met the end, it was mine. This time, someone else was going to end. This time, I would have it done by my hands, and no one else's.

The trees zipped past me and the wind whipped through my ears and tangled my hair, but I wasn't moving fast enough. I could feel them at my heels, dying to close in. Ready to make the kill. They could try. I was so much faster than I'd ever been before. I would outrun them all.

My focus was on the flame ahead of me, the fire that burned at me every hour.

This had been months in the making – weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. Every breath had been for this.

I was finally closing in.

I was so close.

And then I would finally be free.

V

1. MONSTER

I SUCKED IN BREATH AFTER shuttering breath, crying without exactly crying. There were no tears dripping down my face, no stuffy nose, no way to prove I was sobbing other than my disturbed gasping. There was no release in it, no relief, but I couldn't stop.

In a clearing, surrounded by the blood and gore of people – fucking people! I was forced to look at their remains with unnaturally powerful eyes. A fire, dying from the wind I'd caused in my flurry of thirst and rage, illuminated the scene in a dull orange light. My eyes could pick up everything else lost to the embers. There was blood everywhere; soaking into the grass, plastering my clothes (leggings, a t-shirt, no shoes?), slicking along my skin, staining the fabric of torn tents and what had once been their clothes. Body parts had been tossed; mangled organs trailed at my feet, limbs were tossed haphazardly and an arm hung off the crook of its elbow from a tree branch overhead, there was a finger to my left, and one of their heads was angled toward me, revealing an expression twisted in agony and horror. They'd been in so much pain. I murdered them! – I finally remembered who I was and how I got here. It left me broken. Anguished.

Lives had been lost. Stolen. More lives than the ones taken by me. My uncle had been murdered as a test to see how I would react to his death, and the discovery of monsters that existed outside of horror books and movies. Then it was my mother, murdered as a consequence for changing the rules of a game I never wanted to play. She didn't even know why she died, because I was trying so hard to protect her from the truth.

Then I was killed.

All because of the things that had been hunting me. They were the ones capable of such destruction, terror, and violence.

I was one of them now.

And I'd done what they had done to me.

The worst part was I wasn't even aware of what I was doing until it was too late.

The worst part was the guilt, the horror, the sadness all swirled and clamored in my head – this is wrong, this is wrong, what are you doing, this is so wrong, stop it! – but they were forced into the back of my thoughts. I was caged in my own body, begging myself to stop, but I couldn't. I was so fucking thirsty. Doing this was the only thing that saved me.

But my throat still burned so raw. It was white hot, like the fire that'd been coursing through my veins when I was bitten –

It was done. My adversary, my stalker, my hunter, had won.

I lost everything.

All I wanted to do was drink now.

I dragged my tongue flat against my palms, lapping up the blood that still dribbled between the lines of my palms, equal parts disgusted and relieved by it. There was no control over this. My body moved on its own, instinct commanding my movements, shoving the rational part of me into a corner to belatedly process every action made.

"Is she crying?" a female voice carried through the forest, stopping me short. I whipped around.

A female slipped out of the trees, her wild hair as orange as the dying embers of the fire I'd just destroyed. I could see every spark of the fire dance in her crimson eyes as they widened with interest. "Oh my," she breathed.

Victoria.

My mother's murderer.

I could hear it now, the way my mother died. The sounds were muddled, muted, but I remembered them well enough. Her car tires squealing, her phone clattering, a crash, a scream, a crack –

I bared my teeth and snarled at Victoria. The sound ripped from my throat and snapped in the air like a whip, vibrating within my chest in a deep, satisfying way that revealed the true scope of my rage. She was going to die. Now.

I threw myself at her –

And then I was thrown to the ground, hard. The earth crumbled around my ears as it gave way under me. Then he stood over me. Stalker, hunter, murderer –

Creator.

James grinned at me, exposing teeth so white they seemed to glow in the darkness. Another snarl boiled in my throat as I surged upward, slamming my fist into his face –

CRASH!

The sound was like rocks colliding, making my ears ring, but I relished in watching James stumble – actually stumble – to the side a few steps, before a set of steel arms locked around my own. I thrashed against them, roared and screamed, reared back to try and bite Victoria at her neck. James's responding laugh echoed in my head, my mind void of everything but hatred. I would kill them both for what they took –

"Do something James," Victoria spat through her teeth. "She's strong!"

James straightened up, massaging his jaw. Then he tugged it sharply – crack! – before he smiled casually. "Then rip her arm off," he said.

What?

Victoria pushed me down, forcing me to my knees. Her hands were quick, wrapping themselves around my shoulders before I could get away from her, pulling at my left arm –

It tore. It burned. Everything slowed down.

I screeched at the pain, tried to wrench myself out from Victoria's hold, but it only increased the pulling. My arm was on fire as if it alone was going through the transformation I only woke up from only half an hour ago. Thirty-three minutes ago. In spite of all of this, I was keeping an excellent track of time. I stared down at my wrist in horror as it extended too far away from me –

"Hold," James said.

Victoria stopped. But it didn't stop the pain. It didn't stop me from screaming.

James crouched in front of me, his serene smile still in place as I choked on more sobs. He reached out and cupped my face in his hand. "She turned out well, didn't she?" James asked, his brighter red gaze flitting from my face to somewhere over my head, no doubt to Victoria.

"She needs to be controlled," she said. "The mess she just made will lead him straight to us."

Him?

"You only get your first hunt once," James reasoned idly. Then his smile faltered. "But of course you're right. Forgive me, but she promised me a monster. I wanted to see how well she would deliver."

I remembered that promise. It was bleary, but it was still one of my sharper memories. James holding me by my hair while I shoved a gun into his throat and fired –

Then he looked at me. I growled through my crying. Choked and gurgled as the sound was, I would still let him know my fury. He only smiled again. "And deliver you most certainly did. You're an artist, the way you painted this campsite in blood. Were you trying to impress me? If so, it worked."

It would be the last time I'd impress him, because it would be the last time I would touch a person like that. God, I killed them!

He cocked his head to the side. "Having regrets? You shouldn't. Look at what we made." He grabbed my chin, forcing my head around to look at the campsite. "Look at what we created – together."

Blood staling in the air, soaking into the earth, parts of bodies thrown in chaos and abstraction.

What we made was death.

When I breathed it in, my throat burned. I wasn't even satisfied.

How many more would it take until I was?

V

SAVAGE will go live on on Tuesday, July 2nd, and update every Tuesday/Wednesday hereafter (if life doesn't get in the way, that is). I'm uploading this installment on a Monday because future Mr. TwitchWalkerTexasRanger's birthday is on that Tuesday!

SAVAGE will be rated "M" for graphic descriptions of violence and gore, strong language, and sexual situations.

QUCK ANNOUNCEMENT:

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