Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 128

Instead, I passed out while Logan slapped me on the face, shouting at me to stay awake.

If this was what dying felt like, it's a total bitch.

——

Somewhere...

I was in that meadow again. The same one I saw Luke smiling at me from the top of a slope, sun shining beyond the snow-capped mountains, which I now recognized was Mount Hood, an imposing giant looming behind Portland's skylines. But out here, there were no cities, only the lush forests and spring rivers, birds trilling and insects chirping, and the gentle breeze kissing my skin. So quiet, so peaceful.

Luke Matheson was there, but so were the others. Dead ones. Some I recognized. Some I did not. There was the living, too. Logan sidled through the small crowd gathered up top, nuzzling Luke aside and they stood there, smiling down at me. He had his football jersey on, not a smear of dirt on that pretty face of his, nor was he wounded. It was the last thing I remembered of him when he boarded the plane that would take us to New York.

And one that would take us to our hell.

I saw a woman stood next to him with her gorgeous long red hair, and I realized I was looking at my mother. A calm washed over me from her sight. It didn't take long before my father joined her, curly short brown locks and a full beard that accented his hard jaw. Standing beside Luke and Logan, my father was a hulking statue. His steely blue eyes trained at me, though I couldn't quite read his expression, one of disappointment or one of relief, I was glad he was there.

I took a step.

My father shook his head, and I stopped. I didn't understand. Why wouldn't he want me there? Did I do something wrong? I took another step and my father shook his head again. Why can't I? I wanted to shout.

I blinked, and the day turned dark. The moon had replaced the sun, alone in a starless sky. The wind howled, drowning off the birds and the insects, and it almost knocked me off my feet, but I stood my ground, holding up my jacket against my body, trying to fight it off.

I noticed the bodies.

Dozens.

Hundreds of them.

Faces I recognized. Classmates, friends, neighbors... my mom. My dad. Logan, his neck wide open, sliced to the bone. Luke with that awful bullet on his head, oozing black goo through the gaping hole. Jun laid facing down with a dozen arrows laid out on his back like toothpicks on a sponge. Not far, Miguel muttered soft prayers against the wind, with both his arms missing, his shredded hands gripping a tenderizer mallet and a pan, both resting on his lap. Henry—poor, sweet Henry—with his little body torn in half next to him. Margot with large syringes sticking out of her gaping, empty eyes as Felipe bled beside her, his stomach riddled with bullets. And Aria, her chest cut open, heart laid out in front of Yousef, where his own exposed heart plucked out by crows.

I had blood on my hands, bathed it in from head to toe. I stood on a mountain of bodies miles high, gripped the edges of darkness beyond sight, and I couldn't move a muscle. Except for my throat, which I let out a scream without a voice, and the skies fall red, blinding me. That was a mercy.

I found myself on the ground, curled like a fetus, shaking and crying.

A female vector leered over me, a sneer of pity, but this one was different. No two-pupil eyes, but the same yellowish-gold lit her gaze; motherly and astute. She opened her mouth as if urging me to do something, though I couldn't make out her speech, garbled like eating mud.