chapter 18
283 Words
The Plains shook under the weight of the spectral stampede. Smoke-horses screamed, their bodies flickering in and out like torn memories too stubborn to die.
Mara rode low in the saddle, the ghost-wolf sprinting ahead, ripping through the herd like a silver blade through fog. Coyote’s howl cut through the chaos — a sound that made even spirits hesitate.
The Shepherd lunged, jaw yawning wider than any human bone should allow. Mara ducked the strike and fired again.
Light exploded across the plains.
But still he stood.
Still he followed.
Still he wanted her.
Her rifle clicked empty.
“Mara!” the Devil shouted, swinging his shadow-steed across her path. “You can’t kill the Plains’ chosen with lead.”
“Then what kills him?”
“Memory,” the Devil said. “Yours.”
Mara blinked. “I ain’t got time for riddles!”
But the Devil grabbed her wrist — and suddenly the world snapped open.
Images flashed: Her father’s death.
Her mother’s silence.
The children she couldn’t save.
The men she buried.
The sins she swallowed so deep she forgot they had teeth.
Each memory burned.
Each one wounded her.
Each one made her human — painfully, fully.
“This is what he wants,” the Devil murmured. “Everything you blame yourself for. Everything you ran from.”
Mara jerked free, breath ragged.
“No. Not anymore.”
And for the first time in her life, she didn’t hide from the pain.
She used it.
The Shepherd stumbled — as if her defiance struck him in the gut.
The Plains shifted.
The balance changed.
Mara set her jaw.
It was time to make the dead remember who she was.
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