June hurtled downward at the giant snake, preparing to bite his throat. But she didn’t realize the venom had begun to affect more than just her injured right arm. Her jaws moved, ready for blood, but Dr. Chase rolled sideways at blinding speed and countered with a bite of his own. She twisted and managed to prevent him from sinking his fangs into her, but his counter threw her off balance. Her claws found nothing, her jaws closed on nothing, and she crashed to the floor, landing on top of her already injured right arm. The certainty of her own death smashed down upon her, the quicksand fear filling her mouth and throat. The building vibrated at the impact and the floor shattered underneath her. Her vision blurred and she seemed to be looking down a dark tunnel, a tunnel that kept narrowing, toward Dr. Chase and the empty hallway.


    But the hallway wasn’t empty, and what June saw lit a spark in her so hot that it set her blood on fire. Dr. Chase was upon her in a breath, pinning her with a thick section of his snake body, taking his time now, gloating. As he grinned down at her and reared up in preparation for the crippling bite, June did the only thing she could do—she roared at the top of her lungs. And the only thing Dr. Chase could possibly hear, as he opened his mouth to reveal his murderous fangs, was that roar.


    ***


    Brendan grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall with his good arm. It was heavier than expected, and the pain in his shoulder made him wince. But he could see the fighting down the hall and noticed that the blur he knew as Dr. Chase was moving faster than June—she was no longer a blur in his vision, in fact. Adrenaline coursed through Brendan. His steps came faster and faster as he charged forward, pulling the pin on the extinguisher and gripping the trigger. As he neared the atrium, the ground beneath him shook and his stomach turned inside out. He stopped. June had rocketed to the ground, and the snake now hovered above her, beaming with arrogance, ignorant that Brendan approached.


    As Brendan gazed at June, once so powerful and now crumpled helplessly on the ground, he didn’t see a werecat. He didn’t see a monster. He saw June, as he had always known her: long dark hair, round eyes, pale skin. June.


    Something rose up in him violently—something so overwhelmingly powerful that his fear, his panic, disappeared. The new feeling stood alone. Engulfed and overwhelmed by it, Brendan launched himself forward and raised the nozzle of the fire extinguisher. He didn’t flinch as June roared—all he heard in his mind was his own voice, but stronger and deeper somehow, screaming “June!”


    Dr. Chase never heard him coming. Between his focus on June, and the volume of her roar so close to him, the running footfalls and the heavy breathing and the shout from Brendan went entirely unnoticed.


    Brendan fired the extinguisher and the blast of it hit the hell-spawn snake square in the face. For a moment, amidst the haze of the chemical spray, Brendan saw one of Dr. Chase’s hideous eyes turn toward him. But despite that eye, and the seething hatred it contained, Brendan stood firm and continued shooting the fire extinguisher at the giant serpent in front of him. There was a whirl of scales, a screaming, a growling, a hiss, and then something wet splashed over Brendan just before what felt like a bus hit him and he flew backward.


    ***


    As soon as Brendan sprayed the extinguisher, June gritted her teeth and launched herself to her feet. Her right arm hung limp and useless at her side. Dr. Chase, disoriented and slowed from the blast, had turned and was spraying venom at Brendan, and in doing so, left his right side open to attack. White-hot fury powered her as she raised her left paw and lunged forward into the midst of the writhing snake.


    Claws extended, she swung as hard as she had ever tried to swing an arm in her life. It was a perfect and terrible stroke. Even with her movements slowed and her strength dulled, June’s claws ripped straight through the extended hood of the snake head and continued on unimpeded, until they scraped over and into bone and still didn’t stop. As Dr. Chase tried to pull his head back, June’s claws, hooked into his face, continued their path of destruction, slicing through something much softer than bone. By the time Dr. Chase flew backward and away from her, June was soaked in blood that was not her own.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    An anguished hiss tore through the air. “My eye!” Dr. Chase screamed, again and again.


    Gone was any hint of arrogance on his face—the right side of which was a red mass of deep, scoured ruts that resembled raw meat more than anything else. She had removed his right eye, leaving a ruined hole in its place. But his left eye, turned toward her now, glowed with pain and…panic? He spasmed and smashed into the far wall of the atrium, as far away from her as he could get, still hissing and screaming. Then he began to spray venom around him in every direction like a cloud, which mixed with the haze from the fire extinguisher. That side of the room filled with a glimmering reddish-gold, deceptively beautiful in the beams of moonlight slanting in from the atrium’s glass.


    June pulled in a deep breath and readied herself to plunge through the mist for a last, deadly stroke. But something in her peripheral vision made her freeze: it lay amidst the rubble of drywall and metal in the hallway just past the atrium, shaking violently. That something was Brendan, coated in the amber venom and convulsing. June leaped to him.


    She desperately wanted to pick him up and hold him, but could she afford to tend to Brendan while Dr. Chase still lived and breathed? Her decision was made for her as two things occurred simultaneously: still screaming about his eye, Dr. Chase crashed through the front doors of the lab, leaving twisted metal wreckage in his wake, and disappeared into the parking lot, and Cordelia and Aunt Violet appeared in the destruction just behind Brendan, yelling out her name.


    “Help him!” June pleaded. As soon as Cordelia reached Brendan, June turned and sprinted through what remained of the front doors. She had to kill Dr. Chase. But as she reached the parking lot, she saw him already far down into the grassy field and closing in on the forest in great haste. He wasn’t laying out a trap—he was really and truly fleeing. Though a bit of feeling had returned to her right arm, could she really hope to pursue him into the forest in her condition? And what about Brendan?


    She ran back into the building and found Cordelia and Aunt Violet working feverishly over him. He had stopped convulsing and instead lay deathly still, his face waxy and unnatural. They had removed his pea-cloak, ripped open the rest of his hoodie and shirt, and were spraying him down with some kind of saline spray from the emergency kit. Venom had saturated the gunshot wound on his shoulder—it must have circulated quickly. Cordelia started chest compressions while Aunt Violet readied the defibrillator paddles. June could only watch helplessly.


    As the adrenaline of the fight started to wear off, she began to shake. The defibrillator paddles finished charging and Aunt Violet zapped Brendan. He jerked violently, then went still again. Another jolt shook him, but he didn’t breathe, he didn’t move. Tears began to roll down June’s cheeks.


    Aunt Violet threw the defibrillator paddles aside and started chest compressions again while Cordelia held a finger to his wrist. June knew from the look on her face that Brendan didn’t have a pulse. There had to be something she could do. She crept closer and said his name, over and over again, hoping that wherever he was, he would hear her calling for him and come back.


    But he didn’t answer her. He didn’t even breathe.


    Of his exposed skin, the only thing that wasn’t a deathly-white color were a few animal hairs, which looked a lot like dog hair. June felt like cruel, cold hands were squeezing her heart. As her eyes blurred with fresh tears, she noticed, for the first time, something clicking rapidly against the wall by Dr. Chase’s office, covered in drywall dust. The Geiger counter. Brendan must have dropped it when he grabbed the fire extinguisher. And it was clicking wildly.


    “Mom!” June shouted. “Could the serum help Brendan?”


    Cordelia looked up. Her eyes followed June’s gaze to the Geiger counter, then to Dr. Chase’s office door.


    June raced in—she didn’t need the Geiger counter to locate the source of the radiation. There, on the bookshelf, sat a large sculpture of a caduceus, with its twisting serpents. June had heard enough of Dr. Chase’s snake comments and jokes to know if he had hidden the missing vial in his office, it would be inside a sculpture of snakes. Sure enough, when she smashed the caduceus on the floor, the missing vial lay in the remnants, glowing an almost neon green. It had been in the lab all along. June could have kicked herself.


    She rushed back to Cordelia.


    “I don’t know if this will have any effect—”


    “Just do it, Mom!”


    Cordelia grabbed a needle from the emergency kit, filled the syringe with the liquid from the vial, and plunged it deep into Brendan’s chest. Aunt Violet grabbed June’s paw and squeezed while Cordelia chanted something as the liquid entered Brendan’s heart. Nothing happened. June slumped against the wall, watching and waiting. Cordelia shot to her feet and ran down the hallway.


    All sound faded until June heard nothing but a shrill, high-pitched buzzing. Her vision went black around the edges. Cordelia’s face appeared in front of her. She was shaking June’s shoulders. “I called 9-1-1. They’ll be here soon. You have to leave. Go back home and wait for me.”


    June didn’t respond and instead turned to look at the lifeless body of Brendan. A sob rose from deep in her chest.


    Cordelia shook harder. “Do you want him to save him? Then run, June. Run now!”