Changing You ✦ The Sequel

Chapter 33 {Z & R}

✦ ZACH ✦

I didn't know what I had been expecting. I didn't know what being turned was supposed to be like, and I had no idea what was supposed to happen. But I definitely hadn't expected it to be like this.

Nothing happened.

When I used every ounce of strength I had left in my arm to pull it out of Warner's grasp, a circle of damaged skin marked my tricep, warm blood pouring down my arm from where his teeth had sunken far into my flesh.

I didn't realise I was holding my breath as I waited. Waited for my body to start burning. To start spasming. To start changing. Waited for something to happen.

But there was nothing.

I didn't feel any different from before and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel relieved. Some part of me did. Some part of me clung to the hope that it hadn't worked, that it wasn't going to work, and I held on to it, desperately.

They let go of me so all of a sudden that I didn't get time to realise their hands had been the only thing keeping me up until I felt the sticks and stones of the forest ground stinging in my back and I realised I had fallen completely.

When a foot pressed down on my injured knee the pain that shot through my leg was so overwhelming that I bit down on my tongue until I tasted blood and it made me even more dizzy than I already felt.

The immense pain started in my knee but it clawed its way up to my head, pierced my brain, left the world spinning before my eyes until I could barely make out the face that hovered above me.

"You know what the benefit is of having to wait with taking revenge for a long time?"

I barely heard him over the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears, over my own panting, and I was gritting my teeth so hard I feared they were going to shatter as I spat: "You go fucking insane?"

He shifted his entire body weight onto my knee and this time I couldn't bite my tongue in time to stop myself from crying out.

"You can plan it all out," he scolded, and I felt him bend down even before his face inched closer.

"So know that, if you make it..."

He grabbed my arm and lifted it up to show me the bite mark just below my inner elbow. I swallowed, hard.

It made him smile, and I hated that, no matter how tough I acted, he would always be able to sense exactly how scared I was.

"We're far from done with you."

I didn't understand what happened next.

I didn't understand why he let go of me, why the others let go of Riley and my brother, why they decided to leave, just as fast and quiet as they came, and how the white wolf followed them as if nothing had happened, when I was definitely sure I had shot her.

I was about to believe that I had to be hallucinating, that the blood loss was messing with my head and I couldn't trust my senses anymore, when it started to feel like everything was shutting down.

I didn't allow myself to wince, to hiss, or do anything that showed I was in pain until they were gone. Then I felt all of it hit me at once.

I chocked back something welling up in my chest, but with every breath — that was too short to actually survive on — the pain renewed itself.

I couldn't even tell where it was coming from anymore because it was everywhere. My arms were shaking, the strength draining from my fingers as I clawed uselessly at my torn apart shirt and tried pressing down on the cuts lining my ribcages.