"Somewhere else."
"Who are you?"
"If you must have a name, call me Dax." He yanks on my bindings, making me trip over a lump of shattered pavement. "No more talking, Allison, or I'll gag you too."
He knows my name.He knows.
I shut up and let the beast haul me down the streets of what used to be a thriving city. It's metamorphosed into a wasteland populated by monsters and whatever survivors remain. The world has died. Whatever is replacing it seems like nowhere any human would want to live.
This used to be Fort Worth, Texas. What will it become now?
Chapter Two
Dax
I give the girl a shove every so often to ensure she keeps moving, despite the nasty looks she flashes me over her shoulder. Allison Dahl is the reason for all of this. I know it, and she must know it too, though she refuses to admit the truth. This world has been laid waste because of her. And I've been trapped in hell for the same reason. The time has come to extract the truth from her by whatever means necessary.
Screams and unearthly roars echo through the ruins of this metropolis. I have no idea where in the mundane world I've wound up, but the city's name hardly matters now. It no longer exists, not in any form its residents would recognize. I haven't recognized myself for five years. Allison thinks I'm a monster, I'm sure, and she is correct. I have become one of the things mundane humans fear will crawl out from under their beds to devour them.
The only creature I want to devour is Allison Dahl. But she wouldn't like the way I'd fuck her. No, she seems like one of those women who would never allow a man to defile her in filthy ways. I haven't been with a normal woman in far too long, which is the only reason Allison's body intrigues me. Even through the dirt and blood spattered over her from head to toe, I can tell she has a body any man would want to sink his cock into for hours.
I don't have time for that.
Allison stumbles over a chunk of pavement that's been blasted out of the ground and nearly falls flat on her face. She catches herself just in time, despite her bound hands. Her dark hair falls around her face, but I can still see the deep blue of her eyes as she glares up at me.
No, I will not help her. She destroyed the world.
We need a place to hide, a location where I can interrogate her and find out the truth behind what has happened today, and even earlier, when events were set in motion. A safe place? No such thing exists anymore. Fireballs rain down every few minutes, slamming into any remaining structures and igniting whatever they touch, while silver tongues of lightning punch into the ground. Every strike, of lightning or fire, makes the ground tremble beneath our feet.
I don't know this city. But Allison does.
"Where can we hide?" I ask, stabbing a finger into her back, between her shoulder blades.
"How should I know? Everything's destroyed."
"Think of something, or I will break your fingers one by one until you give me the information I need."
"Do you seriously think threats help? I can't focus with all this…" She chokes back a sob. "There's no word for how horrible this is."
"Of course there is. It's an apocalypse. Judgment Day, if you prefer that term."
"Whose judgment?"
Someone screams from high above us, and a dark shape flies off the top of a half-destroyed building. The body smacks down a few feet to our left, hitting with a wet crunch of bones and flesh.
Allison jumps and yelps, then turns her head away, squeezing her eyes shut.
I swallow hard, refusing to glance at the human being who just hit the ground, and shove my prisoner onward. "Keep moving. And think of a place where we can hide. You have two minutes to come up with something, or I will remove your smallest finger with a very dull blade."
She sniffles but keeps trudging forward, sidestepping other bodies and climbing over heaps of rubble. We've just mounted a large pile when she freezes.
"Keep going," I snarl.
"Wait. I think I see a hiding place."
She uses her shoulder to point toward something ahead of us.
From our vantage on the mountain of debris, we have a good view of this section of the city. I have no idea where in the old world I've landed since nothing here resembles anything I remember, and I certainly have no idea how this new world being thrust upon us has changed the topography. But Allison seems to recognize a structure. I squint in the direction that she indicated.