Gabriel shook his head as he finally decided on one of the compound bows.
Tristan reached for the other compound bow. “What’s wrong? Afraid to use the scythe?”
“The scythe still has blood on it and I like my weapons clean.”
“You would.”
Gabriel shuffled around the trunk again, searching for faux arrows—arrows designed to injure but not kill. “All these arrows are sharp—and have blood on them.”
“Yes, well, I left my cotton candy arrows at home next to my teddy bear.”
Gabriel turned to Tristan. “We’re not going to kill that guy.”
“We might.”
“Tristan, that’s homicide.”
“It’s self defense.”
“It’s not self defense. He didn’t come after you.”
“But he came after Scarlet. And, technically, Scarlet is a piece of me. So, yeah. It’s self-defense. Are you coming with me or not?”
“I don’t want to kill him. I just want to hurt him. Or detain him.”
“Or maybe you could just give him a big hug.”Tristan started marching into the woods. “You can stay there and clean weapons or whatever, but I’m going after our intruder.”
Gabriel grabbed a few arrows and groaned as he shut the trunk. Tristan was insane.
The boys entered the wooded area and Tristan began looking for tracks.
Seriously.
Gabriel squared his jaw. “Tristan, it’s nighttime. You’re not going to find anything.” He sighed in frustration. “I knew we should have just grabbed him when he was at her front door.”
Tristan said nothing as he crouched low to the earth.
Gabriel watched his brother. Long ago, they’d hunted together for food, for survival, and for freedom.
Avalon, Georgia wasn’t lacking any of those things.
Gabriel shifted his weight, feeling like an idiot standing in the woods with a bow.
“Bingo,” Tristan said, pointing to a set of deep footprints in the mud.
Gabriel’s mouth fell open. “I cannot believe you actually did that.”
Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Maybe if you weren’t such a pretty boy you could do it, too.”
Gabriel scoffed. “Just because I don’t want to track down crazy people in the woods on a full moon doesn’t mean I’m a pretty boy. It means I’m normal.”
“Whatever,” Tristan muttered.
They snuck quietly through the tall trees, led only by the moonlight and muddy indentations of shoe tracks. They walked for a few minutes in silence until they came to a clearing and spotted a shadowed figure darting into the trees.
Tristan and Gabriel exchanged a look and Gabriel instinctively went into hunt mode. He pulled his compound bow up and slowly crept to the right, as Tristan snuck away in the opposite direction.
The sound of rustling leaves and a hooting owl broke the silence as Gabriel looked around.
A noise to his left caused Gabriel to turn with his bow raised, poised to shoot.
But only in defense. He had no intention of killing anyone.
Taking a human life was no small thing, and Gabriel wasn’t a murderer.
A sharp pain shot through his body and, with a grunt, Gabriel looked down. A long dagger stuck out from the right side of his chest and blood began seeping through his shirt.
Someone had thrown a knife into him.
What the hell?
Wincing in pain, Gabriel lowered his bow and yanked the blade from his chest, tucking it into his waistband. He scanned the shadows for his attacker, drawing the compound bow back up with new resolve.
Maybe he’d been a little hasty in his decision not to murder anyone tonight.
As his wound began to heal, Gabriel’s eyes shot through the dark shadows.
Suddenly, Scarlet’s intruder appeared just yards away from him. Coming at him. Charging, almost.
Taking careful aim, Gabriel shot two arrows, one into the figure’s thigh, the other into his side—but neither slowed his opponent down.
Gabriel wasn’t ready to kill the guy—at least not yet.
After all, Gabriel was immortal. It wasn’t exactly a fair fight.
But the stranger kept charging. And in his hand was another knife.
Awesome.
The intruder lunged and, right when Gabriel was about to release another arrow into his attacker’s body, he heard a thwack.
The stranger fell dead at Gabriel’s feet—a long and deadly arrow jutting from his back.
Gabriel looked up from the body before him and saw Tristan with his bow still raised.
“Tristan!” Horror filled Gabriel’s eyes. “You just killed him.”
Tristan lowered the bow. “I know.”
“He’s a person, Tristan! This isn’t medieval England where you have to protect your bread and your goats! You can’t just shoot people dead.”
“I can if they creep into Scarlet’s room and try to kill my brother.”
Gabriel dropped his arm, the bow hanging at his side. He shook his head. “What are we going to do now? You just committed murder and now there’s a dead body—”
The corpse at Gabriel’s feet began to crumble.
The twins watched in disbelief as the intruder’s skin and bone slowly lost their color and turned to ash.
A gust of wind blew through the dark trees and the ash swirled away into the night, leaving behind only the stranger’s clothes and the three arrows his body no longer held.
Gabriel blinked. “What just happened?”
Slowly, Tristan shook his head. “No idea.”
The brothers slowly walked in a circle. The ash was almost completely gone. It was as if no corpse had ever been there.
“He just…he just disintegrated.”
Tristan nodded.
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
“No.” Tristan stopped walking and crouched to where the stranger’s clothes lay. “I told you he wasn’t human.”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “I guess not.”
“Well.” Tristan rose from the ground. “Problem solved. No body, no crime. So, you don’t need to worry about going to jail or anything.”
Gabriel shook his head. “He wasn’t human. What does that mean?”
Tristan slowly exhaled. “It means our crazy little world just got creepier.”
Tristan kicked at the clothes on the ground until his shoe caught on something black.
A Head Ghost.
Tristan cursed and ran a hand through his hair.
Gabriel blinked. “He had another one? Where is he getting them?”
Tristan shook his head.
“What should we do now?” Gabriel exhaled.
“I don’t know…maybe we should take the Head Ghost back to Nate, but leave the clothes just like they are. We can come back here in the morning.”
Gabriel nodded and picked up the Head Ghost before the brothers quickly made their way back to their cars.
Gabriel started his engine and began to pull away, when he noticed Tristan wasnt leaving.
“What are you doing? We should go home and talk to Nate. Now.”
“I don’t want to leave Scarlet yet.”
Gabriel furrowed his brow. “Do you think she’s still in danger, even though we killed that guy?”
“I’m not sure. But either way, I won’t be able to sleep tonight. So, you go ahead. I’ll stay here and we’ll figure stuff out in the morning.
Gabriel contemplated staying with Tristan, but he was too eager to hear what Nate had to say about the non-human that turned to ash.
66
The next morning Tristan and Gabriel led Nate to the area where the intruder had died. Tristan carried a long dagger—just in case.
He wasn’t about to get all slashed up again because some crumbling creature was handy with a butcher knife.