“I heard something.”

Quill pushed off sleep and sat up. The fire still glowed dimly, and shadows flickered over Terrence’s face as he crouched over her. “What?”

“Outside. I think there’s something out there.”

Quill didn’t waste time questioning if it had been a nightmare. Suddenly alert, she stood up and looked through the window. The light inside made it difficult to see through it, and all she could hear was the soft patter of rain. Her eyes narrowed and she strained her ears. The sound was so quiet that she almost missed it, almost passed it off as just another sound of the night, had fifteen years of fear not sharpened her senses. Almost imperceptible, it was the sound of boots on mud.

“Go. Hide. Do it now,” she whispered frantically. Scooping up Aurelien, she cursed her naivety. The fire had indeed warded away the monsters, but it had been a beacon to any intelligent being with an eye out for easy prey. Now, they were in trouble.

She ran, leaving the tent and everything in it behind. Bitterly, she thought of how Havenport had confiscated all firearms, the city’s final sin following the ration cut, the fires, and the attempt at covering up how a sea serpent had decided that sailors were its new favorite snack. It was no wonder that people had been rioting. If Renn had been there, he’d probably have fought back too. Instead, Quill had taken her children and fled.

Terrence, ten steps ahead of her, was already out of sight. Quill followed, shushing Aure as she started to whimper. It was difficult to be fast and quiet, especially with a child in her arms, and she was running out of time. She pried open an old closet door just off the hallway and leaned against the back, closing it carefully behind her. Fifteen years worth of dust found themselves dislodged, and little Aure sneezed. Quill shushed her and peered through the slits. They offered a poor view of the living room, but it was better than nothing.

The coats around her were a soft curtain of fabric, almost shielding them from the outside world. Quill closed her eyes and forced herself to relax, forced her breathing to go even. Her hand pressed gently across her daughter’s mouth, and she held her still, willing calmness to take hold. A heavy pair of footsteps threatened to break her composure, but it held firm. Finally, she opened her eyes.

There were two boots, one black and one brown, standing just meters away. Quill could see the mud caked into them. The man they were attached to paused, bent down, and opened the tent. She forced herself to remain calm, to quiet her breathing and slow her traitorous heartbeat.

Finding no one inside the tent, the man discovered the pack of food and started rummaging through it. Quill tried desperately to think of some secondary plan. The bandit was close, so close that she could see his eyes and the deer rifle he held at his side. If she’d been alone, Quill might have been quiet enough to escape his notice. But she wasn’t, and the closet air was heavy with dust. Aurelien broke into a fit of coughing.

The bandit stopped.

“Hey moron! You looking for someone?”

Terrence had popped out from wherever he’d been hiding to stand in plain view, and the bandit swiveled in surprise. For a moment, it looked as though Terrence was going to throw out another insult, but he seemed to realize he’d garnered enough unwanted attention and took off instead. Ducking under the bandit, he made a beeline for the door. Coincidentally, it was also a direct route to the hands of a second bandit.

Quill wasn’t a very strong person, but she was all her family had.

A wooden bar held up the ten or so coats in the closet. Its ends were tipped with metal. When it made contact with the first bandit’s head, the coats and hangers slid down and threw off Quill’s balance. The man’s knees bent, but he would’ve been fine with a moment to recover. Quill didn’t give it to him. Her second strike came down harder than the first, and as the dazed bandit staggered to the side to avoid the blow, it caught him on the temple and he fell, knocked out cold.

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The second bandit dropped Terrence and fumbled with his weapon. Once again, Quill reacted without hesitation or thought. She didn’t stop until the bandit had quit moving. Breathing hard, she still stood at the ready, prepared to strike again if she was required to. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

Terrence was still staring at the two bloody, possibly dead men. “I think so,” he said. Not taking his eyes off the men, he stood up and put his back to the wall. Now that it was quiet, they could both hear Aurelien wailing in the closet. “We should get out of here, right Mom?”

Whatever fighting spirit had possessed her seemed to return to its hiding place. Quill’s grip slackened and she lowered the weapon. “We should,” she stated. Stepping hesitantly backwards, she retrieved her wailing daughter from the closet. “Come on, we should go quickly.”

“What about our stuff?”

She paused and looked back at the tent. It would take time to pack it up, time they didn’t have if more bandits were around. But then again, how could they survive unsheltered in the wilderness?

The brief sound of gunshots outside made up her mind. No tent was worth their lives.

“Grab something light and run. We’ll get the rest later if we can,” she said, knowing that Terrence was well aware that they wouldn’t come back. While he was packing, she knelt beside one of the motionless men and gripped the base of his hunting rifle. Blood still poured from the wound on his head, which was much deeper than she’d initially figured. Lord, understand that I’ve only done what had to be done, and forgive me if I have to keep doing it, she thought silently, pulling. With the gun free, she put it away and took one last look at the room.

The tent was still set up on the floor, looking as weathered as ever. The fire had died, with only a few embers glowing faintly in the ash. The second man’s rifle was lodged underneath him. As much as it could’ve helped, they didn’t need another ten pounds of dead metal to carry. That was one burden she hoped to keep Terrence from bearing.

It was time to go.

Outside seemed to be empty of people. Quill checked through the windows and then creaked open the door, stepping out with her children close behind. She peered around the side of the house, seeing nobody. She stepped onto the driveway—wait. There was a truck parked on the road. It was a little ways away, far enough that the engine wouldn’t wake a family sleeping obliviously in one of the houses, and crouching behind it there was a bandit. He was hiding, but clearly not from her.

Terrence gripped her arm, noticing it a second before she did. Quill covered her daughter’s mouth and shrank into the bushes, biting back her own scream. The cold feeling that washed over her was entirely unrelated to the night air or rain. Instinctively, she froze.

The monster on the road was reminiscent of a centipede, but far larger than a real one had any right to be. It floated ethereally above them, aberrant energy rippling down its myriad segments. Slowly, it made its way down the road, twisting this way and that. Was it listening for them? Looking for movement? The worst part was not knowing whether she should run, hide, or fight.

She felt movement at her side. Terrence had gotten ahold of the deer rifle, and he was trying to use it with as little movement as possible. “No!” Quill mouthed with horror, clasping his hand.

“Why not?” he hissed.

Because it might kill the creature, and then the bandits would know where they were? Because the creature might be impervious to bullets and they would only draw its wrath? Because she was hoping the monster might just go away? Maybe she was passing up a golden opportunity by not firing. “Just wait,” she finally whispered.

The monster wove through the air, twisting back and forth in its bold approach to the truck. It would find the bandit soon, and he seemed to realize it, for Quill could see his trembling fingers fumble with his weapon. When he could take the suspense no longer he leapt up, cursing, and opened fire. A chorus of other weapons joined in from their hiding places around the house, making Quill pull her children closer, as ineffective as a shield as her body might be. But through it all the creature hissed, pestered but barely harmed, and still determined to have something to show for its trouble. It dove, snatching for the bandit, and held him by a leg. His two companions ceased firing to flee into the woods. They had few loyalties.

Quill scooped up Aure and grabbed Terrence’s hand. “Come on!” she shouted. But Terrence stood frozen, and even as she pulled him along, Quill realized that she was looking back too.

The monster was still holding the bandit’s leg, and as they watched, it pried off one of his shoes. When it moved to take off the other, he was still screaming his head off. As she ran, Quill’s overloaded mind wished he would stop. The monster apparently didn’t like it either, because after fumbling with the other shoe for a little while, it flipped the man over and snapped his neck.

The transition from life to limpness was too easy, too quick. Quill felt the bile rising up her throat, but there was no time for being sick. There was nothing to do but run, fast and fearful, into the woods and the night.