by S. M. Reine
“But I’ve killed werewolves before. Probably more than anybody else here.”
“I don’t want you with us anymore.”
“Does that mean I’m not welcome to join the Union now?”
“No, you can come find me if you decide to join the right team. The Union would be happy to have you, and I’ll send you to training immediately. But you can’t be here. Not this week. Not until the werewolves are dead.”
Seth almost turned and left right at that moment, but he hesitated. He liked Yasir too much to go without trying to change his mind. “They aren’t always monsters, you know. Some of them are bad, but they don’t lose their souls when they get bitten, no matter what my dad’s book says.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He almost dropped his shotgun. “You already know?”
“Doesn’t change the fact that they’re dangerous. Werewolves are a pandemic waiting to happen, and we can’t let them spread.” The commander patted his shoulder. “Sorry, kid. But hear this: just because the werewolves are still human doesn’t mean they can’t be monsters, too.” He waved at the forest. “Move it. If I come across you again, we’re going to be enemies, so you might want to leave the forest. But if you stay, you can make yourself useful.”
“How?”
He put his hand over Seth’s on the gun. His skin was rough and his grip was heavy. “Eleanor is still out there somewhere. Find her and get rid of her,” Yasir said. “She’s the biggest monster of them all.”
SEVENTEEN
Licking Wounds
Rylie woke up curled into a stiff ball with a spider crawling down her shoulder. She gasped and flung it away.
For about three blessed seconds, having a big furry bug climbing on her was the biggest problem in the world. But when the spider was gone and she finished waking up, she was still hidden under a log with Abel. She sat up as much as she could in the cramped space and brushed off her arms to chase away the ghost of eight spindly legs on her skin.
Rylie had spent the night reclined against Abel’s shoulder, and he was still asleep. His long legs were squeezed into a crevice, which put his knees by his ears. He looked even more uncomfortable than she had been. Even in sleep, there was a gun hanging from his fingers.
Crawling to the edge of the log, Rylie stuck her head out into the forest to sniff the air.
The sun was shining and everything glistened with dew. Hunters had passed sometime in the night, and she could see where their boots left impressions in the mud. The odors were old and stale, and there was no hint of Eleanor’s aroma. She hadn’t followed them.
“Abel,” she whispered. “Wake up.”
His eyes flew open. “What time is it?” he groaned, rubbing one big hand down his face.
“I don’t know, but the sun is up, and we’re not dead yet.”
He groaned as he dislodged himself from his uncomfortable position at the back of the log. His knees audibly popped when he stretched out his legs. “Oh, man. Being dead wouldn’t hurt so much. Let me out.”
She scooted back, and Abel crawled after her. He hadn’t managed to acquire any wolfish grace since transforming. He was too tall and broad to move easily on his hands and knees.
He took a sniff before standing up. “Don’t relax yet,” he warned. “They might still be out there.”
He didn’t have to tell her that. Rylie didn’t think she would ever relax again—not after what they did to poor Trick. Abel set off up the slope, interrupting her slide into miserable depression.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m sick of this damn mountain,” he said. “I’m going to the top to look for answers. That’s where the dream kept showing me.”
“What about the other wolves?”
“I don’t know, what about them?”
“We have to see if they’re okay. What if someone’s injured? What if they need our help?” Rylie asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding?”
She folded her arms and lifted her chin. “No. You can run off to the mountain if you like, but I’m going back to the beach.”
“And what happens if you get there and the hunters are still around?”
“Then I stay out of the way,” she said.
“We’re not going to the beach so that you can play out some hero fantasy. I’m not suicidal.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he jabbed a finger at her chest. “And you’re not allowed to be suicidal, either! I promised to look after you, so you’re coming with me.”
Rylie huffed. Abel was a master of never letting an argument drop. If she tried to hash it out with him, they could be there until sunset fell again. “I’m going,” she said.
She marched down the slope in bare feet, following the smell of water and sand and blood.
Abel swore loudly and ran after her.
The beach was empty, but there were puddles of blood and body-sized indentations that were slowly being washed away by the surf. Rylie stared at the dents in the sand. One of them still smelled like Trick. The others were unfamiliar, so Toshiko was probably okay. But their caves definitely weren’t safe anymore.
Abel sloshed into the water and returned a few minutes later with their belongings packed into the duffel bag again. He pulled the strap across his chest.
“We’re going to have to keep moving,” he said. “Nobody is here.”
“They have to be close. Look.” Rylie counted out the shapes in the sand. “Six people died, but there are tons more of us in the forest.”
“So maybe the Union killed them somewhere else. Who cares?”
She stood in front of him and blocked his path to leave. She was much smaller than Abel in every way, but she was an older werewolf by a few months, and her wolf liked to think it was his superior. “I care.”
“For a smart girl, you can be really stupid.”
He was totally baiting her, but she ignored it for once. Rylie took his hand. “What if Seth was hurt out there somewhere? Wouldn’t you want someone to find him, too?”
“Seth is out there somewhere. But he’s with the guys who have guns,” he reminded her. When she didn’t waver, his cynical glare went soft. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t care. Let’s check out the camp. Five minutes, then we’re going. Okay?”
“Okay.”
They walked together through Camp Silver Brook. When Rylie had searched it before, it had been a like a haunting, empty museum of the place she had spent her last summer. After the hunters blew through it, it looked like a war zone instead. They had shattered windows, kicked in doors, knocked over benches, and left bullet holes in the walls.
Rylie found more blood in the dirt. It was almost drying. Whatever had happened, nobody had been there for hours.
She sniffed around, and she stitched together an image of the rampage from the previous night. Werewolves had run through in human form. Some of them had been poisoned with silver and changed. A few people had definitely died. And a lot of guns had been discharged.
“Maybe everyone really is dead,” she said when they reached the cabins of Group D. The idea upset her a lot more than she expected.
Abel didn’t pick on her, for once. “Hold this.” He shoved the duffel bag into her arms. “Stay here, and don’t touch my guns. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Where are you going?”
He dug his pistol out of one of the pockets. “I said, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Abel jogged into the forest.
Rylie dropped the duffel bag and sat down next to what used to be a campfire. What had she been hoping to find when she returned to camp? Did she think there would be a pack waiting for her?
Footsteps crunched on the dirt behind her.
She froze. Trick’s death flooded her mind again—the bang, the slump, her scream—and it took all her strength not to wolf out in an instant.
Rylie looked over her shoulder.
A girl her age with long, honey-blond curls stepped into the clearing. Her hooked
nose offset a brilliant smile with perfect white teeth. A white blanket was wrapped around her like a toga, and even though her legs and feet were dirty, she looked healthy.
Rylie’s mouth dropped open. She stood. “Bekah!”
“Rylie!”
They ran to each other and hugged. Rylie’s inner wolf would have purred, if such a thing were possible. Everything about Bekah’s smell said pack—the scent of warm California sunshine, the familiar sweat on her skin, and even Stephanie’s perfume, which Rylie had often scented on Scott.
“Are you okay? Everyone was so worried about you!”
“I’m fine,” Bekah said. “A little embarrassed that I ran away, you know? But fine. Look at you! Does this mean everyone is here? Where are Scott and Levi?” Before Rylie could respond, the other girl kept talking at about a million miles a second. “I have Stephanie! She came looking for me and we both got captured! But oh my gosh, Seth is going to be so happy to see you! He’s supposed to meet me here.”
“Wait, slow down,” Rylie said. “You were caught by people? Stephanie is here? You saw Seth?”
As if summoned by the sound of her name, Stephanie Whyte marched into the clearing between the cabins. Rylie had never seen her looking anything less than perfectly-coiffed and professional, but her hair had fallen from its severe bun, and she was just as dirty as Bekah. “Oh good. It’s you. I thought we would have to search for days to find everyone. Of course, I also seem to remember Scott telling you to stay back at the sanctuary.”
“Sorry,” Rylie said, giving a sheepish smile.
The doctor cracked a smile in return. “But it’s good to see that you’re in good shape.”
“You too. What’s going on?”
Bekah gave her a quick rundown of hitching a ride out to Gray Mountain, getting caught by a group calling themselves “the Union,” and why Seth was with them. “But he’s only doing it so he can find you,” she added immediately.
Rylie’s heart warmed. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Bekah faltered. “Pretty sure. I mean, it’s Seth. He loves you. This Union, though, they’re nuts. And they had Seth’s mom.”
And all the warmth disappeared in an instant.
So she had seen Eleanor.
Abel returned to the clearing, his gun jammed in his belt and two big hunks of black plastic in his hands. “Hey, Bekah,” he said, barely glancing at her. “Check this out, Rylie.”
She rolled her eyes and took one of the plastic pieces from him. It looked like some kind of camera. Wires stuck out of its body, and there were broken pieces of a glass lens. “Where did you find this?”
“I saw sunlight reflecting off of it in the trees. They’re everywhere, once you know what to look for. I’ve shot down five of them already.” Abel turned the other piece over to show her a stamp that said “UKA” with a logo of a circle bisected by an arrow. “This one’s a motion detector or something. We’re being watched.”
“We certainly are,” Stephanie said. “The Union has surveillance throughout the entire forest. Fortunately, if I can reach Scott, he should have the van. We could all leave before this turns into more of a massacre.”
“I don’t have a phone,” Rylie said. “And there are no towns for miles.”
“My cell phone is at the Union compound. I didn’t get a chance to find it before Bekah and I sneaked out last night. Escape was our priority.”
“I’ll get it,” Abel said.
“Don’t be stupid. There are a dozen armed men waiting there, and almost as many witches trained in some form of offensive magic. You would die. If we want to contact Scott, we need a better plan than that.” Stephanie drummed her fingers on her chin. “Does anyone have a quartz crystal? I could perform a communication ritual.”
Abel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, let me go grab mine. This is moronic,” he said.
Stephanie glared. “If you have a better plan that doesn’t involve getting shot, I would love to hear it.”
“We attack them,” Rylie said. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “We’ve got three werewolves here. We can move really fast. We might not be able to win, but we could distract them and give you enough time to sneak in for your phone, Stephanie.”
The doctor considered Rylie’s suggestion. “It sounds like a terrible idea…”
“That’s because it is,” Abel said.
“…but a less forward approach might have merit.”
He stepped up to argue, but he was cut off by a newcomer bursting into the clearing. Toshiko rushed to Rylie and collapsed at her feet.
For a heartbeat, she was just relieved to see Toshiko was alive, but then she noticed that all of the dark patches on her skin weren’t mud. A lot of it was blood, too.
“Are you okay?” she asked, even though she knew there was no way Toshiko would understand.
She responded and pointed to the forest. Rylie didn’t understand a single word, but the desperation on her face was clear. “Someone must be injured,” Stephanie said. “Take us there.”
When Toshiko only stared, Rylie nudged her. “Let’s go.”
They trooped through the trees. They didn’t have to hike far. The werewolves had hidden out underneath a craggy rock face to the north, closer to the peak. There were four people waiting. Rylie didn’t recognize a single face, which meant the Texan family must have been captured or killed. Two of them were naked, probably having lost their clothes during the last transformation, and both were covered in as much blood as Toshiko. They were groaning on the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Rylie asked when Toshiko dragged her to the prone bodies.
“They got shot,” said a man crouched in the corner. The two on the ground looked like they were in too much pain to be coherent. “What’s going on here? Why are people hunting us? How did we get to this mountain?”
“It’s okay, we have a doctor,” she said, hoping that would be reassuring enough to calm those wide, frenzied eyes. It was easier than trying to answer the questions.
“Move. Let me see,” Stephanie said, brushing past Rylie to crouch by the injured werewolves. She examined the wounds with gentle, confident fingers. “There are bullet fragments in the wounds. That’s why they’re not healing. I’ll need supplies. Scissors, alcohol if possible, some gauze—”
“There’s an infirmary at camp,” Rylie said.
Bekah leaped to her feet. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Rylie followed the other girl before Abel could try to stop her. She didn’t want to be around all those strange werewolves. Even though her own beast was quiet after the horrors of the night, she didn’t trust it not to try to attack the weak ones when it had a chance.
They ran down the trail with long, loping strides and pumping fists. Normal wolves could cover a hundred miles in a day when they were determined. Werewolves were even faster.
When the wind blew in Rylie’s face, she picked up that gunpowder and leather smell again. She hesitated at a fork in the trail.
“What’s wrong?” Bekah asked.
Rylie spun, searching the trees with her eyes for Eleanor. Her heart hammered as her adrenaline spiked.
But it wasn’t Eleanor’s smell she’d caught on the breeze.
Higher on the mountain and across the river, Rylie saw a black shape standing atop the rocks. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath.
It was Seth. She was sure of it.
He had stopped moving, and she thought he was looking in her direction. He must have spotted her, too.
She lifted her hand and gave a small wave.
He waved back. Her heart skipped a beat.
The other girl searched, but she didn’t see what Rylie saw. She wasn’t magnetically drawn to Seth like that.
“Okay, listen to me, Bekah. The nurse’s station isn’t far from the office,” Rylie said. “Kind of between the mess hall and the office. It’s easy to find. You can grab a laundry bag and take a bunch of supplies back to Stephanie.”
“Aren’t yo
u coming?”
“I have to do something,” she said. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
Bekah nodded. “Okay. Be careful.”
She left, and Rylie saw Seth point toward camp before jumping down the back of the rocks where she couldn’t see him.
He wanted to meet her at the camp. She knew she shouldn’t have been so excited, not when Abel claimed that Seth had turned on them. But realizing she was about to see him turned off her common sense.
After all those letters, and trying desperately to ignore his phone calls, she was going to see him again.
Rylie didn’t care if Seth was with the hunters or not. She had to meet him.
EIGHTEEN
The Cabin
Rylie knew instinctively that Seth would go to the cabin where she had stayed the summer before. It was far enough from the rest of the camp that the Union had missed it on their rampage, and the windows were intact. She had to break the handle to open the door.
Stepping inside was like time traveling. Everything about that summer returned to her all at once: avoiding everybody for her first two weeks at camp, the way the counselors watched her, creek walking and archery and arts and stupid crafts. She even remembered stealing the counselor’s car to go to the boys’ side of the lake, which was pretty laughable now that she knew what she knew. Seth hadn’t even been a camper.
But beyond that, her memories were hazy. It was like the wolf had eaten holes in her brain.
She turned around to look at the cots with squinted eyes, trying to remember who slept where. Rylie recalled two teenage delinquents staying with her. She couldn’t remember what they were in trouble for, or their names. They had survived the attacks, so it didn’t really matter. The names that did matter were burned into her mind forever: Louise, Amber, Cassidy, and Jericho. The skeletons in her closet.
Rylie opened the drawer by the nearest cot. It had belonged to the pug-faced girl, who had left things behind in her hurry to escape. She idly picked through it. A paperback with a swooning woman on the cover. A few pens. A dead cell phone. A box of small, crinkly packages. Her cheeks flushed with heat when she realized they were condoms.
