To the kid, June was a monster. Half swallowed by darkness, she was a strange chimeric combination of beauty and horror. Her sparkling leotard, specially made to flash and sparkle in the spotlight as she flew above stunned audiences, now seemed as if was holding her together. From the waist down, and from one elbow to wrist, she still boasted the tanned skin and lean muscle that had made her a spectacle all her life. But the rest of her looked as if someone had somehow draped clothes onto an artist's sculpture of a beautiful woman rendered in pitch black clay.

  The sun was setting, night coming on like a stalker as boy and monster faced off. June flexed and relaxed one gloved hand around the wooden stock of her gun. It would be so easy. The kid wasn't even 10 yards off. She raised the gun, earning a shriek from the child, and took aim at his chest. The heady rush of anticipation filled her with confidence even as he bolted. One squeeze of the trigger was all it would take, and she would be free and clear.

  June, a voice echoed from her memory. Please, end this.

  Her hand suddenly wasn't so steady. It wobbled as the wind gusted, pushing the barrel off course. The same gust had knocked the kid off his feet. He scrambled to all fours in the snow, still not more than 15 yards out, and turned to look back at his attacker.

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  Wide, blue eyes regarded her with terror.

  "Fuck," June muttered to herself, correcting her aim to account for the wind. "They just had to be blue."

  Memories of another pair of blue eyes filled her vision. Of how they had begged her, in the end, to change. Blue eyes and blood in the darkness, and the flush of strength she had felt when this had all began. A strength that had now run out.

  With a wailing sob, June dropped the gun and fell to her knees. Guilt tore through her in an agonizing wave, and she raised her hands in surrender. The boy, having gained his feet again, was fleeing as fast as his legs could carry him.

  The patches of shadow cast across the snow by the waning sunlight stretched longer. June felt almost relieved when pain took hold of her bare feet. A shadow crawled up her leg, and the animalistic panic that would have sent her screaming in years prior did not come. The urge to survive had simply gone out of her, like a candle snuffed in the breeze. She stared down at her leotard - she had spent so long embellishing it this year - as her legs blurred into darkness.

  The pain was exquisite until the very end.