Howls echoed in the night as they found the breach. The hisses and growls seemed right in Aaro’s ear now, but he couldn’t have cared less. The corner of the trailer had buckled and a hole no more than thirty centimetres across had opened in the metal like a puckered mouth.
Teeth and eyes flashed in the gap as they tried to wedge themselves in, cutting their necks and jaws on the jagged edges, opening it a little at a time. They couldn’t get inside yet, but it wouldn’t be long.
Aaro turned back to Sorina. He swallowed, his voice small. ‘We can still make it. We can get out of this,’ he said, though he didn’t know how they would. How they could. He just needed to hear her say she was with him.
‘No. I don’t want to.’ She stared over his shoulder, at the dented wall of the trailer. ‘I just want this nightmare to end. To finally end. There’s nothing left on this earth for me, or you. Or anyone. I’ve finally realised that. Let me go. Don’t make me stay awake any longer.’ Her eyes drifted down to her feet. A pistol lay there. It was her’s. She must have taken it out of her bag when Aaro was unconscious. Just in case.
It was loaded, ready, and just within arms reach.
‘Make it quick,’ she muttered, closing her eyes.
Aaro reached for it with shaking fingers. He stifled a sob as they closed around the grip.
He pulled it up and levelled it. He’d killed for self-preservation, to save his life and others, but this was different. This was wrong.
The Varas wailed above him like banshees, foam dripping from their jaws and into the hold through the ever-widening gap.
‘I… I…’ Aaro stammered, holding the gun up, pointing it at her. He looked at her over the sights. He couldn’t pull the trigger. Couldn’t kill her. Not her.
‘Do it,’ she sobbed. ‘Do it now!’
‘Sorina—’
‘DO IT!’
He pulled the trigger.
The hammer fell.
The pistol kicked back in his hand, the flash from the muzzle blinding him for a second. When his eyes cleared, he blinked and she came into focus, slumped sideways. Blood dripped slowly from the smoking hole just above her right eye.
Aaro broke down, staring at her, vomit rising in his throat.
He crawled to her corpse and dragged it into his arms, her blood running over his chest.
The monsters kept coming. He looked up at them through the gap and cried into Sorina’s bloodied hair, feeling it hot under his fingers. He held her tight, trying to squeeze the life back into her cold body, but it was futile.
She was gone. And he had done it.
He could feel the pistol in his grip, his fingers still tingling.
He cast a quick glance at Sabina, her face pained and twisted, blood still running from the wound in her side. She didn’t deserve this. Or what was coming through the ceiling.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mouthed, levelling the barrel once more.
Through bleary eyes, he pulled the trigger again. His trembling hand pulled his aim wide and the bullet missed, hitting a bag next to her instead with a dull thump.
He groaned, trying again. This time the bullet struck.
It hit her mid-chest and her body convulsed once before falling still. Her shoulders no longer rose and fell with her weak breath.
She was gone too, spared the misery of being ripped apart.
The Varas let out hateful screams, angered that the pleasure of the kill was being robbed from them.
Aaro grimaced and looked at them once more, writhing in the gap, thrusting themselves in, just moments away. Blood poured through the hole in thick streams as they maimed themselves on the shrapnel-sharp edges.
He deserved it, for everything he’d done, to be ripped limb from limb. But he just didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
They made him this way — when they killed his wife, and daughter. They shaped the man that he had become. They uncaged the evil within him, gave it somewhere to fester and grow — in the dark hole they’d torn inside him.
‘Well… fuck you,’ he said coldly, with every ounce of loathing he could muster.
And then, Aaro Emmerson raised the still smoking barrel to his lips and slotted it between his teeth, nearly grinning that it had come to this, the limp and still-warm corpse of Sorina laid across his lap.
And pulled the trigger.
Author’s Note
If you’re reading this, then it means you not only made it to the end, but you cared enough to hear what I have to say.
An author’s note is something that I wasn’t sure I wanted to add, and yet, here we are.
The Veil was a labor of love. It was a book that I thought about and penned the first draft to when I was just eighteen. It looked vastly different to how this version does, and if I had infinite time and energy, then it probably would have looked very different again. But, if that were the case, it never would have been finished, and it never would have graced these pages.
There comes a time when we just have to put things out there, and for me, the time felt right.
The Redemption series probably isn’t quite like any other sci-fi series you’ve read. There’re are definitely times when a suspension of belief is required, but heck, that’s what fiction is for, right? And yet, this isn’t how we go on. The series was conceptualised to challenge conventions, and the novels will take you from the past to the distant future, across space and time, and through a cast of characters that are lovable and hatable in equal part.
The next stop is Paris, 1942, during the German occupation. And if you’re wondering how we get there from here, then there’s only one thing to do.
Turn the page and find out. But, before you, I just wanted to say thanks. It’s been a journey to get here, and that you enjoyed my novel is something that’s wonderfully special to me. Truly, without readers, writers are just talking to themselves. So, honestly, thank you.
The Redemption Series
THE THREAD
Book 2 in the Redemption series
Paris, 1942
A Nazi patrol strides purposefully through the quiet residential streets, keeping time with the brutish calls of their commanding officer. ‘Ein, zwei. Ein, zwei.’
Everything is still, the inhabitants cowering behind their curtains, watching the soldiers pass.
And then, the air splits.
The soldiers recoil from a blinding flash.
Blood spatters on the cobblestones.
Severed limbs flail through the air.
Men scream and die, helpless and shocked.
Sebastian Beauclaire announces his arrival as he always does. Every time, things are the same. The same seven weeks on repeat. Except, now, things are changing.
For the first time in what seems like an eternity, things are different, and history is about to be rewritten.
The Thread is coming soon and life is starting to unravel.
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Thanks again, and hopefully, I’ll see you next time!
The Veil Page 32
