Chapter 25

The color was washed out of the world, and Marcus was standing in the doorway to the worst memory of his life.

Their bodies lay strewn across the floor like wheat after a threshing, artistic and macabre all at once.  All twelve of the Werewolves who had been his pack, his second family.  While the house around them seemed leached of all vibrancy, the blood was such a bright and lurid color that it stood out like a field of scattered fiery lilies - the color so sharp that it stung Marcus’s eyes and burned itself into his retinas, so that even when he squeezed his eyes shut the image remained.  It was like his eyelids had never closed.  Choking on grief and sadness, he tried to stumble back, but when he hit the door his hands couldn’t find a door-knob to turn.  The blood was starting to spread like a stain - a tide - and Marcus felt his anguish turn to panic.  Twisting away from the sight within the house, he began fighting with the doo