cutting my mouth, and Bowen is there, dragging me out of the stall by my arm. He curses under his breath, yanking me out of the bathroom, through the dark night, and we merge into groups of running men holding their guns on their shoulders.
The night turns to day as lights built into the wall flood the ground. And then I see the reason for the commotion.
A guy has entered the camp—young, black haired, shirtless, with straining muscles and bulging veins beneath skin the color of coffee. He’s growling and throwing men around like they’re paper dolls dressed in brown paper uniforms.
“No guns! Taser the beast! Taser to stun!” Bowen roars beside me, pulling me faster. Toward the uproar. Toward the beast. “Tasers! Now!” he shrieks.
Several men release their guns and grab palm-size black devices from their belts, aiming toward the beast. With a zip of electricity I can feel in my cuffs, the Tasers go off, zapping the men surrounding the beast with a quick flash of blue as tiny metal prongs embed into their skin. They crumple to the ground, eyes rolled back in their heads, mouths slack, bodies convulsing. With them down, there is a clear path to the beast. My cuffs tingle with electricity again, and blue sparks light the air, but when they hit the beast, he growls, yanks the small metal Taser plates off his skin, and keeps attacking.
Surely Bowen can see how insane this person is, I tell myself. Yet Bowen still drags me toward it. And all I can think is, Is he crazy?
I dig my feet into the ground, dragging against his hold. He pulls harder. I dig my feet deeper. His eyes meet mine, full of fury, and he smacks me upside the head, knuckles slamming into my temple.
The world swims before my eyes, a blur of brown coats and guns, and my knees buckle. Bowen’s arm snakes around my waist, and he drags me the last few steps toward the beast. In one swift move, he throws me down to the ground. And then he sits on me, his legs on either side of my hips.
His eyes flicker to my bound chest and he freezes, as if everything in the world but the two of us has disappeared. Time stops, my eyes grow wide, and his green eyes take in every detail of my body before meeting mine again. When our eyes lock, his brow furrows, his eyes narrow in confusion, and he blinks. But then the cuffs on my arms fall from my skin. Bowen picks them up and stands, taking a slow step away from me.
I roll onto my side, toward the beast, and whimper at what I see. A circle of militia, at least twenty thick, surround the beast and two other people. The militia have their Tasers and automatic weapons trained on the beast, following its every move. The beast’s muscles twitch and spasm from the electrical residue of the Tasers, but it doesn’t seem to care.
Bowen, his hands raised, speaks soothing words to the beast as he slowly walks toward it. But the beast isn’t paying attention to him. It is looking at the third person trapped inside the armed circle of militia.
Me.
Its dark eyes, the irises overwhelmed with pupil, devour me. And there is nothing human about the way it stares. I am looking into the eyes of a wild animal. A very deadly, brawny wild animal. Bowen looks between the beast and me as if debating something. His jaw pulses, his body goes taut, and then, as if it pains him, he steps between the beast and me.
“You move, you die,” he says to the beast, his voice no longer calm and soothing.
The beast growls and fakes a lunge forward, but Bowen doesn’t budge. A deep, gravelly hum interrupts the silent night, growing slowly louder, like a jet tearing across the sky. And then the sound grates against the night, vibrating in my ears. It is coming from the beast’s mouth. It leaps forward and swats Bowen aside, flinging him through the air. And then it is just the beast and me. It stares at me, lips pulled back from its stained teeth, drool coating its skin, eyes starved, as if it is about to devour a feast. Me.
But as Bowen flies through the air his voice rings out clarion clear:
“Taser to kill!”
Never taking its animal eyes from me, the beast leaps. Streams of blue lightning flash above my head, disappearing into