Creators(10)

I turned away, trusting that Robert could handle taking out the second creature. I had to trust that he could do it.

I reached down and pulled the knife I knew Lockwood had hidden in his boot. I had watched as he distracted a female solider earlier at dinner with his lame attempts at humor, swiping her dagger when she wasn’t looking. I didn’t say anything to him at the time. I knew he took it in case something like this happened. Something like this always seemed to happen.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lockwood grunted, towering over my sister like a shield. Sweat covered his brow as he turned back and forth between Robert fighting the creature and Henry running toward us, failing to see through the darkness the creature before us.

As I clutched the knife in my hand, pulling myself up onto my knees, I knew what I was going to do. I knew what I was going to risk. I saw it all. Every bad thing that had happened in my life. Things that seemed out of my control. Things I had let happen to me. The chosen ones taking my father away, my mother committing suicide, losing Emma. Helping cover up the death of a young girl at Templeton, a girl I knew nothing about except that she was a servant like me, forced to pay for the sins of others. Burying the young chosen ones that Henry and his girlfriend had murdered, losing James over and over again. That’s why the world was the way it was. My parents, their parents, all the generations before me—they had just sat back. A chain reaction.

I couldn’t be the victim. Not anymore. It was stupid, but sometimes the stupid thing and the right thing seemed to be one and the same. These things were strong but not clever. Feral but not imperious.

“Tess!” Henry screamed toward us again. At the sound, the creature stopped feeding and slowly twisted his body around. He was hungry for seconds.

I looked back at Robert. While he had quickly and efficiently dispatched of the creature, three more had appeared. I would have to do this on my own. I had one chance. I looked down at my sister, forcing back the tears that pooled in my eyes. “Keep her safe until I come back,” I spat out to Lockwood.

I had every intention of surviving.

I wasn’t going out of the world like this.

The creature crouched, growling at Henry, who skidded to a stop, his eyes wide with fear. The monster began to stalk toward his prey, and I knew that this was it. I bolted, holding onto the knife until the handle dug into my skin. Melding with the weapon. With a wild scream, I flung myself onto the back of the creature. The abomination barely registered my weight, briefly staggering as he moved toward Henry. He thought I was weak. Insignificant. He had been programmed to take out the larger target first. He would deal with me later.

My enemy, the tool of the council, brought his fist down onto Henry’s head before he could even lift a hand in defense. Henry toppled to the ground, knocked unconscious. I reached back and jutted the knife into the side of the creature’s neck. With a roar, the monster threw me over his shoulder onto the ground. He fumbled for the knife that was still lodged in the side of his neck. Every bone in my body tingled and vibrated with the pain of being smashed onto the ground. I couldn’t move. I could only watch as the thing before me yanked the knife from his neck, dark, angry blood spurting out.

The creature’s nostrils flared as he reached down, grabbing my by the shirt. As he pulled me toward him, ready to tear me limb from limb, one thought crossed my mind: I was happy. I wouldn’t die a victim. I would die fighting. Maybe Henry could still escape, and maybe he couldn’t. But I would die fighting.

“Tessie!”

The monster turned his head in the direction of my father’s voice, and I knew the distraction awarded me a second chance at taking the thing down. I balled my hand into a fist, pulled it back, and let it land right in the monster’s throat. There was no way the hit would do any damage, but it was enough to startle him.

He dropped me onto the ground. As I frantically scrambled to my knees in an attempt to escape, I heard the shot. One shot. Loud. Clear. Perfect. The creature fell to the ground next to me.

As a pair of feet ran toward me, I knew one thing for certain:

My father had just saved my life.

“What the hell were you thinking?” my father barked, crouching down and examining me for any damage. With the exception of a few bruises from being pummeled to the ground, I was fine.

“Just go back to your soldiers. They need you more than I do,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest and looking toward my father’s army, who sat huddled against the fire where the bodies of six chosen ones sat burning, the smell of decaying flesh burning my nose and making my eyes water. It wasn’t the first time I had come in contact with the smell, but that didn’t mean it got any less horrifying. When Eric had asked why we were wasting time burning the bodies, when my father certainly had no time to bury McNair, he replied that it was what his men needed. It was what they had earned.