When she finds herself back in Sioux Falls on a job, a twist of fate puts Evelyn Marshall in the path of the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. With nowhere left to run, the dark secrets in her past and the creatures who've hunted her are about to catch...
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Knowing that they were ready to leap to my defence should've made it easier to step outside, but I was still a bundle of nervous energy. I turned the handle and crossed the threshold; the door falling back into place behind me as I left the relative warmth and safety of Bobby's home. I raised my hands in surrender and took a few steps into the yard, hoping to prove to the pack that I had no intention of running back inside the moment they struck.
"Sid," I greeted. "You caught up quickly."
Two stray dogs snarled at either side of him, hackles raised, and teeth bared in threat. They were the mongrels I'd seen that day outside of the house. I hadn't given them much thought at the time. An oversight on my part. I should've known that he'd have contacts in many cities and towns that I still had ties to. No doubt one of them had called in the sighting of me when I'd first shown up in Sioux Falls.
"Never lost you," he said. "You should've figured that out the last time we met. How's the neck, by the way? Still got the scars from that little love bite I left you with?"
The monster inside was snarling, practically foaming at the mouth to be released. I couldn't. Not yet. I needed to buy Bobby and the others more time. Instead, I raised a hand to my throat and touched the scars. Explaining being attacked by a feral dog hadn't been fun at the hospital when I'd staggered through the door. Neither was shrugging off the suggestions of the doctors to stay when I dragged myself out of there less than twenty-four hours later.
"Does it matter? You're just going to finish the job this time."
"Fair's fair, Evie. An eye for an eye. Your skin for theirs. You knew this was coming after you brought those hunters down on us."
"You knew what I'd done when you took me in," I countered.
"I did. And I regret not killing you on the spot and handing you over to the hunters every damn day."
"So, what's the play?" I asked. "Kill me?"
"If I must," he said. "I'd rather take you to the hunters alive."
"You think they'll leave you alone once they have me?" I almost laughed. "How many more of them have you killed since they started hunting you? This is way bigger than just me and you know it."
The pack shifted uneasily. It was fear. Doubt. Sid had likely promised them peace and a return to their old lives once I'd been dealt with. It would've explained why they'd blindly followed in his crusade to chase me across continents in the name of justice. As I said, they were loyal. Stupidly so. If any of them had taken a moment to think for themselves they'd have realised that I wasn't the problem anymore. I was just the spark that lit the fuse. A fuse that led to an explosive war between hunters and skinwalkers. They were all fair game to the hunters, now, and just handing me over wouldn't make up for all the death and destruction their battles had wrought.
Hell, the hunters had probably forgotten what'd started their campaign of slaughtering skinwalkers in the first place.
"To be clear," I said. "My choices here are death now or death later?"
