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My head pounded with pain. The creature”s howl sent an icy shudder of fear down my spine, but I wasn”t going down without a fight. I struggled against the beast, my arms and legs flailing as it tightened its jaws around my body for a better hold. The pressure was light enough not to hurt me, but I could only kick my feet helplessly and shake my head and arms around.

The comm was gone. The Hellraisers might not be able to save me. I pressed against the creature”s jaw, but it wouldn”t budge. Its spiny teeth were blunt at the ends, allowing it to hold me with just enough pressure to pin me easily, but not completely crush me. Was it taking me somewhere specific? It rushed through the forest at nauseating speed. Pain from hitting my head and the passing foliage catching at my skin made me hiss in complaint. Terror rocketed through me. Where was this thing going? Deeper into the Leftovers we went.

It knocked me heedlessly through the bushes. This is what it feels like to be dinner for a monster. Wow, all my dreams are coming true.

Blood poured from my cuts. I tasted a thin stream running down the side of my face into my mouth, right alongside the bitter sensation of helplessness. What could hurt this thing? Its teeth pricked me all over, though it felt like they were leaving bruises, not cuts. The beast appeared to be saving me for something, but what? It might be only a few minutes before it got a taste for my blood and decided to stop in order to properly snack on me. Luckily, its saliva hadn”t melted my skin or done anything insane like some of the monsters from the Immortal Plane. I was thankful for small miracles.

Green and brown passed in a dizzying array of moving colors. I couldn”t make heads or tails of where we were, just that more forest was continuing to pass. The light around us grew darker. My head swam with dizzy thoughts that came to my brain in sporadic bursts as I tried to ignore my urge to throw up. It”s taking me to its home… I can”t contact my team… It”s getting harder to keep my eyes open.

I clenched my eyes shut for a moment. It helped the nausea, but my head was still spinning.

”Stop that,” Kane muttered bitterly. ”It”s crazy. I couldn”t have heard her. I”m going insane in this stupid place.” His annoyance broke through my confusion like a hot blade through butter. If Kane was still out there, I couldn’t become this monster”s lunch without telling anyone. I struggled in the monster”s jaws and slashed again with my knife.

I”m here! I”m fighting a monster. I screamed at him in my mind, but to my utter frustration, he merely huffed in response.

”This can”t be—”

I cut him off. You”ve been talking in my head for the past week; you”re not hallucinating. If you”re going to jabber on in my head, at least say something freaking helpful. Or shut the hell up, Kane.

A moment of stunned silence followed.

”That doesn’t sound like something I would make up,” Kane muttered. ”Roxy… is it really you?”

Yes, it”s me.

He gave a disbelieving grunt as I struggled between the beast”s teeth. ”Tell me something only you would know,” he pressed. ”So I know it’s real.”

I hesitated with the blade in my hand. Seriously? I was in a monster’s mouth.

We kissed for the first time in the Hive. Lyra almost fainted. You got all mad because you were embarrassed, which, by the way, is sort of insulting now that I think about it. What”s so embarrassing about kissing me? And just so you know that you’re not really hallucinating, I didn’t tell you, but Lyra scared me so badly I actually bit my tongue. Don’t ever tell her that.

”It is you,” Kane said, and let out a deep chuckle. ”How is this happening?”

Can”t answer that. I”m in the jaws of a freaking monster. Help me and we”ll work out the rest later.

I holstered my useless gun, using the space beside my torso where the monster’s mouth couldn’t quite close, and switched my knife to that hand as the beast ran. I inserted the knife into the beast’s mouth and raised it. It was just enough to get a better angle if I needed to strike upward.

I think I could hit this thing in the roof of its mouth… or what I think is the roof of its mouth. It”s carrying me around like—My head hit a branch, and pain radiated down through my jaw. I might”ve cracked one of my teeth. I”m like a sack of potatoes to this thing. It”s going to break my neck before we get wherever we’re going.

Kane let out a growl of anger, not at me but the creature. ”Roxy, you need to get out of there. Strike now.”

I’d love to, but the angle is really awkward. I’m not sure I can put enough force behind the blow. It doesn’t seem to want to eat me yet… it’s bringing me somewhere. My foot hit another bush, and I tensed from the pain but kept a yelp down. It’s treating me like a rag doll, though.

“What does it look like?” Kane asked, his voice serious.

Hard to say. It was largely invisible before this, and milky white all over when it materialized. Do you know what an albino is?

Kane grunted with recognition. “Three red eyes?”

My heart sped up. Do you know what this thing is?

“I’ve had a run-in with it before, yes,” Kane replied. ”Can you see its nostrils? Look closely.”

I steeled myself. The monster looked fierce, but in its pale, papery skin, two slits were cut into its face. From my perspective I couldn”t see how long they ran, but they reminded me of a reptile’s snout.I switched my knife back to its original hand, in case I wanted to strike the monster there.

”Its eyesight is quite weak, but it has a great sense of smell,” Kane explained. ”You need to figure out a way to hit its nostrils.”The creature let out a growl from the back of its throat. My hearing must have allowed Kane to hear a glimpse of it. ”Yes, that”s definitely the one. They saw it, too.”

Who is they?

”Roxy, focus on the monster.”

Right, good point. I angled myself as the creature continued to run. By now, I was used to the speed even though it was disorienting. The trees passed by in a blur.

I went for the nostrils, like Kane instructed. As quickly as I could, I smashed the knife into the beast”s snout, as close to its leathery nostrils as I could get. The hit rewarded me with a howl of pain like no other. Everything happened in a blur. The beast suddenly flung me into a nearby shrub.

My limbs screamed in agony. I was sore all over from being held in the creature”s mouth and slammed repeatedly into trees as it ran.I knew I’d have plenty of bruises. Fear ran through me as I prayed this thing wouldn’t attack me again.

I”m out. My thoughts were weak. I need to get away from this thing. Everything hurts. The creature was barely visible in front of me, since a bunch of leaves blocked my view. I could see the top of its head as it shook it back and forth, crying in agony. Thin tendrils of violet blood ran from the cut I’d managed to make. I stared down at my bruised body, which refused to budge as I tried to move without startling the creature.

”Roxy, get moving!” Kane said urgently. A flare of anger, the kind that used to come from our grappling sessions, rose inside me, along with a rush of motivation. With Kane in my mind, I was like a firework going off again. The adrenaline from said emotion put some spark into my struggling body.

You try being in a monster”s maw for the last ten minutes as it bangs you against every tree in the forest. My heart raced as the monster”s frantic movements slowed. Its body glitched for a moment, going invisible. A gust of air struck my face. The creature couldn’t seem to touch me while invisible. I threw a punch out, but my fist flew into the open air. The creature must’ve pulled back. Abruptly, its body changed back to show the leathery white scales and unnerving red eyes.

Its next strike might hit me. I said as much to Kane and added, I need to move. Using every drop of willpower in my body, I tore myself free from the bushes.

“Maybe it needs to be visible to strike you,” Kane suggested.

Well, it’s visible now. My knees buckled, and I rolled over. The creature reared on me, its beady eyes watching me. The blood on its nose had stopped running. It was healing. I said a series of foul words, which Kane seemed to pick up on easily enough. I scrambled backward, and my back hit a tree.

The monster dove toward me. My butt felt rooted to the dirt beneath me. There were plenty of trees around me and shrubbery to dive into, but its three red eyes looked… mesmerizing, for a moment. It was like the monster was trying to tell me something. What?

”Roxy, keep moving!” Kane commanded. At the last second, I picked myself up and rolled to the side, diving beneath the bush the beast had originally thrown me in. I heard it collide with the tree, its teeth scraping as it grabbed for a body that was no longer there.

It”s powerful, and fast. I still had my knife and the useless pistol, but I would”ve preferred more firepower. This creature wouldn”t go down easily.

”Look around you,” Kane said, coaching me like an unseen fairy godmother. ”Use anything you can. Evade it if you can”t tangle with it.”

Under the shrubbery, I had enough space to crawl. I ignored my complaining limbs and army crawled as fast I could to the next bush. The creature clawed at the branches. Its weight compressed the plants, and a gust of hot breath warmed the back of my neck.

I”m currently crawling under bushes to get away from this thing. I made it to a thick collection of trees. They were tall and narrow but bunched tightly together. I wormed my way through them as the beast caught up with me. It clawed at the bark, taking out the first tree in its path by mowing over it with brutal strength. I pushed myself back as far as I could and desperately looked around to see what I could use to help me.

Across a thin trail behind me, I spotted a familiar-looking shrub. It was similar to the foul-smelling bush Inkarri had once used to cover our location and hide our presence from Immortal hunters. The sound of splintering bark made me look back, to see the creature a third of the way through my defensive line of trees.

I”m about to make a mad dash for a bush that might help with the nostril situation.

”Might?” Kane snapped. I knew he was angry that he couldn”t do anything, but I found our back-and-forth reassuring. It had been so long since we’d done this, and I enjoyed it, even while holding our conversation in my mind and being chased by a monster at the same time.

The beast”s claws went invisible for a moment. All that was left was its terrifying face. It broke out of the trees just as I slipped through the other side, catching my face on a spindly branch. I pushed past the pain and dove for the bush. Immediately, a heavy scent of musk hit my face. I had to commit. If this thing was using my scent to track me—and clearly it was determined to get me for some reason—then stuffing up its big nostrils was the only thing I could do.

I threw myself through the sap-covered leaves. The creature clambered behind me, flailing, and I saw a blur of white. Its claw, going milky and visible for the moment, swiped my leg, but then the plant’s stench registered. The creature roared furiously. In the confusion, I turned and used my knife to slice at the beast”s one visible claw. Its claw mark had left fine trails of cuts on my shin as it tore through the thick fabric of my pants, but now the monster fell back against the destroyed section of trees we had come through. A rush of energy swept through me. Heat surged through my body alongside the sensation, making my brow prick with sweat. The monster let out a howl, and, abruptly, its body completely blinked out. My stomach dropped with fearful anticipation, and a surge of hot air suddenly filled our small forest area. The creature’s hot breath bloomed outward into the cold winter environment.

I pulled myself out of the bush after thirty seconds of nothing. The creature was gone. It had just… vanished.

”What”s happening?” Kane asked, his voice tight with worry.

I did my best to explain. I don”t understand. How could it disappear like that?

”Sounds like it did you a favor,” he pointed out edgily, then let out a sigh of relief. ”I was worried for a second there.” His confession made me smirk.Being able to talk to him again was a wonderful surprise, and I could hardly believe it was happening.

You might be right about it needing to be visible to attack. I could only strike its claw when I could see it. I”ll have to remember that… I let out an incredulous laugh. I can”t believe we”re talking like this. Did you think you were going insane? I know I did.

Kane let out a short, deep chuckle. It made me miss him even more. ”I did question my sanity… but even I couldn”t make up your attitude.” He paused for a moment. ”How long have you been able to hear me?”

I cleared my throat, feeling suddenly awkward as I thought about all the deep insights to Kane”s psyche that I had been privy to. Well, honestly, I”ve been listening for a while. I thought I was losing my mind, or that maybe it was a part of my brain that wanted you to be alive and found. It usually comes and goes, but you were especially strong today.

”Well, lucky for both of us, then,” he said. ”I wouldn”t have wanted you to fight that monster alone. It sounded like it dragged you away from your team. Who are you with?”

I let out an exhausted sigh. God, there was a lot to catch up on, wasn”t there? I”m a captain now, in the Bureau’s special monster hunting department. I lead a team. It”s interesting, to say the least. A hard lump of torn emotion, between sadness and happiness at hearing his voice but being unable to see him, settled in my throat. Kane, where are you? It feels like you”ve been confused.

”That”s one way of putting it,” he said dryly. ”Honestly, I have no idea. I woke up and realized I was trapped in a strange place. It”s not the Mortal Plane, but it”s not the Immortal Plane, either.”

Lyra and Dorian are looking for you. She formed a private company with Bryce. Vampire-human relations are a bit tense right now in the Mortal Plane, but Dorian’s with them. Their goal is to find the other missing survivors from the meld. I”ll have to contact them to let them know I have a lead… I haven”t told anyone about hearing your voice. The memory of the strange rush of heat came back to me. It was odd. I’d felt more alive than I had in ages. Maybe it was simply from talking to Kane as if he were right beside me. We can try to find you.Can you describe where you are?

I pulled myself up into the clearing. Wrecked trees from the monster”s pursuit led me to the trail we’d originally come through, and a thin streak of my blood decorated the way back through the forest.

”I don’t feel great. A wave just hit me. There’s something wrong—” Kane”s voice abruptly dimmed, like he was on a cell phone and passing through a tunnel. I paused. My head was sore, and my body was bruised. In my tightly laced boots, I was sure I’d rolled my ankle forcibly thanks to smacking it against a tree.

Kane? Are you there?

Silence followed, but it was quickly dashed by the sound of footsteps.

”Roxy!” someone shouted. I looked up to see Jessie and Jordan pushing through a shrub. Their faces lit up when they saw me. Holt followed with a rifle in his hand.

”You”re alive,” Jessie cheered happily. “See, I told you, Jordan. That thing spit her out.”

The Hellraisers made their way into the clearing. Jones hung back with a guarded expression, but Holt gave him a stern look. Colin eyed the area and noted the cuts on my face. He looked behind me at the visible wreckage of the trees that the creature had smashed.

”What happened to the monster?” Colin asked. ”It was so fast I could barely see it in my scope.”

”It”s fine. I never wanted anyone to shoot,” I reminded him, and focused on Jones, who was far too composed for my liking. He should have been groveling, or at least looking nervous. ”I fought the monster off, thankfully. Next time, when I give an order not to shoot, you don”t shoot. Maybe three days of scrubbing barracks floors and toilets in your downtime will help you remember that.”

Jones’s embarrassed scowl was nearly enough to distract me from the fact that Kane was no longer chiming in. My shoulders slumped with the realization that, at some point, I’d lost my connection to him entirely.Kane was gone. Again.