In The Falling Light Read Online Free PDF

The zip ties were cranked down
tightly. The man was strong, had thrown her effortlessly into the
van.
    Within minutes they reached the dead end,
and Terrence shut off the headlights. He preferred moonlight for
this part of it, the cold whiteness washing away all color. His
hands trembled as he moved to the side door, patting his pants
pocket for the reassuring weight of the big folding knife, his old
companion.
    He wiped the back of his hand across his
lips and rolled open the door, gazing at the girl lying on her
side. Her dark eyes were wide and watching him over the silver
tape, her shallow chest heaving.
    “Almost home, sweetheart,” he said,
smiling.
    And then the girl arched her back and
snapped the zip ties like they were paper instead of hard plastic.
Her body contorted, enlarging with a ripple of muscle and an
explosion of coarse hair, hands curling to talons, her face
extending into a snapping muzzle.
    Terrence stumbled backwards and started to
scream, but the adolescent werewolf was on him in a second, bearing
him to the ground, pulling his ribcage open and tearing into his
throat with a violent thrash of her snout. Hot liquid sprayed
across the side of the van, black in the starlight.
    He died staring at the moon.
    Later, her belly full and satisfied, Cassie
loped through the forest on all fours, heading home. She couldn’t
wait to tell the pack about her first solo kill, and to hug her
Mom, thank her for her good advice.
    Real predators hunted the Silver
River Mall.

 
     
     
     
TEXAS RISING
     
     
     
     
    Hurricane Sophie, a Category-5 nightmare,
swept in off the Gulf on September 16 th , devastating the
coastal regions. Everyone had seen the giant coming, swift and
terrible, but despite widespread evacuations she savaged all she
came in contact with, flinging her destructive arms wide. Corpus
Christi vanished, and pieces of obliterated oil platforms as well
as entire tankers were cast ten miles inland.
    She tore north across the Hill Country, into
the Big Country, and failed to drop to a Cat-3 as predicted by the
time she reached Leesville, population 18,000, located in a county
which averaged only seventeen people per square mile. Along with
her merciless winds, Sophie brought rain. Lots of rain.
    Everyone expected flooding. Central Texas
was known as Flash Flood Alley, and every fire department was
trained and equipped for swift water rescue. Most flooding deaths
were the result of people trying to cross moving water,
underestimating the force and weight of the currents, and every
year the news ran footage of some fool standing on the roof of his
pickup amid white water, waving his arms while people worked to
save him. For the most part, this was the type of rescue firemen in
rural Texas were trained for. Helicopter crewmen were similarly
trained to descend on cables to pluck folks from rooftops and
trees.
    No one expected Sophie to come this far,
with such force.
    No one imagined what was approaching, and by
the time her full fury was realized, it was too late.
    Dell McCall straddled the peak of his roof
as if he was riding one of his horses, facing his family. They were
straddling too, all in a line like half-drowned crows. Above them
the sky was a boiling mix of black and charcoal, clouds tumbling
over one another as rain slashed down in dark curtains. Water
poured down their faces, and they tried to wipe it from their eyes
and hold onto the roof at the same time. The wind was a woman’s
scream.
    Arlene, Dell’s wife of twenty-two years,
hugged their two-year-old Dylan to her chest as she looked at her
other two children. Their seventeen-year-old was closest to her,
and Ricky, eleven, rode the roof behind her.
    “Bailey, I want you to climb over your
brother and sit so you’re facing me again.”
    “I’ll fall!”
    “You won’t fall. I’ve seen you ride in the
rain plenty of times. You just hold on tight, you can do it.”
Arlene said something else, but it was lost in the wind. When