The Wolf (Black Dagger Brotherhood - Prison Camp 2)

Tiller swung himself around—and there it was. A set of yellow eyes glowing in the shadows.

“Fuck this,” Gordo yelped as he dropped all the equipment and tore off.

For a second, Tiller stayed right where he was, his body incapable of motion. But then the snarl was low and carried the promise of sharp fangs and bloody stumps and—

Tiller tripped over his feet as he started to bolt away, and when he landed hard, he lost his phone. But he couldn’t worry about that. Lunging back up, he ran like his life depended on it—because it fucking did—and he didn’t care how long he was going to be grounded or how many weekends he was going to have to work for his dad in the yard to pay for a new iPhone.

He just wanted to get home without being dead.

And so he ran, ran as hard as he could, back for the fence, to the tear in the metal twists. To his friend. To his house, where wolves didn’t howl and didn’t snarl and kids didn’t accept dumbass dares that took them into haunted places on Halloween with the least courageous of the neighborhood’s group of seven boys . . .

In the aftermath of the rushed departures, the snarling in the barren tree line stopped. And then there was a pause, followed by moist cracking sounds, a groan or two, and a ground cover shuffle that was easily drowned out by more of the thunder’s lazy, snoring travel through the ionized air molecules of the storm.

A moment later, a pair of muddy bare feet walked over to the 8S, and a human-like hand reached down and picked up the cell phone. The ghost-hunting app made a frantic beeping sound, and as the wolven turned the sensor to himself, the damn thing lit up like a Christmas tree, screaming with warning.

The male chuckled.

Until a menacing, female voice said behind him, “Don’t you have somewhere to be down in Caldwell?”

The wolven glanced over his naked shoulder and flashed fangs white as morgue shrouds, sharp as surgical instruments. “I’m going.”

“Just keeping you on time. You know what you have at risk.”

“Yeah,” was his muttered response. “You’re good like that.”

Trade & 29th Streets

Caldwell, New York

Ainhoa Fiorela Maite Hernandez-Guerrero knew she was being watched in the alley. As Rio stood in the shadows thrown by a fire escape, she could feel the eyes on her, and she slipped her hand into the pocket of her leather jacket. The nine millimeter auto-loader was small enough to hide, deadly enough to defend.

What more did you need in a gun, really.

Looking around, she was aware that she was alone in a way that made things dangerous. It wasn’t that nobody was around. She just couldn’t trust anyone who—

Spaz came shambling around the corner into the alley, his stained peacoat and paper-thin jeans the kind of wardrobe he’d have to go to a landfill to update. The man was only in his mid-twenties, but the drug lifestyle was a nonbiological cancer, eating his body and mind away, only a husk remaining.

Until such time as even addiction couldn’t animate the shell anymore.

“Hey, Rio, you got anything?” he asked.

She glanced behind her and prayed that the supplier contact she’d come here to meet was late. “Not on me, no.”

“So, yeah, listen, Rio, you gotta give me some business. I mean, I’m good. I can handle myself. I mean. Come on. I can sell for you regular.”

Spaz’s watery, bloodshot eyes circled the alley in the manner of bats, flapping around in a disorganized way. She was willing to bet that the last time he truly focused on something was the first time he’d put a meth pipe to his lips.

As a wave of exhaustion came over her, she said, “You think Mozart doesn’t know what you did with that last piece we gave you to move?”

“I told you two days ago, the guy jumped me. He took the shit after he got me.”

Dirty fingers lifted up an old Soundgarden t-shirt that had more holes than cotton fibers to it. “Look.”

She didn’t need to lean forward to see the line in his skin. It was about an inch long, off to the side above his hip, and the thing had the red puffy profile of infection.

“Spaz, you gotta get that looked at.”

“I don’t have medical insurance.” He smiled, showing cracked teeth. “But I could get some. If you give me—”

“It’s not up to me. You know that.”

“So talk to Mozart.”

“He does what he wants.”

Spaz’s Ping-Pong-ball pupils got in the vicinity of her face and hovered around. “Can you give me some money, then.”

“Listen, I’m not—”

“I gotta pay someone back. You know how it goes. And if I can’t get the product or the cash, they’re going to . . .”

The words drifted, and not because he was trying to do with innuendo what was obvious even without the syllables. There was such hopelessness in his gaunt face, his capitulation to his countless bad decisions now impossible to reverse or probably even comprehend, his life nothing but a speeding car swerving toward him while all he had on his feet were a pair of broken roller skates.