I screwed my eyes shut in anguish, and when I opened them, light detonated around me. It was different from the other times it had happened. In comparison, the other times were mild. Just a quick flash. Very, very different to the carnage that was running through my veins right then. I felt like a man who’d lived his life in a dark room and for the first time, someone had flicked the switch on a halogen light. The world was so bright it took me a second to focus. When I did, I saw things clearly. More clearly than ever before. I saw synapses firing. I saw intricate strains of DNA knitting together the bodies of my pack members. I saw Mrs. O’Malley breathing. I didn’t hear it. I saw it. I saw the clear disturbance in the air as she did it. I heard birds chirping miles away. I heard fern fronds unfurling deep in the woods. I felt their seeds springing free. I felt them land and take hold in the earth.

At the same time, Jules’s cry echoed through me. I felt it in every cell in my body. It ignited a new kind of anger. The kind of anger that makes you deadly. I felt it seep out of the earth and run up my legs. I allowed myself to connect to its source. It felt dangerous. Almost too strong, but I didn’t try to stop it. No, I welcomed it. I let it flow through me until I was vibrating with power. When I felt so full of it, I thought I might burst, I shrugged out of Marty and Doug’s grip. I didn’t fight. I didn’t push or pull them off me. I simply shrugged my shoulders. They fell off me as if they’d been hit by a stun gun. I turned on Marty first. I blinked. I inhaled and exhaled. I saw his eyes growing large. His pupils contracted microscopically in fright. His pulse elevated considerably. I drew my fist back and drove it forward. I felt my knuckles connect with his face. Bone against bone. His gave way. It collapsed inward along with his cheek bone and part of his nose. He fell to the ground and didn’t move or make a sound. His heart was still beating, but it was faint and with each pulse it grew fainter still. Doug opened his mouth in some sort of protest, but I was in no mood for talking. I coiled my left fist and struck. A solid strike. A death strike. His spleen ruptured on impact. He fell back, choking, gargling on his own blood.