I scrambled to my feet, gasping in relief when I saw that my brothers’ features had both calmed as well.
I opened my mouth to ask if they were alright, and then I heard his voice.
“Demon, you will die!” my father cried out hysterically. I looked up and saw that he had a rifle in his hand and his whole body was trembling, his eyes rolling around crazily in his head. Froth was bubbling out of the side of his mouth.
His finger moved on the trigger…and it was as if time froze. Something dark unfurled inside of me, and an inhuman growl burst from my mouth as I lunged forward.
Everything flickered in and out after that. There was the metallic taste of blood. The taste of flesh. Hysterical screams in the air. The sound of my brothers yelling.
When I came to, I was on my knees in front of a pile of flesh.
My father had been ripped into pieces. So many pieces that the only thing telling me it was him was the scraps of fabric in the same color that littered the ground and floated in the breeze around me.
“Hendrix,” River murmured, coming up beside me and staring at me in awe.
I didn’t need him to tell me what had happened.
I could feel it inside of me…waiting.
Something had happened in that water. Something had been born inside my core.
A monster.