Chapter 6
1237 Words
Sera's Point of View
Trees kept rushing past my window. Black shapes that bled into blacker sky. The headlights only showed me a slice of road—everything else stayed lost in shadow.
I let my forehead rest against the glass. Cold. Good. Maybe it would help shut off my brain.
‘You're in danger.’
Kade's voice wouldn't stop replaying. That look on his face, wild and scared. I hated that I kept thinking about it. Hated that part of me still wanted to believe him after everything.
‘Don't trust anyone. Not your father.’
Which was ridiculous. Dad had actually been decent tonight. More than decent—gentle, even. After years of barely looking at me, he was finally trying to help.
So why did my gut keep screaming that something was wrong?
I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled in a shaky breath. This was probably just paranoia. Kade had messed with my head. That's all this was.
The car lurched.
Hard.
My hands clamped down on the wheel. "What the—"
The engine made this awful choking sound. Sputtered once, twice. Then just... quit.
I coasted forward as the headlights dimmed and died.
Everything went silent. Heavy, pressing silence that made my ears ring.
I twisted the key. Got nothing. Not even a click. Tried again—still nothing. The whole dashboard was black.
"No, s**t. Come on." My voice came out thin and shaky.
The car stayed dead.
I grabbed for my phone. Zero bars. Perfect. Because of course I'd break down in the middle of nowhere with no way to call for help.
My heart started doing that thing where it beats too fast and too hard. The trees were so close on both sides, branches scraping against the windows like they wanted in.
Something about this felt off. Way too quiet out here. No night birds, no crickets. Just my breathing, which sounded way louder than it should.
‘Stay in the car,’ I told myself. ‘Lock the doors. Wait it out.’
Except wait for what? Nobody was coming. Nobody even knew where I was.
My hand moved to the door handle before I could talk myself out of it.
The cold hit me as soon as I stepped out. I wrapped my arms tight around myself and moved to the front of the car. Maybe it was just a loose wire or something. Something fixable.
I popped the hood and stared down at the engine. In the dark, it was just a confusing mess of metal and shadows. I used my phone screen for light, but everything looked... fine? I mean, what did I know about engines, but nothing was obviously broken.
So why wouldn't it start?
Then my skin went cold. All my hair stood up at once.
That feeling. The one you get when you know you're being watched.
I looked up slow, phone shaking in my grip.
Something growled. Low and mean, coming from the darkness past my pathetic phone light.
I stopped breathing.
Another growl answered. Then another. They were all around me.
Shapes moved out from between the trees. Four of them. No—five. Wolves, but wrong. Too big, too ragged. Patchy fur and scarred faces. Eyes that caught the light and threw it back like dirty pennies.
Rogues.
My blood went cold so fast it hurt.
They watched me with their lips pulled back. Starving. Hunting.
One of them took a step closer.
“S-stop…” I stuttered.
When the rogue didn’t listen, I slowly stepped back then… I ran.
No thought, no plan. Pure panic sent me crashing toward the trees on the other side of the road.
The wolves exploded behind me—snarling, paws tearing up the ground. So fast. Goddess, they were fast.
"There!" one of them growled, the voice rough and barely human. "She runs!"
"I smell fear," another one laughed, cruel and excited. "Fresh meat."
Branches hit my face. Roots grabbed at my feet. My lungs felt like they were on fire but I kept going because stopping meant dying.
"Corner her!" The biggest one's voice boomed through the trees. "Don't let her reach the old territory!"
The sounds got closer. Hot breath on my heels. Jaws snapping inches away.
"Mine," one snarled, so close I could feel the vibration. "My kill!"
I threw myself left, crashed through a wall of undergrowth. Thorns ripped my clothes and skin. My ankle twisted wrong on a rock—pain shot straight up my leg—but the fear kept me moving.
There. Dense bushes, dark and tangled. I dove in and didn't stop until the branches closed around me completely.
I clamped my hand over my mouth. Tried to breathe quiet. My heart was going so hard I thought they'd hear it.
They burst into the clearing right after. I could see them through the leaves—pacing, sniffing, searching for me.
"She's here," one of them growled. "Blood. Sweat. Terror."
"Hiding like a rabbit," another one mocked. "Come out, little wolf. We only want to play."
Two came closer. Noses down, following my scent.
The biggest one stopped right at my hiding spot. Its nose twitched.
"Found you," it rumbled.
It knew I was here.
This was it, then. This was how it ended.
But something happened.
The wolf's ears went flat against its head. Its eyes got huge, showing white all around. It backed up, making this high whining sound.
The others saw it. All of them stopped hunting at once. Started moving backward instead.
They were looking at something behind me. Something I couldn't see.
Pure fear rolled off them.
The big one barked once—sharp and panicked—and they bolted. Just vanished back into the forest like they'd never been there.
I stayed frozen. Couldn't make sense of it.
What scared off rogue wolves?
I turned my head real slow.
A cave.
Right there, maybe ten feet back. The entrance was this gaping black hole in the hillside. The kind of darkness that seemed to swallow light instead of just blocking it.
That's what had scared them. Whatever lived in there.
I needed to run. Get away from here before those wolves came back or before whatever was in that cave came out.
But my legs wouldn't work. I was wrung out, shaking, barely able to stand.
Just a minute. One minute to catch my breath.
I pulled myself up using a tree trunk, my palms slick with blood and dirt. Every breath scraped like glass inside my chest. My clothes hung in tatters, skin burning from a dozen cuts that hadn’t stopped bleeding.
The cave loomed behind me—black, silent, watching.
I forced myself to turn away. One step. Just one step toward the trees.
A twig snapped somewhere in the forest. Close. Too close.
My head whipped around, heart slamming against my ribs. Shadows shifted between the trees, low and fast. Were they coming back?
Panic clawed at my throat. The forest meant hunters. The cave meant monsters.
Two choices. Both death.
I took another shaky step, choosing the forest.
And then—an arm shot out of the cave. Pale. Inhumanly fast. It snaked around my waist, cold as stone and strong enough to steal my breath.
I didn’t even get to scream.
The world went dark as I was yanked backward into the cave’s waiting mouth.
- Writer
