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EPILOGUE

Clementine

On top of all the shitty things that have happened to me in the last forty-eight hours, bleeding on my car’s upholstery should not even register.

But it does—because I love this car.

The blood isn’t because I forgot to put a tampon in before a multi-hour road trip.

No, the reason I’m goring up the front seat of my Prius is because this wound in my side won’t heal.

The sucker won’t even clot properly.

“Fuck,” I mutter, glancing down at the dark stain on my Blink-182 T-shirt.

Thankfully, this rural road in northern Georgia is empty of other cars as I pull off to the side and put my car in park.

Tugging up my shirt, I find the gauze I taped on myself is saturated.

Carefully, I peel the medical tape off, gasping at the sticky rip of it against my tender skin.

The wound beneath isn’t deep, but it’s a few inches long, and again, it refuses to clot.

“What the fuck kind of knife was that?” I mutter to myself and try not to panic.

If I were human, I would be in an emergency care unit with stitches holding my skin together and keeping my blood inside my body.

But as a nonhuman, stitches shouldn’t be necessary.

This should have stopped bleeding almost immediately.

I should be well on my way to heeling.

Something is wrong.

Lots of things are wrong.

Which is why I’m on this road in the middle of seemingly nowhere, rummaging through a plastic bag in my passenger seat, searching for alcohol wipes and more gauze and tape.

At least the blood isn’t spurting from the wound.

Just a slow, ominous trickle.

Once again, I patch myself up as best I can, then pull back onto the road and pray to the gods the pain and adrenaline will keep me awake until I reach my destination.

A shaking has started in my body as my headlights flash across a familiar sign.

Welcome to Folk Haven.

I’m home.

Now I need to find him .

Hopefully, I haven’t brought disaster along with me.