"I guess I'll keep driving," Jake broke the silence once the police officer's car sped off. He headed towards the front of the bus, leaving the rest of us to deal with the awkward tension that followed the interaction between Alex and the police officer.

"Alex, may I talk to you?" Liz gripped his arm. "Privately?"

"Yes," he responded too calmly. "You may."

Without another word, she led him to the back section of the bus, closing the door behind them.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!"

Reggie, Veronica and I exchanged awkward glances as Liz yelled at him.

"Somebody's in trouble." Reggie chuckled, whistling through his teeth and shaking his head.

"Or getting laid." Veronica smirked. "I'm pretty sure Liz is turned on by him being an asshole."

"Oh my God," I groaned, leaning forward and rubbing my temples. "Please, do not talk about that."

"Oh, sorry," Veronica said. "It's really easy to forget."

I pinched my eyes closed, resting my head back against the window and trying not to hear their argument. With how loud they were being, it was hard not to.

"I don't understand why you can't just control yourself," Liz said.

"I'm sorry," Alex replied. "I know I need to be better. But it's hard. I just . . . in situations like that . . . I want to protect you. I want to protect Allison. When someone is threatening you—"

"I know," Liz's voice softened. "And you know I love that about you." A pause. "Let's just hope we don't hear anything else from that police officer and this goes to bed."

Their voices quieted to the point where I could no longer make out the words, and I didn't want to. I let my mind drift to sleep. Reality blurred with dreams, and I faded to somewhere else.

I stood at the edge of an enormous clearing. It stretched out for hundreds of feet before me. At its perimeter, the field of long, dry grass melted into tall pines. The trees clawed their way towards the night sky where the full moon sunk heavy in the air. Its swollen and blue form swallowed the stars around it like a cloud of noxious gas.

In the center of the clearing, three wolves raised their mouths to the moon, howling in unison like they were singing an ancient song of ritual. A fire blazed between them, and a trail of smoke drifted up from it, rising as a dark offering to the heavens.

A man stood in front of the fire, holding the hand of a child. The boy was dressed in all white, while the man wore all black. A mask of a wolf's face covered the man's entire head, but somehow, I knew beneath it he was grinning. I could feel his sick smile like it was burning into my brain.

"Come to me, Allison," I heard him calling. "It's your turn next. You won't want to miss this. You wouldn't want to be late."

The man withdrew a blade the size of a sword from his side. The silver glistened red and blue in the light of the fire and moon as he held it up to the sky. My heart skipped a beat as he turned to face the child.

"No!" I screamed.

I ran towards them, but my legs were too heavy. With each step, it became harder and harder to run. The ground turned to quicksand beneath me, sucking up my boots and dragging me down so I was buried up to my shins. I shoved my bare feet through the sand until it pulled me down, and I fell.

In the distance, the wolves cackled and barked. I heard the man laughing. The fire crackled and popped, glowing like a rising sun.

I pushed myself to keep going. I crawled along on my hands and knees and clawed at the dirt, pulling grass up at its roots. Vines and weeds sprouted from the ground around me, wrapping around my arms and legs like ropes and pulling me down to the earth.

Down, down, down.

My heart racing, I looked back to the fire. The child struggled to escape the man's grip. He pulled and clawed at his hand, but the man held the boy by the wrist tightly.

"Let him go!" I screamed, but a gust of wind roared through the clearing. It stole my breath before it had the chance to escape my throat, leaving me mute.

The wolves barked and howled with excitement as the man lowered the blade to the child's neck.

"No!" I cried. I stretched out my hand.

I wanted to close my eyes to look away, but I couldn't. It was like my eyes were stapled open, and my head was locked in place. I couldn't move my neck to turn away.

I watched as the man in the wolf's mask drew the silver blade across the child's neck in a single smooth sweep. The boy's scream pierced the air, turning from a cry to a gurgled wail when the blade sliced through his throat, stealing his voice forever.

Blood poured down the front of the child's neck, coating his skin in red and soaking into his white clothes like dye.

I clawed my way across the ground, desperate to get to him even though I knew it was too late. Tears poured down my cheeks as I screamed and cried for the wolves to stop.

The man in the wolf's mask lifted the bleeding child into the air. He paused for a single second, and I could feel him staring at me through the glowing red eyes of the mask. Then, he threw the body of the boy into the fire.

Flames shot out from the pit like rockets as the hungry fire devoured the boy. Tongues of fire encased him, the fire spitting a stream of black smoke into the sky, like a stream of evil venting from beneath the earth.

The wolves' howls grew, rising along with the smoke into the sky.

"It's your turn now," I heard the man's voice echoing through my mind, like it was coming from everywhere at once.

"No! Please!" I begged. I tried to push myself to my feet, but the weeds and vines wrapped around my legs pulled tighter, like the earth itself knew I was trying to escape and wouldn't let me go.

"I thought you just needed my blood!" I cried to the sky. The moon swelled, turning red as it accepted the blood offering the wolves had given it.

"We've had a change of plans, Allison," a haunting voice called as everything darkened around me. The man in the mask continued to approach, but it was like the world was slipping apart around us. The weeds and vines released from my arms and legs as the ground disintegrated like sand beneath me.

"The exorcism failed last time. Why should we trust it will work when we try it a second time? No mistakes this time."

My vision tunneled through darkness as the man in the wolf's mask finally reached me. The ground was gone. The clearing was gone. All that remained was me, the fire, and the howling pack of wolves. The man began to remove his mask.

"The only sure way to destroy your wolf, Allison, is to destroy you."

I screamed as I jolted awake, tumbling from the couch to the floor and landing hard on my ass.

"Allison!" Veronica leapt up from her seat and rushed over to me. "Are you okay?" She placed her hand on my arm. Her fingers were cool and comforting against my boiling skin.

My pulse raced as sweat beaded on my chest and back. I panted and wiped at my brow, for a second not remembering where I was. The floor buzzed beneath me as we went over a bump. I glanced around myself, taking in my surroundings.

I was still on the bus. It was just a dream. Just a nightmare.

"I'm sorry," I finally said once I managed to catch my breath.

Veronica squatted in front of me, her eyebrows turned down in concern as she squeezed my arm lightly. We were the only ones in the room.

"I was just having a bad dream," I managed to say,

"I'm sorry," she replied. Her voice sounded so real—so genuine. Then, she leaned in and hugged me, pulling me tight against her body.

I hugged her back with one arm, trying as best I could to calm the chills raging through me. I knew it was just a dream, but yet my eyes still stung with tears as I thought about the boy in the clearing and how the man had sliced his neck open without even hesitating.

I thought about the wolves' manic excitement as they watched.

That wasn't an exorcism . . . that was a sacrifice.