They didn’t make it to the water.

Michaela pulled Clark to a stop in a clearing. He turned his face to the sky as he struggled to catch his breath. Michaela breathed deeply, not because she was winded, but to force her body to be still, to wait. She pulled the dagger from her boot, flexing her fingers around the small handle.

The trees stood tall and slender around them with the moon hanging directly overhead. Beneath their feet, the leaves crunched with every anxious shift, making the only sound in the woods. Nothing else talked or walked or rustled, and everyone and everything held its breath.

It felt like hours, but it was likely only seconds, before they arrived.

Michaela sensed them first. The air moved differently as it tickled past her skin, the cool updraft twisting her hair and sprouting chill bumps along her arms. She heard the strong, nearly silent wing beats above her head. The leaves rustled in a breeze that carried their scent of rot and decay. And anger.

The night was quiet enough that Michaela heard the whispers as the Watchers started spinning their magic. The words came from all directions, humming like a breeze, coming and going, undulating with the tone of the spell. Clark clutched Michaela’s hand.

The air grew hot, hotter, unbearably hot. Michaela rotated her fist, adjusting her sweat slickened grip on the knife. The heat boiled the acid in her stomach up the back of her throat, twisting and cramping her gut.

With the heat came flashing bursts of lightning across the sky, a bright white against the black. The lightning burst like a strobe light.

Their words lifted. With their vigor came a groaning beneath Michaela’s and Clark’s feet. A growing vibration rose from deep in the earth. It reached the surface and shook the soil underfoot. Clark grabbed Michaela’s arm as the ground broiled.

The time had come.

The trees danced in time to the ground. The limbs swayed, and the trunks bowed even though there was little wind. As Michaela watched, the trees’ bark came to life, biting and snarling at them. Clark pressed against Michaela as the trees, straining against their roots, reached for them.

But there wasn’t enough room in the little clearing, and there was nowhere to go. The limbs slashed through the air like knives, cutting Michaela’s cheek and slicing Clark’s palm. Their blood, rolling to the ground in small droplets, seemed to fuel the churning beneath their feet.

All around them, the leaves alighted with fire but never burned. They were blinding pinpricks of searing light, but they only made the night darker by ruining Michaela’s night vision. She shielded her eyes with her dirty, bloody hands.

The whispering grew louder and louder.

Clark lurched forward as the ground reared. As he struggled to stand, a limb clasped his forearm and drug him deeper into the woods. Michaela leapt after him, grabbing his shirt with one hand and slamming her dagger into the limb with the other. The tree let out a horrible scream.

They managed to get away before the tree bent in half and slammed into the ground where they stood only a second before.

Blood ran down Clark’s leg. A deep cut ran the length of his shin, revealing a glint of bone. As he watched the blood drip to the ground, his face became pale, drawn tight with fear. He stared at Michaela with wide eyes that made him look too young.

He turned and threw up.

Like hands of the dead reaching from their graves, the roots pried from the ground and twined toward their ankles. Michaela kicked at the roots and batted at the limbs that tried to wrap around Clark’s neck.

They could not stand for being swatted down or ripped back. They were like marionettes, possessed dolls, dancing and twisting in the darkness.

Ominous clouds churned and swirled, covering the moon and promising ill will. The air began to spin into a vortex around them, twisting the trees in even crazier directions. The wind grew so forceful, Michaela reached for Clark and hung on as they sank to their knees.

Michaela tasted the electricity. She looked up. Lightning hit the ground in front of them. Behind them. Beside them. It hit the trees, sending bark flying and making the leaves fall like rain, burning their skin like brutal drops of acid.

The ground gave a mighty roar before splitting between Michaela and Clark. They jerked to their feet before they fell into the splitting void. Clark’s eyes were glued to the ground, but Michaela watched the sky.

Move! She yelled. But she made no noise.

She shoved Clark away and dove after him to avoid a bolt. It sizzled in her bones. The shock of it made her teeth hurt way back in her head, giving her a pulsing headache that blurred her vision.

We have to go, she thought, rising from the ground. Just beyond their ring of hell was quiet and still, and if they could reach it, Michaela thought they might make it to water. This was only the beginning. The Watchers were just toying with their prey before they ate it.

They wouldn’t last much longer.

Go! She screamed, but she still couldn’t make a sound.

She jumped across the widening gap, grabbing Clark by the shirt. He pivoted, expecting a Watcher. She grabbed Clark’s hand before he fell into a nearby tree with its mouth open, ready to devour him.

Yanking him along, they ran, but they didn’t make it far.

A Watcher fell from the sky before them.

The angel’s skin was wrinkled, but his body was young. The wings at his back were thin, black webs. His eyes were empty, hollow sockets. He flashed his grimy, crumbling teeth.

Michaela started backing up, towing a frozen Clark with her. But the limbs arched above their heads and twined behind their backs, sealing them in. The Watcher stepped forward, making a cackling, rattling sound that might have been laughter.

The Watcher raised his sword in the air, its ancient metal glinting in the moonlight as it slashed toward her. Michaela braced for the bite of the blade when a force like a wrecking ball hit her from the side, knocking her to the ground.

Stunned, she felt her chest. The cut was merely a graze with only a small amount of blood. Clark had shoved her out of the way. She searched for him, straining to see through the smoke from the lightning.

The decrepit angel held Clark close, his horrible mouth twisted into a vulgar smile as he pulled his sword from Clark’s belly. In a flash of lightning, Michaela watched her friend’s body fall. His pink hair caught the light as his head banged limply into the ground. His electric blue eyes were closed, his mouth gaping open.

She screamed.

The almighty sound erupted from her mouth. It was a wild sound ripping from her lips, holding every ounce of pain and anger in its fibers. It echoed in the air, like a thousand Michaela’s screaming back to her. It was the first sound she’d made, and it was deafening.

Michaela scrambled over to him. The roots twined around her ankles. Limbs brushed over her shoulders and into her hair as she bent over Clark. Her hands cradled his head, pulling his body into her lap. She brushed her fingers across his face, but they were shaking so bad she couldn’t feel for a pulse.

“Clark!” Her voice cracked in the air scorched by the Watchers’ magic.

He blinked at her. He was alive. But through his fingers, poured a rich, bright blood that ebbed and flowed with the beat of his heart. His lips trembled, and Michaela smelled death on his skin. He tried to smile at her, but it was the slightest, weakest version of his cocky smirk. And it never reached his eyes, which were wide, unblinking, and so very afraid. In that moment, Clark looked much too young.

Michaela realized she was crying. Of all the things she had been through, she didn’t think she could survive Clark dying in her arms. Her best friend’s death would crack her apart.

“Clark. Clark. Clark. Clark.”

To Clark, the pain was just a surprise. The kind that made your heart stutter and clench for a beat then gasp a clutched release. Clark stared down at his chest and saw the gaping hole of red beneath his numb fingers. Now that it was finally time, he wondered why dying felt so easy.

Michaela yanked his hands away and pressed hers to the wound.

Clark must have blacked out because when he awoke, Michaela had transformed above him. For a second he forgot about dying as he marveled at her. Limbs twisted through her hair; roots wrapped farther up her legs. She swiped a hand across her paleface, smearing blood from cheek to cheek. With rabid eyes, she spat it from her mouth.

She hissed. Clark felt her press her body over his.

Someone was coming. Michaela snaked her head around. She looked like a wild thing grown straight from the ground.

Clark peered over her shoulder to see the Watcher who would kill them both.

But it wasn’t a Watcher at all. He surprised both of them when he spoke.

“Mom?”