Siena

He's dying.

It was all Siena could think as she watched Isaac on the porch from the clearing in front of the cabin. Her brain couldn't process anything else. Not the mass of tangible darkness spilling from Isaac's mouth and choking his scream, widening and writhing until the corners of his lips split. Not the pop and crack of his skull. The blood pouring from his eyes.

Siena understood the dying part, but not why he was dying or what was killing him. Only that it was tearing him open from the inside out.

His throat split. Blood pulsed from the artery in his neck. Another pop, and his jaw unhinged with a rip.

She couldn't stop it.

Then came the blast of the shotgun and the explosion from Isaac's chest.

Now this weapon—this violence—was familiar. And when the remains of Isaac collapsed, Emmett stood behind him, still reeling from the recoil.

He'd killed him. Emmett had killed Isaac.

Beneath her scream, Emmett told her to run.

Tendrils of darkness still twisted near Isaac's body. Whatever had escaped his mouth was alive and growing, composed of the same darkness as the hovering entity that had spoken to her in the woods. Her mind kept latching on to the words tendrils and tentacles, but she was only perceiving the shapes. The darkness was amorphous, like she was reliving a memory and her brain was trying to block out the traumatic bits.

Emmett dropped a shell, which rolled through the doorway, and he swore. He finally reloaded the shotgun, aimed, and shot the darkness. The cabin patio exploded in shards of wood and chunks of cement, but the darkness continued to swell and shift, rolling from the cabin toward her.

"Siena, RUN!"

She didn't want to leave Emmett alone with this thing, but her presence wouldn't spare him. She turned toward the thick forest and sprinted beyond the tree line.

There used to be a path here, back when the Briardark was Deadswitch. Coils of tangled foliage now buried the ground. But she was fast and strong, her feet used to navigating wild landscapes. She hurled herself over a decaying log as another shot rang out behind her. Her toe snagged on a root, but she rebalanced herself, inhaling breath after ragged breath. She had no direction but forward, either until she tripped or collapsed from exhaustion... whichever came first.

Siena slid down a hill, the foliage ebbing to slatelike rock. The density of the forest remained constant. She thought she heard her name right behind her but didn't stop out of fear, not even when shards of darkness shot over her head into the tree canopies, silently disappearing on impact. Another wave flew over her head into the surrounding trees. Seven of them? Eight? She couldn't spare them her attention when the ground raced beneath her feet.

A log cut across the path up ahead, its width almost half Siena's height. She picked up speed and leapt, gaining purchase at the top of the log and launching herself toward the only open patch of ground.

Right before she landed, the dirt beneath her disappeared.

Not just where she was about to land, but everywhere. Siena pedaled her feet against a vanished mountain, a vanished sky.

The abyss sucked away everything save the thud of her heart, and the trees. The trees remained.

Gravity lost its grip on her. She hovered, suspended over a tangled network of roots vaster than the earth. Meteor-like light shot through the infinite filaments in a rhythmic pattern. They weren't roots at all, but neurons. A brain.

And even deeper—light-years deeper—a glowing red organ shuddered and clenched. Shuddered and clenched.

The noise she heard came not from her own heart.

Siena's foot rolled as it hit the dirt.

She spun her arms and fell, the ground knocking the air from her lungs. She coaxed back her breath and blinked through a blur of tears. Above, limbs and branches threaded the canopy together, the sky and mountain returned.

Still, the ground pulsed against the small of her back, and Siena thought of the beating tunnel beneath the tree, the thrum against her hand.

Just like the hovering shadow had spoken to her in the woods, it spoke again, every word reverberating down her spine.

You can't run. I am everywhere.

The lightning bolt of fear struck her heart so violently, she almost laughed in a last-ditch effort to smother it.

Something twitched against her neck. Siena caught it and lifted her hand, the beetle crawling across her knuckles.

He—whatever he was—had been with her all this time.

The beetle fluttered away, and Siena spread her arms open toward the canopy. For the darkness. She was tired. Scared. Angry.

"What the hell do you want with me?" she asked.

"I want to get you the fuck outta here."

And then Cam was there, dropping to her knees next to Siena. She grabbed Siena's hand and yanked her forward until she sat.

Siena broke from her stupor and scrambled to her knees, throwing her arms around Cam's neck. "How," she croaked. But the how didn't matter. She was alive, and okay, and here, with Siena.

But here wasn't safe. Not for either of them.

You can't run. I am everywhere.

Nowhere was safe.

"I heard you scream," Cam said. "And those black things in the air, chasing you. Are they gone?"

"I... I don't know." Over Cam's shoulder, Siena's gaze darted around the woods, but everything was still. "Did you see... The ground was gone, and the roots were neurons, and I saw a heart. The forest has a heart."

"How hard did you hit your head when you fell off that log?" Cam grabbed Siena's shoulders and pushed her back until they stared at each other. Cam's clothes plastered her body, water dripping from the ends of her hair.

"Why are you wet?" Siena asked.

"Siena, listen to me. Isaac was right."

Isaac.

"Isaac's dead," Siena said. "Emmett..." She shook her head and brushed away a tear.

Cam blanched. "Dead?"

"This black shadow came out of his mouth. A parasite or something."

"A parasite?"

"It was killing Isaac, and then Emmett shot him and told me to run. I don't even know if Emmett's okay."

The muscles in Cam's jaw rippled. She blinked her watery eyes and took a deep breath, nodding at Siena's chest. "That his blood?"

Siena looked down at the red flecks covering her shirt, and the smear across her arm. She hadn't realized she'd been close enough to get caught in the spray. "Oh, god," she muttered. He was dead, and Siena didn't even understand why.

She returned her attention to Cam. "Why do you think Isaac was right? And what happened to you?"

Cam's throat bobbed as she swallowed. "Something that makes me believe Isaac wasn't completely off his rocker. And... if your life really is at risk because something wants you dead, maybe it's true that Emmett and I—especially me—will only stop you from getting out of here."

"Why would you think that?"

Cam smiled sadly, and Siena's heart clenched.

"There's something you're not telling me." Siena's eyes burned, and she held out her pinkie. "We made a pact."

Cam wrapped her pinkie around Siena's. "You know everything there is to know. I promise. Come on." She grabbed Siena's hands and pulled her up. "Let's go make sure that ex-fiancé of yours is still alive."