The roar seems to shake the ground, nearly cracking through the core. We’re all immediately on our feet glancing at each other, readying ourselves for the second attack.

Except, neither of us can tell where the sound is coming from.

“I think it’s coming from there.” Jace jabs to the side with his short sword, his eyes wide and fearful.

“No,” Savannah shakes her head firmly. She’s faced away from the group considering the dark depths behind us. “It’s definitely from this direction.”

For me, I can’t tell where the sound is coming from. Sometimes, it seems to be coming from where Savannah is facing, but I can also hear it from behind me and also from behind Jace. Just like last time when the monster charged at us, it’s impossible to tell exactly where it is, only that it’s so huge that the ground trembles with each step.

And it’s only getting closer. And closer. And closer.

“Where’s Paisley?” Jace asks.

“Who cares about Paisley?” Tia snaps, her eyes wide and panicked as they turn to me. “What do we do?”

I don’t know.

It’s humbling and terrifying that they're looking to me for leadership here. Maybe they've built me up to always have the answers because I portray myself as always having the answers.

But that's only because I’ve lived in that future before.

But things are changing now. And everything here is new territory.

I truly don't know how to fight a monster we can't even see yet. Especially without Wolf.

My heart races, and bile is in my throat choking me with fear. My entire body is frozen in fear. A part of me wants to just fall to the ground and let whatever wants to happen happen. I’m so tired of this, so tired of fighting my fate.

So tired of dying.

Maybe if I die again, I can wake up in a different existence, where I didn’t make all these damn choices that brought me to this point, gored by a beast we can’t even see.

I told you there won't be any more chances.

Oh so you're speaking to me again, I snap internally at the voice, as it laughs once again. But at least that manages to jog me out of the state of being frozen with terror.

I can't die here.

My friends. I have to save them. Not just the ones here, but the ones I'm yet to meet. They're waiting for me.

But how do I fight back? I can't win here.

You can beat it. This time I imagine Wolf’s voice in my head. Just like I taught you.

But my insecurity is even louder. No, you can't. Every ugly thought I've ever had about myself seems to echo louder than the monster's footsteps. He's wrong. You're nothing but an imposter and a thief, stealing bits of other people's glory and passing it off as your own.

Like with Savannah and the Mountain.

And Tyne and the dinner.

And Savannah and Wolf.

And now that you have no one to steal from, you're flailing in the air.

The growling is getting closer. The corners of my vision dim as my heart races as though the darkness is trying to close in again. No. I can't lose my sight on top of everything.

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I press my hand to my stomach and take massive deep breaths.

Savannah and Jace brandish their weapons, spinning around wildly. Tia and I hold our daggers.

There are four of us but I still feel overpowered by whatever is slowly approaching. We still don't know where the monster is coming from.

Except...we know one place where he’s not coming from.

Above.

“The trees!” Everyone turns to me at my shout and I gesture up. “Get in the trees!”

They blink, but Tia doesn’t have to be told twice. With surprising agility, she scrambles up the bark using the ridges to propel herself onto a branch. Then she holds down her hands to me and says, “Come on. I’ll throw you to the branch above and then you'll hoist me up.”

I nod and then immediately grab her arms, glancing over for just a second to make sure that Jace and Savannah are doing the same thing. They are and so I focus on climbing myself.

Tia grits her teeth and grunts as she swings me back and forth a couple of times to build momentum, and then she throws me into the air. I grab the branch, above her, feeling a splinter dig into my palm I bite my lip against the pain. That’s not important right now. What’s important is getting out of this alive.

I pull myself up, silently thanking Wolf for all the drills he put me through, which enabled me to have the strength to do this. I sit on the branch triumphantly, and then I reach down and pull Tia up too.

We both catch our breaths resting on it as we see Jace and Savannah opposite us doing the same.

And then we wait.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Thwack.

With a hit that sends one of the trees folding over, the monster finally appears, tall and imposing.

True fear, unlike anything I've ever felt before slices through me.

The monster is nearly the height of a tree. It looks serpentine but walks on two legs, hunched over with a horn emanating from his head. And wings at his back.

Wing.

God, we're so fucked.

I gesture to Jace to remain silent as the monster approaches us, sniffing around around. His eyes gleam like vicious emeralds in the dark and I try not to even breathe too loudly. And then I see Sav swallow.

It's eyes are immediately on them.

It charges but Savannah immediately leaps into the air, thrusting her sword into the crevice of his neck. The monster roars and spins around and she flies off his back, but bounces off a tree, before landing lithely on her feet. The monster stomps to her again, but Jace jumps out of the tree and runs in front of her, holding his sword.

Tia and I share a look before instantly jumping down. We can’t leave our friends to face the beast alone.

Savannah bounces on her toes, gingerly glances over, and nods at my questioning look. I'm okay.

I make hand signals, not sure why we're remaining silent when the monster has already detected us but it seems like the right call.

My teammates all nod in unison getting my meaning and then, as one, we attack.

Jace and I aim for the legs while the other two aim high, stabbing into the monster's flesh. The monster roars and slashes his clawed hand at me. I duck, but not fast enough. It gets me in the shoulder and pain slices through my arm but I still keep moving jabbing my dagger into his legs.

It groans.

Good. At least, our weapons can penetrate its skin.

But I don't account for its wings, and with one might flap, the air shoves me back a few feet and I land on my ass.

Still, I get up and continue.

We go after the monster, again and again, stabbing slashing avoiding its counterattacks.

Slowly, we learn more about it. It's slow, and can't see very well. Its hits are powerful but not as much as the first monster we encountered.

But it's also terrifyingly resilient.

No matter how many hits we land, it refuses to go down. Finally, the exhaustion that I'd been fighting before starts to take over. Sweat rolls down my back, my arms ache from gripping the sword, and I start to feel every wound on my body.

But I don't give in. We keep going.

And then finally with a roar, the monster jumps through the trees and takes flight.

We don’t hesitate then. We run.

We don’t know what we’re running to but we’re running away from him. I getting good at slapping the leaves out of my face, and getting into the rhythm of it. I dash through and pump my arms and my legs as fast as I can go.

Then I turn around.

No one is behind me. Not my teammates or the beast.

Drat. We lost each other again.

"Tia! Jace! Savanna!"

No answer.

The monster roars, and this time I do hear it from above me. I start running again, telling myself that I need to be alive to find my friends. I run faster than I've ever run in my life, but I can hear it approaching quickly and I know that it’s going to catch me eventually. It’s nearly on top of me.

I try to look on the bright side. I‘m at least glad it's me and not my friends that it came after.

I'm also glad that maybe I can kill this thing before I die.

I turn around, and face it, holding out my dagger. The sheer force of wind it brings sends me flying to the ground, and it crouches over me, roaring in my face.

I yell back and stab my sword into its side. We both scream as I rip it out and do it again and again and again.

Red and black liquid black spill over me. Remembering a trick from my past, I stab into its eyes and it screams. But then out of nowhere, the monster is ripped from me.

It slams into the tree and cries out as someone else roars at it.

And then my vision is blurry but the last thing I see before I close my eyes is a yellow gaze.

Wolf.