Westbound in Red

I wake up three days dead with a child's pulse hammering in my ears and her throat two inches from my mouth. I died building the railroad for pennies. Now I'm the thing white men tell campfire stories about—except I'm starving, I don't speak English, and the only person who knows what I am left me one note: *Learn control or I'll put you down myself.* I'm hiding in a wagon train headed west, playing the silent widow, stitching leather by day and bleeding rabbits dry at night. But someone else is hunting. Bodies are turning up drained, and the bounty hunter searching every wagon has a jawline sharp enough to cut and a nose that won't quit until he finds the monster. The little girl who smiles at me every morning doesn't know my nails could rip through her ribs. She doesn't know I've already imagined it. Salt Lake City is six weeks away—but I can feel my control slipping with every sunset, and I still don't know if the woman waiting for me is my salvation or my executioner.