I stumbled back in shock when the intruder stopped pounding on the door and started shooting at the lock until it burst apart.
That was when I heard Andre’s alarmed scream from upstairs. His voice pierced my brain like an arrow, jolting me awake and forcing me to react. I clenched my teeth hard. The pain from the gunshot dropped to second—maybe third—place among my priorities.
I threw myself against the door as it began to open, and a bitter, unfamiliar smell—visceral and repulsive—flooded my lungs, raising goosebumps along my skin in an instinctive wave of rejection. That smell only provoked me further. It was strangely familiar, yet alien at the same time.
Then I heard the savage growl of a beast.
Another shove rattled my entire body until a second shot tore through the wood and forc
