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I am running through the woods, and my skin is glowing red—and I don’t know why. The moonlight is broken and in stripes, and the Beast is rising, growing and growing. I can feel it—he’s trying to burst out.
“Soon, you won’t be able to hide it away,” a voice says, and I turn, trying to see who spoke.
But there’s no one here. It’s just me and the woods, the trees illuminated by my skin. And I’m still glowing, and I don’t know what it means—and this isn’t like a normal dream because now that I’m looking at my arms as I run, I’m really thinking. They shouldn’t be glowing!
It’s the Beast—he’s making me glow. He’s marking me!
My breaths come in huge gasps that make me shudder and choke. My mouth is too dry, and coughing makes my eyes smart, slows my pace until I’m barely moving. The sharp pain of a stitch dives into my left side, just under my ribcage, and I pant and pant. And now that I’ve stopped, the glowing’s getting brighter. My skin is luminous.
Fear pulls through me,
“Run!” Caia-Lu’s voice. My aunt. “Boy! Run!”
Boy? I jolt, and I’m shouting for her, looking between the tree trunks and turning, trying to see her. Her rounded figure, her kind eyes, her graying hair.
But I can’t.
‘Where are you?” I cry, and the darkness around the trees seems to get darker and darker, and I think of all the monsters, the bad things that it’s hiding.
“Get as far away from here as you can!” Caia-Lu’s voice sounds scared, and still I cannot see her. “You’re not trapped yet—but it’s coming. It will be balagan when it does! She thinks it’ll only be for Kacey, but it’s going to extend to all of you, so you have to get away. You can’t get trapped as well! You have to break it!”
“Who? Break what?” I shout, and my voice is low and rich and dark. A man’s voice. “What’s happened to Kacey?”
What’s happened to me? Um, what?
I lift my arm to shield my eyes—and I don’t know why I’m doing it when it brings my glowing red hand closer to my eyes, makes everything have that crimson glow. Crimson...like the blood that soaked the clansmen after my Beast got them.
“Run, boy! Run now!”
“But I don’t understand! What’s happening?”
“Don’t get trapped by it!”
A whoosh of energy shoves me forward, and I fall. Thorns scratch my hands and knees, and then something wet and sticky is on my face. I try to claw it off, gulping in huge lungfuls of air that taste bad. And the trees are moving, above me. Their branches are closing in on me.
I scream as cold, wet twigs rap against my arms, my legs, as they press my body down to the ground. And then there are vines—so many vines, growing over me, tumbling round and round my chest, my stomach, my thighs. My thighs that are more muscular than they should be.
This...
“Don’t get trapped!” Caia-Lu shrieks as the forest claims me. “Don’t let her trap you, too!”