Her mother's scream echoed behind her, harrowing and filled with regret, wrenching her heart in a tight fist.
Audrey hesitated at the door. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Run and don't look back, her mother had instructed. I'll do all I can to stop him, she'd promised.
But from all indications the monster proved stronger than even her maternal instincts to protect her daughter.
Another sound, this time a guttural growl, tore through the world. It was followed by a small gasp as bones snapped. And Audrey knew.
Both her parents were gone. In one night. At the hands of the beastly man called Xander. And there was nothing stopping him from mauling her now. She existed alone in the world.
Adrenaline flooded her veins despite that persisting urge to just give up. That comfort of surrendering to the claws. Of leaving this fractured world behind.
