Logan crouched by the creek and washed the blood off his hands and face. He was surprised at how easy it was to hurt another person. The person he had been most of his life had been turned off. He was a house of many rooms, and right now, he was living in the burnt-out wing no one used. In this place, he didn’t have a problem with anything he’d done. Could it be this easy? The forest also seemed dead, the colors flat, the sounds random. It was the same as the corpse on the table at the hospital. Just a shell. He could never go back.
* * *
Atlas awoke to find himself lying on his back, spread-eagle, roasting in the blazing sun. His throat burned with thirst, and his whole body felt like it was going into organ failure leaving him awash in toxins. A turkey vulture the size of a German shep
