"If you throw me to the wolves, I will return leading the pack." - Unknown
Chapter Fifty-Two
Ethel's POV
I hadn't paused in the face of blood and cruelty since I was a child, but I froze. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to. My legs felt shackled, my wrists bound in chains and my face throbbing like someone had just punched me. Nausea broiled in my stomach and vile crawled up my throat.
The zombies before me suddenly fell, falling to their knees with strangled cries. The ringing silence in my head slowly disappeared and a ferocious snapping replaced it. Tycho sunk his jaws into the dead girl's side, wrenching her away from me and tearing apart bone and cloth.
My eyes followed her as she fell apart under Tycho's teeth, watched her mangled fingers clench around a beaded bracelet. When Tycho finally ripped her head off her neck, I could've sworn her eyes closed in relief. Shivers passed through my body, carefully easing the terrified paralysis in my limbs. Muscle by muscle my body unfurled, leaving me panting as the sounds of recently dead zombies were savaged by Tamal and Draven.
Panting, Tycho trotted over to me, staring at me as a bloody smile curled his mouth. One big paw nudged my leg, and the black fur around his eyes furrowed. I threw my arms around his big chest, feeling tears glaze the corner of my eyes. Dammit, Ethel, get it together.
"Thank you, baby, thank you," I praised between choked breaths. The realization that I could've been ripped apart by the undead rang in my head.
I snatched up the fallen sword by my feet, my fingers clutching it tightly. This thing wasn't parting from my hands until I was back safe in the castle in our room, and even then I was keeping it under my pillow. Calmness settled in me as I stood. A voice in my head kept reminding me that I couldn't do anything about those people, that I just had to make it out alive. Killing them would be a mercy now.
The groans of the damned had faded down into a quiet hum. I aimed my sights on a few along the edge of the mausoleum. They matched my stare, coming after me with a like-minded focus. I met them with a steel blade, with flashes of my fights with Father Bravian flashing before me.
Some people become better fighters because they fear pain. I'd practiced and forced myself to work harder back then because I knew the moment I was under someone's blade or gun, I'd probably sit there and let them do it. Now I had something to live for--for Tycho, for Draven, for Rheema, Tamal and the kids. For my family.
The zombies had nothing, and for that I downed them with clean slashes, dug the KA-BAR on my side into their skulls. Like Tamal had said, we didn't know what would kill them. So, I ripped their skulls from their spinal cords, throwing bones and intestines across the ground without thought.
I fell into a former dance, slamming, stabbing and slicing my way through the zombies. Their cries and groans became background music that ebbed away with every one I destroyed. Sweat poured down my skin as I kept going, pushing through cramps that began in my stomach and the strain in my legs. I would make sure they were all finally put to rest.
When their caws finally faded and only rippling grass and tombstones greeted me, I stopped. Bones filled the ground like we'd just completely unearthed the cemetery. I walked through a pile of femurs, leaning up against a tree. Tycho trotted through the bones, and the look in his eyes said he certainly wasn't having the same qualms about this that I was. He gave me a look that asked, why I was so sad when we were in bone heaven?
أنت تقرأ
Brotherhood of Cain (Werewolf/Mafia)
المستذئب"Welcome to Citadel, a town full of monsters and meth!" As a notorious career criminal and the Alpha of Brotherhood of Cain, Draven Cain, is used to controlling everything. He knows exactly what happens in the cutthroat slums of Citadel: every g...
