Keep walking.
The highway stretched out in front of me in a seemingly endless track of asphalt lined with fence and trees. In the distance, the tall, dark shadows of mountains loomed on the horizon. The sun blazed overhead in a cloudless sky and the road shimmered in the heat.
My chest felt hollow, as if something had been ripped out by the roots, leaving an aching emptiness. My heartbeat echoed inside my ribcage like reverberations in a deep, dry well. I was incomplete, fractured, broken. I didn’t know how I’d come to be this way or what was missing—only that I’d once been whole but now was not.
A handful of cars and trucks had passed me in the last hour or so. Other than those few signs of life, I might have been the only person in ten square miles. I hadn’t seen any houses, gas stations, or other buildings since I started walking. The only sounds were wind in the grass, the far-off lowing of cattle, and my boots on the pavement.
My legs grew tired and my feet hurt with every step. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. My pace slowed.
Keep walking and don’t look back.
The command drifted through my head. The voice was familiar, though I couldn’t attach a face or a name to it.
I realized I was walking quickly again. My feet hurt as if my boots were full of razors. My socks squished wetly with every step. I wasn’t sure why, since I hadn’t walked through any high water…at least, not that I could remember. The fact I was completely dry otherwise supported that assumption, so my wet socks were a mystery.
As was the small object clutched in my left hand. I vaguely recalled grabbing it and hiding it from someone, but I wasn’t sure when or why. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to drop it beside the road. My hand wouldn’t open and let it go. My fingers cramped from holding it so tightly.
I walked on.
Hours passed. The sun crossed overhead and descended, slipping behind the horizon to my left and plunging the distant mountain peaks in front of me into darkness. The moon was bright enough in the clear sky for me to easily see the road. The pain in my feet was white-hot now, but I couldn’t stop. I dragged myself on, putting one foot in front of the other, with that strange voice replaying endlessly in my ears.
Keep walking and don’t look back.
Behind me, a truck engine rumbled. The sound grew quickly, as if the vehicle was moving very fast. I quickened my pace.
Bright headlights illuminated the highway in front of me as the truck crested the hill I’d just walked over. Tires skidded and brakes screeched as the truck pulled to the side of the road behind me. I kept walking.
The truck’s doors opened and someone shouted, “Alice!” The male voice was a strange combination of relief, fury, and worry.
Footsteps pounded on the asphalt behind me. Suddenly, two dark-haired, muscular men with glowing golden eyes appeared in front of me. They wore jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and hiking boots.
The larger of the two grabbed me. “Alice,” he said again, his voice growly.
I stabbed him.
—Or at least I tried to. My fingertips rammed into his hard stomach and I felt a sharp pain.
I looked at my fingers in confusion. For some reason, I thought I should have been able to gut him that way, but all I’d done was reopen the torn flesh where my fingernails were broken and caked with dirt.
“Oh, hell.” The other man’s voice was also growly, but he seemed less threatening than his companion. “Sean, she’s bleeding badly.”
“I smell it.” The larger man held me by my upper arms, his eyes searching my face. “Alice, how did you get here? We’ve been looking for you.” He scanned our surroundings. “Where’s Malcolm?”
I had no idea who that was, or what these men wanted with me. I tried to pull free and start walking again, but his grip was like iron.
“I don’t think she knows who you are,” the younger man said, his voice full of worry. “I’m not sure she even knows her own name or where she is.”
The larger man cupped my face with his hand and stared into my eyes. A strange scent teased my nose. Smells like a forest, some part of my brain said.
“Alice,” he said carefully, “do you know who I am?”
Keep walking and don’t look back.
I struggled against his grip, my gaze fixed on the distant horizon past his shoulder. I needed to walk. I couldn’t stop—not now, not ever.
He swung me up in his arms and headed toward a large, black truck. I fought him, beating him with my fists and even clawing at him, but nothing I did fazed him in the least. The other man had his phone out and was texting, his face grim.
The larger man carried me to the truck. The other man opened the back tailgate. The big man sat on it with me in his lap and wrapped his arms around me, holding me still. I’d scratched his face, neck, and arms bloody, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Did you let the others know we found her?” he asked his companion.
“I told Jack. He’ll tell the rest of the pack.” The younger man rubbed his face. “I wish Nan was here, or Casey. We need a nurse.”
“Take off her boots,” the big man said roughly. Strangely, he seemed to be nuzzling the back of my neck. He held me so tightly I couldn’t even squirm, much less get away, but he was also gentle, as if he was afraid of hurting me.
The other man unzipped my right boot. When he started to remove it, the pain was so intense I screamed.
The man holding me kissed my temple. A strange comfort washed over me, as if I’d suddenly been wrapped in warm blankets.
The younger man carefully removed the boot and swore. “Her feet are a bloody mess.” His voice sounded agonized, as if it were his pain instead of mine. “She must have walked for miles. These boots were not made for walking, Sean. Her feet…they’re just mangled.”
The larger man shook with what looked like fury and grief. “Take off her other boot and her socks. We need to see how bad it is.”
“It’s bad,” the other man said grimly. He gently peeled away my wet sock, revealing my bloody foot, and swore again. “The bottoms of her feet are all cut up too and half the skin is missing. I don’t even know how she was standing, much less walking.”
The man holding me made a strangely inhuman sound that was almost an animal’s snarl. “Because she was spelled to walk. She couldn’t stop, no matter how much it hurt. She would have walked until she dropped dead if we hadn’t found her.”
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