She screams for help again.

Warden keeps dropping. He’s twenty feet away now, and Dawn keeps turning to look up at him and then screaming again. And as he gets closer, she screams louder, more desperate, until it’s barely words coming out but just something primal.

It tears her throat raw.

But it doesn’t stop Warden. Warden keeps coming. He keeps coming and in Dawn’s eyes he’s not even close to the boy she thought she could be falling for.

He’s a monster.

And her screams don’t hurt him.

He’s ten feet above her now. Coming down fast. Whoever’s on the trail is crashing up through the bushes toward them, but they’re too slow, too late; Warden will get to Dawn first.

Dawn looks up at Warden and doesn’t even see life anymore in his eyes. Doesn’t even see a smile. Just grim, deadly determination. Like a shark.

He’s almost on top of her, and Dawn closes her eyes. She stops screaming, even.

It’s over.

All she can hope is that Warden kills her quickly.

But then Warden walks past her. She feels him brush past as though she isn’t even there. Listens as he continues down the slope of the mountain toward the innocent bystander who’s coming up toward them, drawn by Dawn’s screams, and hoping to help.

Instantly, Dawn knows what Warden is thinking. She’s too exhausted to move, but the bystander is a threat. She knows Warden means to neutralize that threat. She knows once that’s over, he’ll come back for her.

Dawn starts screaming again. Loud as she can.

This time, she’s screaming at the bystander to run.

Chapter 122

THE MAN DOESN’T RUN. Not in time, anyway. Dawn hears him say something as Warden appears on the slope above him. She can’t make out the words, but his voice is confused.

She can’t hear if Warden answers.

She hears the man’s voice again and this time it’s not confusion she hears, but fear. And then pain. And then she can’t hear the man’s voice anymore, just the sound of something hard slamming against something soft, over and over and over again.

And then she hears nothing at all.

He’ll come back for her now.

Dawn knows this.

She knows the innocent bystander is good and dead, and as soon as Warden is sure of it, he’ll come back up the slope to where she’s lying here fully spent, and then he’ll finish her off.

Maybe fast, or maybe slow.

She looks around for a weapon. There’s nothing but soggy tree branches and soggier mud. There’s not even any half-decent rocks.

You can’t kill a monster with mud.

Already, Dawn can hear Warden moving back up the slope through the bush. She knows her time on this earth is growing extremely limited.