Crossroads Burning

by Nash, Layla

  I wanted to know if everyone else was okay, if Eddie had made it back, if we still had all the horses... But a bee sting-like pinch on my thigh reminded me of the morphine they’d given me before, and then everything went soft and hazy once more.

  Chapter 24

  When I finally pried my eyes open, my head pounded like I had a whiskey hangover and my mouth filled with moldy cotton. I groaned and shut my eyes again, the sunlight too bright for me to face.

  “Hold on,” Mason said nearby, then shade covered me and the air moved as he leaned down over me. “I’ve got the tarp over you. Can you open your eyes? What do you need?”

  I needed to rewind my life by two weeks or more and never go anywhere with Lincoln and his pals. But instead I croaked, “Water.”

  “Got it.” He moved away but the shade remained, so I cracked one eye open and tried to see through the blazing white that overwhelmed my vision and brain. The sun itself seemed to sit right over me, burning straight through my retinas to my skull and blanking out every thought that bubbled to the surface.

  It might have been a blink or another hour before he returned and tipped a bottle over my mouth. The cool water splashed against my lips and awakened a ravenous thirst. I didn’t care that it ran down the sides of my face so long as it filled my mouth and some of it slid down my throat. I gulped and Mason lifted the bottle away, waiting as I coughed and tried to lift my head.

  “Slowly,” he said. He set the bottle down and glanced over at someone else. “Give me a hand. We can sit her up a little. How does your side feel, Lucky?”

  “Lucky?” I groaned as he and Eddie helped me sit, and I held my side tightly as my muscles and ribs protested. “I don’t feel lucky.”

  “You’re luckier than you know,” the lion said under his breath. He gave me a tight smile, though worry lurked in his eyes. “No one survives that much magic at once. No one.”

  “I had help.” My arms flopped around as I reached for the water bottle; none of my muscles obeyed me the right way, like somehow the signals between my brain and the rest of my body had snapped. Or been severed. Even breathing took too much concentration. “More water. Please.”

  Mason frowned but held the bottle for me, tipping it slowly against my mouth. “Just a bit at a time, or you’ll yak it right back up.”

  “We don’t want that,” Eddie said. The ranger looked half-dead—pale and wan, with dark circles under his eyes. Like he hadn’t slept or rested in days or weeks, instead of just hours. “How are you feeling, Luckett?”

  “Like nine miles of bad road,” I said. I blinked, trying to clear tears and dust from my vision. “Where is everyone? What happened?”

  The shifter sat back, though his hand remained a warm support against my shoulder as he helped keep me upright. “Well, after the fireworks and light show that you and Lincoln put on, you’ve been sleeping. It’s about three in the afternoon, so you’ve been snoring for a while. Lincoln and Nelson are out trying to track down more werewolves, and Hazel is getting rid of the bodies.”

  A knot formed in my throat. The bodies. As if they hadn’t been people at one point.

  Eddie’s lips compressed and disappeared in his two-week beard as he caught sight of my expression, and his hand wrapped around mine with a gentle squeeze. “I know, Luckett. I know. We did what we could.”

  “It wasn’t enough,” I managed to whisper.

  “I know,” he repeated, and we both ran out of words.

  Mason cleared his throat, like he didn’t know whether something he said would push me over the edge and send me into a tailspin or if he could make things better. Either way, his tone was far gentler than I’d come to expect from the flirtatious brothers. “If we can find some of their clothing, maybe at the caves, we can at least report that we found them. A lot of people end up lost out here and we can tell their families they got turned around and passed away from natural causes. We took some DNA samples as well, so our lab can sort out what remains of the human genomes from the were virus. We’ll do everything we can to make sure the families have closure.”

  It didn’t help. It didn’t get rid of the knot in my throat and the unshed tears that burned my eyes. I couldn’t blame those on the brilliant sunlight. It didn’t feel right that it was a beautiful sunny day after the ugliness of the night before. Eddie cleared his throat and held my hand tighter, though his attention was on Mason. “Can you give us a minute?”

  The shifter hesitated, looking between us, and I wondered at why he might not give us time alone. Did they still not trust us? My heart sank and exhaustion rolled through me once more, nearly knocking me back into the grass even with their supporting hands. I wanted my sisters with me. No, I wanted my mother and Gran and all the aunts who’d come before. I needed a family around me to help, because this was too much to carry on my own. It was too much for just Liv and Lucia and me.

  I took a shaky breath, on the verge of breaking down completely, and Mason nodded quickly. He squeezed my uninjured shoulder in support, and pitched his voice low. “Of course. Just take slow breaths, Luckett. Take it easy. That much magic can scramble your brain and get your insides all mixed up, and it can take a while to get to feeling back to normal. Just…go slowly. We’ll stay here another night, then go to the cave tomorrow morning.”

  We had to be running out of food. The thought hit me out of the blue. We’d planned to be gone two weeks, and we were well past that. And we still had at least two to three days to get back to town or to one of the ranches where we could beg some supplies. But then Mason eased to his feet and ambled over to where a pile of saddlebags waited next to the banked fire.

  Eddie took a deep breath as he rubbed his face, looking like he’d aged ten years overnight. “Holy shit, Luckett. I didn’t think you’d wake up from that.”

  “What did it look like?” Part of me didn’t want to know, but I figured Eddie would tell me the truth regardless of how much it sucked.

  “Well,” he said, and paused. And I started to wonder if maybe he wouldn’t tell me. Maybe he couldn’t tell me. I’d told him to ride away and save himself, after all. I couldn’t fault him for doing so.

  I swayed a little and dug my fingers into the ground to stay upright as my heart beat faster and almost unbalanced me. “It’s okay if you don’t know, Eddie. I sent you away. I wanted to save you. Those wolves would have…they would have—”

  My throat closed up and I couldn’t speak, shaking my head as tears threatened again.

  “I know, Luckett.” He looped his arm around my shoulders and let me lean against his side, the ranger a comforting wall next to me. “I was just trying to figure out how to explain the unexplainable. I tried to pull you with me on the horse, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t reach you. I circled back and got more ammunition, and shot the wolves I could see from outside the fight. Lincoln came back from somewhere—I have no idea where he was or what he’d been doing—but the man looked like the Jolly Green Giant. Ten feet tall and glowing all strange and his eyes were... I don’t know how to describe it. From a different world, maybe. Scary as hell, and I don’t say that lightly.”

  I concentrated on breathing. In and out. In and out. Mason was right about one thing, at least—my brain felt like scrambled eggs and I had to focus on every little movement to get my body to cooperate. At least leaning against the ranger was easy. He warmed away the chill in the air and radiating from the ground. I nodded against his shoulder, waiting for him to go on.

  Eddie cleared his throat a couple of times. “I wasn’t sure we would win, Luckett, to be honest. The wolves just wouldn’t die. They kept fighting and trying to bite and everyone was just barely holding on. One of the wolves sneaked around and started to go after Lincoln, and another had Hazel pinned down, and the lions were holding off three, and one of them nearly killed you. You looked—you looked like you were staring at death and were ready to go down swinging. I don’t know what you did but lightning started in the sky and I thought for sure we’d end up wit
h another fire. The whole ground shook and the air was like…like a tornado was comin’. Eerie and still but heavy at the same time. You just stood there and all of you turned gold and blue and then—I don’t know, Luckett. I thought I saw you pointing at things but I couldn’t be sure, because all that light blinded me and when I could see again, the werewolves were dead. All dead.”

  I closed my eyes and tried not to remember or see it all over again. It felt so much more real from the middle of the ley magic. I’d felt each of the wolves die, felt as their bodies gave way and their spirits departed and the magic removed the taint of their existence. It was my fault. I’d killed all of them. All of those people...

  A hiccup escaped, along with more tears, and Eddie squeezed me closer. My ribs protested but I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to feel alone ever again, not when my thoughts filled with all the blood on my hands. The werewolves weren’t like the dire wolves, who were driven only by instinct and a deep hunger. The werewolves had been people at one point. Seven of them that night, and four of them before. I’d killed eleven people.

  Eleven. People.

  Eddie waited until I stopped shivering before he went on, voice quiet. “After everything went quiet, though, you were still…a roman candle. It didn’t stop. You just hung there, consumed by these lights, even when we called to you and tried to pull you back down. You sounded like it hurt, like you were suffering, but none of them knew what to do. Until Lincoln—he walked up and caught your hand and then his green glow surrounded you as well. From there, I don’t know what the hell happened, just that it took almost four hours before you woke up.”

  I exhaled, trying to forget what the werewolves had looked like as they died, and kept my eyes closed. Maybe if I didn’t think about it, I would eventually forget. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I would still try. “I didn’t expect to come back.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did.” Eddie hugged me closer, tighter, and I believed him just from that and the shaky sound of his breathing.

  “I thought you would die,” I whispered. “Before you got to the horses. I thought the wolves would bite you and you’d turn and then I’d have to kill you, and I couldn’t stand it. I’m glad you went. You should have kept riding.”

  Eddie snorted, shaking his head, but his voice sounded a little watery as well. “I wasn’t going to leave you to the wolves, Luckett. These folks can take care of themselves, but you’re family. And we don’t leave family behind. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said, and felt like I could almost smile again. Family. Even if the family was a bit crazy and fought werewolves. The feeling didn’t last long, though, because Hazel trudged back to camp, looking defeated and exhausted, and I was reminded once more that she’d been out burying bodies. Or just disposing of them.

  When she saw me up and talking, she started to smile, on the verge of calling out and heading over, but Mason gestured for her to join him by the fire. Nice of him, giving Eddie and me a little while longer to talk. I didn’t know what else to say, though, so we sat in silence for a while, listening to the hush of the wind through the grass.

  The silence left me too much time with my own thoughts, and before long my chest tightened and my sinuses burned and the tears started again. Eddie noticed fast enough I didn’t really start blubbering, and he tucked my head against his shoulder as he rocked us just a little, like I was a kid. “Come on, Luckett. It’s all going to be okay.”

  “I k-killed people,” I said, though I couldn’t say it too loudly. The Book told us what we did in the world came back to us threefold, so I had a lot of bad coming my way. “Eleven people. How…how…”

  “You defended yourself,” he said, shaking his head. “And your friends. It’s not like you walked out and murdered eleven innocent people.”

  “But they were innocent,” I said. “They were bitten and that was it, they didn’t have any control over what happened and who they went after.”

  “Luckett—” He cut himself off as two more figures appeared, a lot closer than Hazel had been, and Lincoln’s gaze found me immediately. Eddie sighed and patted my shoulder. “Hon, I know from experience there’s not much I can say to make you feel better about what happened. I was in the same place three months into my first tour in Afghanistan. Just…be easy on yourself. Sometimes there are no good options, and you’ve got to pick a bad one. I think that big dude will tell you the same thing.”

  And then Lincoln stood in front of us before I could get my scrambled thoughts together enough to process what Eddie said. The ranger glanced up at him and for a long moment the two men just looked at each other. Lincoln spoke first, as if he’d been giving Eddie the chance to start just from manners, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Has she eaten?”

  Like I wasn’t there, or wouldn’t make enough sense to answer for myself.

  Eddie shook his head. “Not yet. Just water and talking. Maybe you go round up some food and I’ll finish my chat with Luckett.”

  Lincoln nodded, though his gaze lingered on my face, and I might have imagined the relief in his eyes. “Sure. Mason was getting some pasta cooked.”

  He walked to the fire, though he looked back several times as if to make sure I was still there, and when he was out of earshot, the park ranger bent his head just a touch so there wasn’t a chance of anyone overhearing. “I don’t know what he is, Luckett, but be careful. Please. There’s something they ain’t tellin’ us, and they’re far too calm about all this, even with the havoc from last night. Especially with the havoc from last night.”

  “I know.” Boy, did I know. I’d been thinking that since the moment Lincoln walked into my life.

  And with Lincoln walking back, carrying a bowl of something, I couldn’t tell whether the worst was behind me.

  Chapter 25

  Eddie excused himself and retreated back to the fire, where Hazel argued with Mason about something rather loudly. Trying to give their boss some privacy, or at least the pretense of it. Lincoln hesitated again, studying me closely, then dropped to sit next to me. “How are you feeling?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how I felt. I didn’t know if I’d ever know how I felt about the fight with the werewolves. Killing eleven people. Being dragged into something I didn’t understand and didn’t want any part of. I’d liked Rattler’s Run well enough before Lincoln and his people showed up and brought werewolves and the Mother only knew what else to our little corner of the world.

  When I just stared at him, my brain working too slowly to generate words, a hint of a smile crossed his face. “I felt the same way after the first big battle I got pulled into. It’s okay. It just takes a while to process.”

  “Is this going in the report?”

  “Yes,” he said, concentrating on stirring the pasta. He offered me the food and I tried to take it, although my arms didn’t seem to work properly. I managed to hold the bowl though I nearly dropped it when he started to release it, so Lincoln held the bowl and helped me pick up the spoon. He waited until I managed a few bites before he went on. “It’s not something we can hide, unfortunately; no doubt one of the field offices will have picked up some of these signatures. I expect headquarters will be interested in your performance. I’ll have to interview you formally, although the rest of us will provide statements on the situation and what happened.”

  “Me?” I almost dropped the spoon. “Can’t this be one of the things that doesn’t get mentioned?”

  Lincoln took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, because there were deaths and previously-human victims, we have to write up everything.”

  Curse it. They needed someone to take the blame for it, and since I was the guilty one who killed all eleven of the human victims, no doubt I’d be the one taking the fall. The Bell only knew what they did with witches who killed people, even if the victims were werewolves. Just because Lincoln and his pals had been all gung-ho to kill the beasts didn’t mean they’d let random witches go around doing the same thing
. My throat closed and made it difficult to swallow the pasta, even though I’d been chewing it for what felt like forever.

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  He blinked, and the beard hid too much of his expression in the fading light for me to know what he was thinking. “Why would I arrest you?”

  Playing dumb, no doubt. Maybe they’d lull me into a false sense of security and get me to take them back to Rattler’s Run, then slap on magical handcuffs or Hazel would knock me out with a spell and I’d wake up in some kind of dungeon. They seemed like the kind of people who would have a dungeon. “Because I killed the werewolves.”

  Lincoln nodded slowly, like he was trying to keep up and what I was saying wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. “You did, that’s true.”

  When he said nothing else, apparently waiting for me to disclose why I’d probably end up executed in some gruesome way, I stared at him and tried to gesture with the spoon but only succeeded in dropping it in my lap. “I killed people. Usually you get arrested for that kind of thing.”

  He started smiling. “Luckett—”

  “I killed eleven people,” I said, and my voice got too loud and too high and too almost-hysterical. Everyone over at the fire went quiet and didn’t bother trying to look like they weren’t listening. “Eleven people. I should go to jail. I should be locked up where I can’t hurt anyone else. You can’t just…you can’t let a monster like me walk free! I did it twice, Lincoln. I killed four of them and then waited a couple of days and tracked them down to their home and killed seven more. I’m a…a m-monster a…and—”

  The torrent of tears broke free again and his smile disappeared. Lincoln set the bowl aside and abruptly gathered me into his lap, wrapping those massive arms around me like I was a little kid with a skinned knee. “Hey now. Hold on. Take a deep breath.”