Predator

Part Nine✔️

After being trapped in Petra's home for two days with only a wild six year old and a silent four year old, she embraced the feel of her camera beneath her frozen fingers. She didn't known how it had made it out of the woods without a scratch, but she was thankful it was in her hands again. Outside, the cold air tickled her throat with each intake of breath, but she embraced the crippling silence and the smell of the outdoors. The frozen land of Russia was beginning to grow on her and she couldn't imagine how hard it would be when the time came to go back home. But she did miss New York, and its electricity and the warm covers of her own bed, the only thing she didn't miss was all the noise. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, she felt like she could breathe without the crowds of people and she could think properly without the constant honking of horns and loud voices.

Pulling her camera up to her face, the sound of the shutter snapping frames filled her ears as she stared at the rundown barn in Petra's backyard. She'd missed this - taking pictures, it was something she'd been in love with since she was young; the way a moment could be frozen forever in time. All her happiness and sadness had been documented on this camera of hers.

Moving her view to the ominous forest, a shiver ran down her spine as she took more stills of the frozen world. The trees stared back at her, not moving in the wind as if they were watching her too. She'd never seen such eerie trees before, yet they intrigued her and she found herself taking as many pictures of them as she could. After taking a few more shots of the spacious backyard, she stood in the middle of the yard and flicked through the pictures she'd just taken, assessing them with careful eyes.

The pictures were dark to say the least, that ominous vibe radiated from even the pictures. But pictures didn't do the world here justice. With the cloudy sky and an a abandoned barn in front of a dark forest, the pictures looked like scenes from a horror film. As she scrolled through the pictures, she felt a strange feeling settle in the pit of her belly, as if her body was warning her for what was to come. But she brushed it off as nothing and continued scrolling through her pictures with pride.

It was then she noticed something odd about the pictures of the tree line. In the seemingly black and white world, there was a spot of crimson red that pooled at the base of the trees. Looking up at the real world with wide eyes, she could see the outline clearly - a body laying at the edge of the tree line. How she hadn't noticed it before was beyond her, but the dread in her stomach warned her not to investigate.

But Grey was Grey, and she was curious and there was also something that overpowered that fear and pushed her to get closer. So, she slowly approached it, her legs heavy. The closer she got, the more she could make out. A small body; a child with brown hair. A boy, with his back to her and his face to the trees, blood covering and surrounding his body. When she was feet away, all breath left her body as she looked at him. It was as if her pounding heart was an alarm inside of her, screaming at her to run away but she couldn't hear it.

Carefully she rolled him so he lay on his back, the wounds on his small chest visible. But it wasn't the deep gashes down his chest that sent dread down her spine, it was the fact that they were identical to the ones on her stomach, yet they were larger, deeper. This was not the scrawny wolf that had almost killed her but one with power, one far more dangerous. And she had a feeling deep in her gut that she knew exactly who it was.

But not even that could scare her more than his eyes. Lifeless green eyes that stared up at the heavens. Green eyes that once held life and a spark that she had seen with her own eyes. For there, in the crimson snow, lay Ethen.

"Petra!" She sobbed, backing away from the boy. "Dimitri! Someone help!"

Petra was running towards Grey the moment she heard her cry, her grandmother and Dimitri with Rosalie on his hip were behind her.