by Ilsa J. Bick
Page 32
“No. Just some old iron mine, I guess. I had a map, but I lost it somewhere. All I know is we’re about five days northwest of the mine, and there are supposed to be a ton of Chuckies there, too. ”
“You mean, like a big tribe?”
“More like a lot of smaller groups moving in and out. Kind of like a home base, I guess. Mellie said they probably chose the mine because they knew it from before and mines are warmer the deeper you go. ”
She thought about that. Would Spider and Leopard circle south, too? Go hang with their friends, maybe toss back a couple brews and carve up some nice juicy steaks, throw some hamburgers on the grill? There was no way to know the answers, and in some sense, it didn’t matter. Without Wolf, Alex thought her time was nearly up. Spider needed her for Daniel—no question about that— and in more ways than one. Unless the Changed figured on Alex becoming their camp nurse, Spider had no incentive to let her live indefinitely. But if this was the Rule mine Daniel was talking about, they were still relatively close to the village.
Got to figure out where I am. Her mind was already leapfrogging ahead, ticking off the steps. This might be my best and last chance. Even a rough map will do. Her eyes settled on that desk across the room. “If I got paper and pencil, could you draw it from memory?”
His head made a weary shake. “I’m not so good with that. ” She squelched a pulse of irritation. “Could you at least try?”
“Can we not do this right now?” Daniel’s lips trembled. His face was pinched, the strain and his grief carved in deep lines across his forehead and along his nose. “Can’t we do this later?”
She had to snatch back the impulse to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shake: No, don’t you get it? We really can’t. But she forced herself to slow down. “I know it’s hard, but this is important, Daniel. I know you feel bad. I’ve lost people, too. There was this little girl and then . . . ” She felt her eyes welling. “Then I failed someone I really cared about, and I tried the best I could, but it still wasn’t good enough, and he’s dead now because of me. So I do know what it’s like to want to give up, I really do. But you can’t. Please. ” She put a trembling hand on his chest. “Please, Daniel. Think. Try to remember. Where’s the camp?”
The boy’s eyes were pools. “Alex, I . . . I don’t know, I really don’t. I wish I did, but all I remember is that once we got across the border, Mellie told me to keep heading south. ”
“Did she say why?”
“Only that going too far east and deeper into Michigan would be bad. I didn’t think to ask any more. I thought there was plenty of time, and I was so tired out and scared. Jack and me, we were on our own for so long. It was a relief to have someone tell me what to do. I only wish I’d really listened. ”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . ,” he began, then stopped. A huge tear trembled at the corner of his left eye.
“Daniel?” When he still didn’t reply, she touched his cheek. His skin was clammy and slick as cold marble. “Daniel?” she said softly. “What did you mean? Why didn’t you listen to Mellie? Why didn’t you do what she said?”
She watched the tear swell then splash to his cheek, and the sour scent of his loss and despair—and, worse, the scorch of his self-contempt—balled in her throat.
“Because I . . . I just c-couldn’t,” he choked. “Not after I saw you. ”
46
That knocked her back.
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“I . . . we spotted your guys—the wolf-people? Like three days ago, and then we . . . ” His streaming eyes meandered away a moment then drifted back. “We tracked you. ”
“You—” she began, then stopped. Three days ago, Brian was still alive. “Are you kidding me? You tracked us? For three days?”
She wanted to slap his face: You had guns! You had grenade launchers! What the hell were you waiting for, an engraved invitation? “Why?”
“I told you. ” Daniel lifted a quivering hand to his lips. “I tracked you because I saw you. I couldn’t let the Chuckies have someone normal. You’re one of us. I . . . I couldn’t let them just have you. So we followed you and then waited for an opportunity to take them out. ”
Oh my God. Daniel had talked the other kids into a rescue mission. Kids would want to save their own. The really young ones, not yet old enough to understand how bad things could get, might’ve been pumped. For them, a rescue would be like playing a kick-ass video game.
“What I don’t get is how the wolf-people knew we were coming. ”
Daniel’s said. “We stayed downwind and everything, just like Mellie taught us. That other tribe—”
“Tribe. ”
Sure, like Wolf ’s pack, Leopard’s crew might be called a tribe. “The kids in white?”
“Yeah. They came out of nowhere. We only got off a couple shots and then Jack . . . ” He put an arm over his eyes and turned his head toward the far wall.
Her anger vanished. What the hell was she doing? She had no right. Daniel was no older than she, and all he’d tried to do was help her—and look how well that turned out. She felt sick again, and weak. This really wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t to blame. She couldn’t control everything. Shit happened.
Yeah, right. God, first Tom, then Chris gets hurt because of me. And now Daniel’s friends get themselves killed, and Jack—
Daniel reeled in a watery breath. “They surprised that wolfguy, too. ”
Through the bitter fog of her guilt, it took her a second to register. “The guy. You mean, Wolf ?” The sudden tightness in her chest was something she could’ve done without. Why she should care about a monster was still beyond her. “You saw him?”
“Yeah. The girl, the one with the face. ” He tapped his cheek. “She shot him. ”
“Shot . . . ” The word dried up on her tongue. “Spider shot him?”
When he threw her a questioning look, she added, “It’s what I call her. She’s got that designer gear, so . . . Why did she shoot him? What for?”
She could see Daniel thinking about that. “She was . . . angry. Like she didn’t want to be there at all. I’m not exactly sure how I know that, but she was. ”
“Be where?”
“A clearing maybe a half mile from here. They were doing this really weird ritual thing. You know those wolf skins they wear? Well, they had a real live wolf, this great big gray guy they’d probably trapped or snared. I couldn’t see everything because it was getting on dark and the snow had already started. But the wolf was really strong, fighting the ropes. The girl, Spider—she had that big honking knife and so did the guy. I’m sure they were going to kill and then skin it. ”
This was news. She knew nothing about this side of the Changed. She thought back to that arena near Rule, the way flanked by flayed wolf carcasses. “What happened?” she asked.
“To the wolf, I mean. ”
“I don’t know. In the confusion, it might have gotten away. But the way the wolf-people were gathered around, it felt like . . . ” He groped for the word. “Religious. Except for the girl, Spider? She was pissed, like it wasn’t her idea. ”
Hmm. That was the second . . . no, third time Daniel seemed to either know or intuit how the Changed felt.
“So I was thinking, great, hit ’em now when they’re distracted,” he continued. “Only the other guys swarmed all over us, and then I saw her with one of them, a real tall guy—”
“Leopard. ”
“Okay. ” Daniel accepted the nickname. “Leopard went right up to her, and then she was yanking out his pistol. She turned fast, popped off a couple shots at the wolf-boy. He was moving before she got all the way around, and then he made it to the woods, but you could tell he got hit. She started after him, only the little guy tried to stop her, and then she popped him in the back. ”
The little guy would be Beretta. She thought about that. She h
ad assumed the Changed could read one another like telepaths, in a way. But that wasn’t quite right, was it? Wolf never saw Spider coming, or by the time he did, there wasn’t enough time to save himself. So the Changed couldn’t be, well, broadcasting all the time, if that’s even what they did.
But that’s why I’m here with Daniel. It was another hunch, a brainping, but she thought she was right. Spider killed Wolf. Slash took me to Daniel, which means Spider’s just as happy if Beretta gets neglected to death. Why? Because Beretta was loyal to Wolf ? That was plausible. Of the pack, Beretta and Acne seemed closer to Wolf than Slash was. Guys tended to hang with guys. Slash and Spider were the only girls. Maybe Slash was a minion, the kind of high school kid grateful to be a remora to Spider’s shark. And how had Spider gotten word to Leopard in the first place? How did she know Leopard? From before? Unless . . .
“Daniel,” she said, “you told me there were other Cha . . . uh, Chuckies at the mine, right? Do you know how many? Are they, like, tribes who cooperate with each other, or . . . ”
“I don’t know. ” His lips wobbled. He averted his face again.
“Really, I have to stop now. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. ”
“All right. ” And it really was. She wasn’t sure she could bear any more unexpected revelations anyway. She fished an MRE from her camo pack of medical supplies. “It’s chicken with noodles. I brought along a bouillon cube, too. The doctor I worked with said chicken noodle soup was good when you’d lost blood. ”
He gave the packet a listless glance. “I’m not hungry. ”
“You should try. ”
When he shook his head again, she persisted. “Are you thirsty?”
“A little. ” Tears trickled from the corners of his eyes to wet the pillowcase. “I just want to go to sleep and not wake up. ” She said nothing.
