by Meg Collett
“Everything will be okay,” I lied.
“I know,” she whispered, smiling at me, her smoky gray eyes burning brightly. “I know.”
“Sunny,” Thad said.
Something in his voice scared me. I looked up at him. “What?”
He was staring off into the woods, his eyes focused on something. “It’s time to go.”
“We can’t—”
A twig snapped behind us.
Then, tick.
A whisper.
Tock.
F I F T E E N
Ollie
“Ollie.”
I looked up to find Mr. Clint standing at my table in the cafeteria, where I was eating a late dinner. Luke sat beside me to ensure I ate my weight in mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and hamburger steak.
“What is it?” I asked around a mouthful.
“Something’s happened,” Mr. Clint said, his face grimmer than usual. “You’ll want to see this.”
No one spoke as we followed him into the school. As we passed the Death Dome, not a single noise spilled through the open door to the dorms, though many students were in there at this time of day. My skin tightened over my bones. Mr. Clint led us up to Dean’s old office on the third floor. The halls were empty; even the gym was empty.
Inside the office, Marley stood in front of a television Mr. Clint had plugged into the wall and set on his desk. She glanced up as we came in but didn’t speak.
I was about to ask what the hell was going on, when I saw the television screen.
It was a national news channel. The anchor was a blonde woman with an overly concerned expression on her face. She was saying, “—replay the footage. What you are about to see is graphic. Please consider ushering your children out of the room.”
Shaky footage of a large ferry at a dock that looked eerily familiar filled the screen. With a building sense of dread, I recognized the dock. Those roads. That old ferry. It was Kodiak.
A long line of people wound out from the ferry. They were boarding one by one with members of the National Guard looking on. The latest slew of attacks had spurred more people to evacuate.
Then I heard the first scream.
The video feed jerked. It swung to the back of the line. Dark shapes spilled out from the trees and bounded across the gangway. People screamed and ran. Black fur and white eyes raced by. Near the person filming, a ’swang jumped onto the back of an elderly man. It slashed its claws down his back and wrapped its jaws around his neck. Even with the screaming, I heard his spine snap.
The person filming dropped the camera. It lay on its side, but the skewed angle caught all the carnage. Shots rang out from the military. But the rabid aswangs overran the ship. There had to be a hundred aswangs running along the dock, leaping onto the ship, tearing into people.
The footage jolted when a person fell right in front of it, their face filling the screen as they stared blindly into the camera. Blood splattered across the lens. Then the footage went dark.
Marley turned off the television.
“When was that?” I asked breathlessly.
“Just over an hour ago. At dusk,” Mr. Clint said.
Marley went to the phone on Dean’s old desk and dialed a number.
“Who are you calling?” My question was harsher than I’d meant it to be.
“The governor.”
Marley hit the speakerphone button and returned the phone to its cradle. She wrapped her arms around her middle, her gaze locked on the phone. She looked thinner than when she’d arrived that night with the helicopters. But that wasn’t a problem for now. That wasn’t a problem for ever, I told myself. I gritted my teeth and focused.
The governor’s voice crackled over the speaker. “—hear me, Marley?”
“I can, Thomas. Thank you for taking my call.”
“It’s the least I can do. I saw your father just the other night. Got to tell you, Marley, now isn’t the best time. What can I do for you, honey?”
I wrinkled my nose at the familiarity in the governor’s voice, but Marley wasn’t put off by it. But then, was she ever? “That’s what I’m calling about. I just saw the news. Can you tell me anything else that’s going on?”
“It’s a fucking shit show, that’s what I can tell you. We’re scrambling here. Rabid dogs? I mean, how the hell did that many rabid wolves get on Kodiak? And do you know what a disaster it is trying to evacuate people? Now with that ferry … Oh, for fuck’s sake.” His voice muffled as if he’d turned away. “Yes. Yes. Take that. I’ll be out in a minute. Well, tell them to wait.” A blast of static filled the speaker and then, in a clearer voice, he said, “Why are you asking about Kodiak?”
“I’m here, Thomas. I’m on Kodiak.”
The esteemed governor of Alaska let out a stream of curse words that impressed me. I glanced at Luke with my brows raised. He shook his head.
“—hell you doing on Kodiak? Your father never mentioned that! Jesus H. Christ, Marley, we’re about to bomb the holy shit out of that godforsaken island.”
My stomach lurched. Luke’s hand went to my back then around my waist. I didn’t realize my knees had almost given out until he was holding up most of my weight.
Marley’s eyes met mine. To the governor, she asked, ever so calmly, “What do you mean when you say bomb?”
More cursing, directed this time at whoever else was in the room with the governor. “The airspace above Kodiak is closed,” he said, his voice brisk with authority, “but I can send a jet in to get you. Where are you? Can you get to a tarmac? We need to mobilize you within the hour. After that, any planes above the island will be shot down.”
“The bombs, Thomas. Why are you dropping bombs?”
“Controlled detonations, my scientists are calling them. Or at least that’s what we will feed the press. We’re using geothermal tech to find the clusters of rabid animals and then we’re dropping a goddamn ballistic missile on their heads.”
“When?” I whispered to Marley. “Ask him when.”
The students. The kids. All the hunters. Kodiak. My home. Luke’s grip tightened on me.
“When? How much time do I have?” Marley asked the governor.
“Midnight tomorrow. We’ll have all the data we need by then to control the bombs, and my people tell me that’s long enough to justify any collateral damage from the people who chose not to evacuate.” The governor spoke to someone in the room again, his words too muffled to discern. Then back to Marley, he continued, “Tell me where you are. We need you out of there within the hour. Beyond that, not even I can justify the airspace breach. I’ve got the goddamn President breathing down my neck.”
“I’ll call you back,” Marley said.
“Marley, no—”
She ended the call with a press of a button, cutting off the governor’s protest.
“Fuck,” Mr. Clint hissed. He ran a hand over his face. He hadn’t shaved in a couple days, and he also looked thinner.
“How can they just drop bombs on an entire island? There’s no way that will go under the radar if people die.” The anger brought feeling back to my legs. I straightened away from Luke, though he kept a steadying hand on my back. “How the hell are we supposed to get the students out of here and to those boats with the pack at the gates?”
“Are those boats even safe?” Mr. Clint asked. “If the ’swangs are near the shoreline, they’ve followed the people there. It’ll only get worse as more cluster in those areas.”
“We can’t just sit here.” My fingertips were trembling. A terrible chill settled into my bones. How had Dean done this? How had he turned my pack against me? How had he known we would all be trapped at the university like sitting ducks waiting for bombs to fall on our heads?
Had he won?
“If we send the students out in trucks to evacuate, the pack will be on them in an instant,” Luke said. There was no tremble in his voice, no sign of fear, only steady resolve.
“Can you ask the governor to give u
s a window in the airspace shutdown to fly them out?” I asked Marley. “We could have them in the air within the hour.”
But Mr. Clint was already shaking his head. “There’s too many of them and too few pilots. We would need to make multiple trips, and there’s no way we can evacuate everyone inside of an hour.”
“We have to try.” The trembling worked its way up my arms.
Was this what Dean wanted? To have us all killed, children and all?
Marley stepped over to the window that overlooked the campus. Her breath fogged the glass as she said, “We might get the youngest ones out, but the other students would be left behind.”
“So call the governor,” I snapped. “Get as much time as you can.”
“You’re forgetting that he thinks this is a prison. Everyone out there,” Mr. Clint said, waving his hand toward the window, “thinks this place is full of the world’s worst criminals, not young children.”
“I don’t give a shit.” The trembling was leaving, replaced by something that felt like my old steel and grit. “Call him and tell him the inmates have to be evacuated too. Get us more planes. Get boats to Tick Tock Bay. Get every damn thing we can find. We won’t sit here and die.”
Mr. Clint nodded. He moved around the desk and started opening drawers and pulling out files that listed every student, professor, and hunter on campus. “Can we keep the pack off us long enough to get people safely onto boats in the bay?”
“We’ll have to.” I turned to Marley, who was still staring out the window. “Marley. Call the governor back. Now.”
She glanced at me and dipped her chin.
Something in her eyes told me all I needed to know. My stomach sank.
“Your notebook. This is why the school was burning.”
Mr. Clint looked up, startled.
“What?” Luke asked. “What notebook?”
“This is one of your visions,” I said. It wasn’t a question but a statement.
She swallowed, the fine column of her throat bobbing. “It’s all of them.”
“You and I,” I said, “need to talk. As soon as you get off the phone.”
She nodded again, firmer this time. When she reached for the phone, I turned to Luke. “We have to find Sunny.”
I was turning toward the door when he grabbed my arm. “You’re on the first plane out of here,” he said in a low growl. “There’s no question of that, you hear me? I don’t care what I have to do, but you’re getting out of here.”
His voice might have been etched in granite, but his eyes swam with fear.
I knew what he was thinking.
We weren’t gambling with just our own lives anymore.
But I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know if I could leave, knowing so many others weren’t safe.
Without answering, I pulled out of his grip and swung the office door open.
Sam stood on the other side, his hand raised as if he’d been about to knock. He blinked at me, the tip of his nose bright red. His lips were blue and cracked. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
I frowned at him. “Sam, is everything okay?”
It took a long moment for his eyes to find me, as if he were swimming up from the fathomless depths of a vast sea. His mouth opened while he considered his words.
“Sam?” I asked again, suddenly cold. “What happened?”
He closed his mouth and shook his head. “Nothing,” he whispered. “Just woke up from a bad dream.”
He walked away. I stared at his back until he turned the corner and disappeared.
S I X T E E N
Sunny
There was nothing to do but run, and maybe that was why it was so horrible.
“Here!” Thad tossed me his rifle, and I’d barely caught it before he scooped up Zero with the delicacy of a battering ram. He dove headlong into the thickest part of the woods, no doubt banking on the thicker foliage slowing down the ’swangs.
Flipping off the safety, I fired the gun blindly over my shoulder and raced after them.
I crashed into more tree trunks and low-lying limbs than I dodged. Ahead of me, with his halfling senses, Thad moved like a bullet through the woods. Snarls and snapping teeth came from inches behind me, and the slash of claws ripped through my jacket to puncture my skin more than once. From the stink of their breath, it was the rabid aswangs that had found us. But I kept my eyes forward, my arms pumping, my legs churning over the ground.
Zero thumped limply against Thad’s back, her hand dangling—
The ribbon.
My breath caught in a gasp.
The red tails flapped lazily from the branch up ahead through the trees. It stood out in sharp relief against the dark shadows, the blazing red catching the moonlight.
“Left!” I shouted at Thad. “Go left!”
He veered left without a word, leaping over a fallen log. I scrambled over it and turned in time to fire a shot into the face of a ’swang leaping at my back. It fell in a twisting heap over the log, nearly knocking me to the ground, and more ’swangs poured in behind it. I didn’t bother counting. There were too many to face.
“The ribbon!”
Thad glanced back, and I pointed up ahead, waving wildly at the limbs. He looked. I knew he saw it when he changed his angle and ran straight for it.
But he didn’t know what he was running toward.
“Wait!” I called, voice cracking.
The word didn’t carry, and Thad was a few steps away from being directly beneath the ribbon.
“It’s a—”
The sharp crack of wood splintered through the air as Thad’s boot and all his and Zero’s weight came down on the plywood.
Thad had a split second to shout before he and Zero disappeared.
I was going next if I didn’t slow down. Part of my brain screamed at me to jump in after them. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t blindly fall that far down. And these aswangs would probably follow me down.
Two steps from the broken wood and the mouth of the well, I crouched and spun, drawing up the gun in a spray of bullets. I took down three ’swangs, but the fourth hit me square in the chest.
It knocked me head over heels.
The ground disappeared beneath me. I screamed.
On instinct, I threw out my hands, the gun falling somewhere far below.
The fingers of my left hand found a groove, my nails digging in and bending backward, snapping off at the quick and farther. It bought me enough time to swing up my right hand and grab another rock. My feet scrabbled against the loose rocks for purchase, sending chunks crashing down below.
I dangled by a prayer, a few fingerholds, and fewer toeholds.
Above, the aswangs circled the well, snarling and growling. Their eyes glowed white. Farther in the woods, others howled, and the ones circling the well raced off with sharp barks that almost sounded like human screams.
“Sunny!”
I tried to look down, but I almost lost my grip. “Thad? Are you okay?” I shouted at the moss-covered rocks in front of my face.
“We’re okay! The water’s pretty deep. Can you climb up?”
“I … I think so.”
I would have to let go of my secure grip on the rocks with my right hand, but it was my only hope of pulling myself up. I’d never manage it with my weaker left arm. Sucking in a deep breath, I released the rocked and reached up, throwing my weight upward off my toes.
My fingers found the lip of the well.
But the rock crumbled beneath my palm, and I slid back.
There was nothing to hold on to.
White-hot pain lanced through my right hand.
I screamed.
“Sunny!”
The pain shot down my arm. But I wasn’t falling. I was rising like magic through the air, being dragged over the lip of the well and onto solid ground.
With a lash of pain sharper than a knife’s cut, I was flung to the side.
Now that I was on solid ground, my breathing returned,
and I swallowed my heart back down into my chest. I scrambled up onto my elbows and then onto my knees. One glance at my hand confirmed I’d been bitten. Looking up, I saw the culprit.
A beautiful, almost silver aswang with shimmering eyes stood in front of me, between me and the well.
Sibyl.
She licked her lips, my blood on her teeth.
My head swam. Somewhere in my chest, my heart squeezed against thickening blood. My breathing slowed.
I smiled at Sibyl.
She cocked her head at me.
I had never felt so infinite in all my life. A laugh bubbled up inside me. What had I been so worried about? She was just an aswang. Just one. And I had fought many before. Killed many too.
“Do you know what you are, Sibyl?” I asked, my smile stretching wider, my laughter as bright as diamonds on my tongue. “Just a drop in the ocean. You’re nothing.”
Her jaws closed. A low growl built in her throat.
From deep in the well, Thad called up, “Sunny? What’s happening? Is that you?”
“Hold your horses, Thaddeus,” I shouted back. I pulled a knife from my belt and asked Sibyl, “Ready to get what you deserve, bitch?”
With a snarl, Sibyl sprang forward.
To be so lean, her haunches were powerful. She leaped through the air like a shining metal bullet. Almost beautiful, I had time to think. Almost. If she hadn’t tried to kill my pregnant best friend.
What. A. Bitch.
She expected me to duck beneath her or roll to the side. The last thing she expected was for me to stand there. So when her powerful haunches launched her right into my chest, her surprise turned her lithe body tense as we collided and hit the ground in a flurry of fur and skin.
I sliced with my knife, cutting through her hide, deep into the soft spot behind her shoulder.
Her teeth sank into my bicep.
My knife fell from my hand. My fingers weren’t working right. My arm fell limp to the ground.
The pain was there, but the fearlessness was heady, all-consuming, almighty even, though my grandmother would have accused me of blasphemy. I should have been afraid. I should have stopped long enough to consider that my throwing arm, my right arm, wasn’t working.
