Page 139 of Walking in Darkness

Their faces were void, innuendos of shape and holes for their eyes that led down into the eternal nothingness within them. A pit of darkness and despair. Fiery limbs stretching out to touch on the babel below.

They poured their inhumanities into the willing ears of the people who ransacked the streets.

Running wild. Lighting fires and bashing windows. Wielding weapons and throwing fists, unaware of who they were even attacking.

Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.

The vitriol being spewed wasn’t even specific. It was just a command for complete destruction.

Some people’s skin seemed to bubble and palpitate, red streaks lighting up beneath their flesh. No question, they were fully possessed.

“They’re completely blinded. Taken,” Timothy said as we crept forward, hugging the gas station wall as we did our best to keep concealed.

“Yeah. And if we don’t do something to stop them, they’re going to pour all of this out into the rest of the world.”

Not that it already hadn’t started.

Not that we hadn’t seen it in the news reports and felt it the second we’d stepped out Dani’s door this morning.

But it would get worse. The entire world would be given to this.

“End her. She’s the one.”

Chills lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck when I heard the command uttered from above, raining down onto the heart of a man who’d been running parallel to us.

Suddenly, he straightened, rigid for one second before he shifted course.

Rising tall as he craned his neck and peered through the dingy haze that wafted through the street.

His attention immediately landed on Aria. Aria, who started to stand like she was going to handle him. I set my hand on her shoulder. “You need to conserve your energy.”

This one was on me.

I didn’t even hesitate.

I stood, lifted my rifle, and shot.

Took three bullets to take the bastard down, each piercing him in the chest, his lanky, tall form rocking as he struggled to keep coming for Aria before he finally toppled to the ground.

“Holy shit,” Keith said from beside me, and I sent him a glance.

One that warned him there was going to be a whole lot more of this. The threat was going to come at us from every direction.

“We need to move,” I said, and we all rose a fraction, still hunched over and gliding along the wall, our breaths shallow.

“End her. End her. She’s the one.”

This one came howling on the wind, and three degenerates who’d been running toward the epicenter stalled and turned in their tracks.

Two men and a woman.

They came our way like fucking zombies or some shit.

Aria stood and released her power before I had the chance to aim and take fire again. A flash of light streaked out and slammed into them. They flew back into the wall of a building on the other side. The bricks crumbled where they struck the wall before they fell in a mangled heap on the ground.

She gasped, and I could feel the exhaustion threatening to bring her to her knees. My hand shot out, gripping her shoulder, while Dani curled her arm around her waist from the other side.

In an instant, she straightened.