Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

Her eyes inched left.

Her arm was still there. So was her hand. But Wolf held a scrap of something drippy and wet and very red and—

Oh my God. Her breath, bottled in her chest, came in a sobbing rush. What Spider had begun, Wolf had finished. Horrified, she could only watch as Wolf inspected a flap of parka and skin and dying muscle.

Her muscle. Her heart was banging in her ears. Her flesh.

With a delicate, almost comical daintiness, Wolf tweezed the shredded, bloody parka as if removing a scrap of butcher paper from a freshly carved steak. Then, palming snow, he swiped the meat clean of gore and held it high, studying that slab of her flesh with a curious, strained intensity, smoothing the skin with his thumb. Looking for . . . what? She couldn’t begin to imagine.

Satisfied, although with what she couldn’t guess, Wolf threw her a quick, speculative look, and she had the insane thought that in another time and place, he might even have winked as if to say, Watch this.

And then he offered her flesh to Beretta.

Her gorge bolted up her throat. She gagged as Beretta teased the meat with his tongue, lapping her blood the way a kid licks the melt of an ice-cream cone. There was that queer, ripping sound of wet cloth again, and Beretta’s jaws worked and he began to chew.

This isn’t happening; this can’t be happening. Numb, she watched as they ate, sampling her and licking their lips like those guys on Top Chef trying to decide if maybe the sauce needed a tad more salt. She felt her center skidding again. Soon she’d tumble off the thinning ice of her sanity altogether. Or maybe she’d just snap, her mind breaking like a dry twig, and start screaming. They’d have to cut her throat just to shut her up.

Now that they were so close, she also made out those weird, colored rags. They weren’t single pieces but a patchwork sewn together with crude, irregular stitches that reminded her of Frankenstein’s monster.

And the rags were not cloth.

They were leather.

They were skin.

Those colors weren’t just colors either, but designs. A withered butterfly. A wrinkled coil of barbed wire. A tattered American flag. In the leather knotted around Wolf ’s throat, she made out a faded red heart and frank done in a fancy, black cursive swoop.

Now she knew why Wolf had used snow to scrub blood from that flap of her skin. He was looking for a good tattoo. The Changed were wearing . . . people.

Oh no no no no no oh God oh God oh God! A scream balled in her throat as Wolf took the last bit of her flesh and flipped back his cowl. So she saw his face. She got a very, very good look.

No. Something shifted in a deep crevice of her brain. No. That’s not right. I’m wrong. I have to be.

But she wasn’t. God help her, she wasn’t.

6

The eyes were identical.

So were the nose and the high plains of his cheeks. The face was a carbon copy. So was his mouth. Those lips were the twins of those that had pressed hers, and with a heat that fired a liquid ache in her thighs. The hair was longer but just as black. Even that shadowy scent was the same.

The only difference—and it was huge, because it was the margin between life and death—was a pale pink worm of a scar. The scar meandered from the angle of his left jaw, right below the ear, and then tracked across the hump of his Adam’s apple before its tail disappeared beneath the collar of his parka.

Her parents had enjoyed talking shop at the dinner table. Having listened to her mother, who’d been an emergency room doctor, talk about cases and her cop father chime in with his own, first-responder stories, Alex knew how some people went about suicide and, especially, where to cut and how. Of course, a freak accident—say, a car crash—or a fight or even an operation might have produced the same scar, but she didn’t think so. His skin was otherwise unmarred, too, though she would later wonder about his wrists and arms. Some people also scarred very badly. Thickness didn’t necessarily translate to depth. But working by Kincaid’s side as she had these last few months meant she now knew her fair share of anatomy.

To her eye, this cut had been wicked, a vicious slice long and deep enough to have slashed open the boy’s jugular and, maybe, his carotid. Maybe—probably—both. Cut the carotid and a strong, young heart can empty the body in a crimson jet in a matter of about sixty to ninety seconds. That he hadn’t bled out and had survived . . . well, his parents had probably seen that as a miracle and, maybe, some kind of sign.

By all rights, this boy should be dead. Once upon a time, he’d sure wanted to be. Call it an educated hunch. Later she would wonder what or who had saved him. Later still, she would find her answer, for all the good that would do, lucky her.

Other than the scar, there was no difference. Each could have inhabited either side of a mirror, albeit one with a crack. Each was a carbon copy of the other, perfect and identical in every detail, save that one flaw.

No wonder these Changed circled past Rule. No wonder. Wolf was Chris.

And now, finally, she began to scream.

Part 2 - The Enemy of Your Enemy

7

She’d vomited before bed and then once, quietly, during the night, spitting and retching into a chamber pot until there was nothing left but watery phlegm that burned her nose. Sleep finally spidered over her brain, laying a gray, dreamless web so thick that when the door slammed and the dog started barking, Lena jolted awake in a confused tangle, only half-convinced she’d heard anything at all. What? Her mind was gluey, but the barking didn’t let up. Still druggy with sleep, she winced against the sound. Had to be Ghost. Why was Alex’s dog barking?

“Shut up.” Groaning, she rolled, mashing her pillow against her ears. “Lemme sleep, pl—”

“Sarah?” Someone was pounding up the stairs. “Lena? Wake up, wake up!”

“Tori?” Lena struggled to a woozy sit as her door flew open. Tori’s hair was frizzed as a used Brillo pad, and the girl’s eyes were wild. “What—”

“Girl?” A man’s voice, roaring somewhere downstairs as Ghost kept up his yapping. “Girl, get down here! We need help!”

“What the hell?” Lena’s mouth was sour with vomit. The stink of it hung in a fog over her bed. “Tori, who is that? What’s going on?”

“Chris!” Tori blurted. Her knuckles jammed against her teeth. “Chris’s hurt. They said he’s hurt real bad.”

“What?” Now fully alert, Lena swung her legs over the edge of her bed, grimacing as her feet hit hardwood. Even through socks, the floor was icy, colder than it should be. She stood up too quickly, and a sweep of nausea left her dizzy. Oh God, not now. Gulping back a surge of rancid bile, she gripped the mattress, steadied herself, and then grabbed her jeans from a bedpost. “How did he get hurt? Where’s Jess?”