But, Ella realized, there was one other way to stop the ritual from happening.
On the tablet sat Vivi’s gun with its plain copper bullet. Quickly, before she could think, Ella reached behind her and picked it up with her left hand—the hand Napper had considered too useless and weak to restrain.
Napper laughed. “It will bounce off of me like a rubber ball,” he growled.
“I know,” Ella said, meeting Napper’s eyes as she fired. The small piece of metal—no bigger than her fingernail, no wider than a bean—tore through her skin too fast to feel. It slashed through muscle, blasting through her clavicle, then into her body—bone shattering like thousands of fires in her chest, and then the fires were gone—ash, blackness.
Ella crumpled, falling, as the bullet exited through her scapula and hit the stone, which splintered into thousands of shards. They sprayed in all directions striking Napper, the walls, the glass ceiling.
Napper fell to the ground as glass poured down like rain on his dead body. For an instant, the wolves bounded forward, and then stopped.
Nothing moved, the air barely shifting until, from deep in the distance, an ancient voice cried out—royal, commanding—calling the wolves.
The wolves paused, sniffing; then turned, breaking away, following the command, pulling back to the wild.
People woke up as if a spell was broken just as Fiona Price and her husband arrived with their lawyer and the FBI.
Her daughter, however, she found racing to the top of a hill, screaming, then crying over another girl’s still body.
Epilogue
They would call it a mass shooting, mob related. Several were dead from bullets or shards to the heart.
The Silver Shooter—a woman identified as Raquel Wilhelmson and a member of a mob the FBI identified as The Ring of the Alpha—was also dead—seemingly from accidental gunfire. Most of her accomplices were dead or seriously injured and had been taken into custody.
Nothing found in any of Charles Napper’s remaining documents could connect him to the mob. That didn’t change the fact that he was dead.
Charles Napper had left no will and no heirs. Consequently, his property would be donated to the city and operated by a new city planner, a gentleman by the name of Robert Calhoun who had—per his resume—spent the last several years moving to various cities throughout the country and studying a diversity of city plans, layouts, and landscaping. The Property would be in good hands.
In the southern corner of The Property, a small historical structure would be rebuilt—a tiny hut with a large hearth—one of the original houses in the city of Napper. Around it would be several community gardens containing flowers, herbs, and vegetables, which could be accessed and used by all the residents of Napper, including those from the south end.
Already the padlocks on the southern gate had been removed. In the years to come, this entrance would be hung with a large sign that read, “Zinnie’s Landing: All Welcome.”
Sarah had sworn she would never go back to any hospital ever again, but on Christmas morning she walked the snowy path up to the Napper Trauma Unit, and let herself in. Ella had been unconscious for two days, but now she was awake. Fortunately for everyone, shooting with your left hand and trying to hit your heart wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Ella had managed to muff her own suicide. Sarah thought it was the best Christmas present ever.
With the adoption of Sheila being a close second.
Ella’s story had been all over the news—the girl who had stopped a huge mob operation right here in little old Napper.
Sam and Robert were already at the hospital filling Ella in on the details she had missed while being nearly dead.
“What I just don’t get,” Sam was saying, “is why the stone shattered. I mean nothing else could break it. It’s been around for millennia. Why that bullet?”
His father shrugged. “Ella was the last in a very long line of Bearers. Perhaps when her body shattered, so did the stone.”
“Maybe,” Sarah said, putting a huge pink poinsettia on Ella’s table. “It seems to me that great sacrifices always bring about great gifts. Unusual gifts. Miraculous gifts.”
Sarah sat by the bed and looked at her friend. Ella’s shoulder was bound up with a bandage that looked too simple to cover a wound that had punctured a lung, broken several ribs, and shattered part of her scapula and clavicle. Her right wrist had several puncture wounds that ran deep and had damaged both muscle and nerve. She’d be affected by the wounds—changed—for the rest of her life.
Loco was sleeping next to her. He and Foxy had been patched up by Jones, and then deemed therapy animals—allowed to stay with Ella until she went home. Home. A place with her real uncle and real cousin.
“So,” Sarah said, looking at Ella. “What do you want for Christmas?”
Ella looked weak, pale with some of the color just coming back into her lips. “I’d say being alive is a pretty good start,” she said.
“Whatever,” Sarah said. “Don’t get all mushy-gushy on us. Seriously, what do you want?’
“How about some better food?” Sam said, looking at the paste-colored soup at her bedside.
“A new house to come home to,” Robert added.
“With walls every color but white,” Sarah said.
“That sounds pretty good,” Ella replied, smiling. “But what I really want right now is for someone to tell me a story—one with a good beginning. And a happy ending.”
Sam raised an eyebrow and looked at Sarah. He cleared his throat. “Once,” he began, “there lived a boy and a girl and a really hot other girl…”
“Oh, be quiet,” Sarah said and pushed him aside. “Once,” she said, her voice hushed, “there lived three young children trapped between walls that pressed in on them, growing tighter every day.”
“Did they get out?” Ella asked, taking Sarah’s hand.
“Shhh,” Sarah said. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Yes,” Sam whispered to Ella, quietly enough that Sarah wouldn’t hear.
He took Ella’s other hand and together the three friends sat as the story wound around, holding them—as stories do—tightly.
Acknowledgments
Books take a long time to write. Whole streams of people are involved and all they get is this lousy t-shirt. Wait, they don’t even get that. But we’d still really like to thank them. First, a huge shout out to our beta readers this go round: Becca, Emilee, Rebecca, Emily, and Tori. Thank you for treading through a half-baked manuscript and giving us advice. A special thank you goes to Mirandine for checking the French in the manuscript. We’d also like to thank Vanessa and Anna-Lisa for their input on tricky bits. And of course we need to give a really big high five to our tween and teen readers: Mark, Elizabeth, Peter, and Alyson.
Thanks to all the family and friends who let us (especially Jean because she is an OCD pest) send 700 minutely different versions of the same two paragraphs and ask for opinions. And a big thank you to those who blog, share, and re-tweet. We love you, too.
We also appreciate all the libraries, schools, book stores, students, and fans who’ve had us for events and loved on our books. May we have many more years together.
There were many local places and a few local people who inspired scenery and characters for this book. The real life Ella (Jake’s daughter) says, “Thanks to Mr. Whitten, one of the best teachers ever. He taught the 4th grade Rat Pack how fun each day could be. He inspired us to be the best we can be.”
Thank you to our original publisher, Ink Smith, and our editor and jack-of-all-book-trades, Corinne.
The biggest, warmest hugs (kisses, special dinners and/or nights out, etc. and etc.) go to Kip and Cara for being the best spouses in the world. You’re the ones who find us slumped over our work, dare to pat our backs and tell us it’s time to go to bed and that things will look better in the morning. They usually do. Especially when you’ve got kids so great that you can model whole characters around their awesomenes
s.
—Jean and Jake
About the Author
Jean Knight Pace is the co-author of Grey Lore as well as the author of Hugging Death: Essays on Motherhood and Saying Goodbye. She has had essays and short stories published in Puerto del Sol, The Lakeview Review, and other literary magazines. She lives in Indiana with her husband, four children, six ducks, and a cat. You can find more about her at jeanknightpace.com.
Jacob Kennedy is an ER doctor who dreams werewolves and tournaments in his free time. He is also the co-author of Grey Lore. Find him on Facebook @jacobkennedybooks.
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