Haylo Kiss -

“I’m not giving you anything.”

Haylo picked up her shotgun. “Because my grandmother didn’t bargain for me. She bargained for you. You think you’ve been haunting us? We’ve been keeping you, trapped in a name, bound to this hollow. And now you’ve had your kiss.” Haylo Kiss

That was the first time Haylo understood the name her grandmother had given her. “Haylo,” the old woman had whispered on her deathbed, “is for the place where you hide. And Kiss is for the thing that finds you anyway.” “I’m not giving you anything

Now, at seventeen, Haylo stood in that same hayloft, a shotgun in her hands and a circle of salt around her boots. The moon was a thumbnail paring. The thing was back. You think you’ve been haunting us

The thing screamed—a sound like a barn door tearing off its hinges—and collapsed into a heap of mud and moonlight. Where it fell, a single sheep’s skull lay, clean as porcelain.