Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

She also thought, though, that pasty guy in the middle was legitimately sick. His illness hung like the fetor of a stagnant, scum-choked swamp. A diabetic? Or starvation? Maybe both, judging from the loose flesh and hard planes and edges of bone tenting skin on the faces of the others. And now her association to the hospice wing where the terminal waited to die made sense. A body smelled like that when it was eating itself to stay alive.

They’ve been here at least an hour and probably longer. So why didn’t they run? Wolf tugged, and she staggered forward as Beretta waded into the knot of bodies and began fishing for something in the snow. The oldsters shrank back, jostling and bunching the way skittish zebras clustered as the lions gathered. There’s no guard. It can’t be just that they’re scared . . .

Her thoughts stumbled as something icy brushed her left wrist. She looked down and saw that Beretta held a rope, hard and stiff with cold and as thick around as her thumb. She sucked in a startled gasp. What the hell? She followed its length and saw how it looped from one oldster to the next. Now that she was closer, she realized their wrists were bound. So were their ankles. More rope snaked from their legs and was tied off to the support beams of the old camp shelter.

Hobbled. That’s why these old people hadn’t run. They couldn’t. The Changed were gathering them up like cattle to be kept until it was time to slaughter—

“No!” Horror blasted through her body on a harsh wind. If she let them tie her up, she wouldn’t be able to fight; it would be the end, like giving into the monster. Gasping, she bucked and wrenched away, shaking free of Wolf ’s grip, and then she was swinging with her good right arm, whipping around, screaming, screaming, screaming, “No, no, no, I won’t let you!”

Startled, the scent of his surprise spiking her nose, Beretta jerked up just as her fist jackhammered his jaw. With the tidal wave of adrenaline-fueled fear surging through her veins, she felt nothing and heard the impact only as a distant, airy crack, like a punch landed in a television show: a sound effect with no substance. Later, when she studied her bruised knuckles, she would think it was a miracle she hadn’t broken her hand. The blow dumped Beretta on his ass, and then she was staggering, off-balance both from her own momentum and the snowshoes still strapped to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Slash making a grab, and she shrieked again, tried ducking out from under, but the rigid toe of her left snowshoe jammed into deep snow. Her knee twisted, and she cried out again, this time with pain. She would’ve gone down, maybe even broken her leg, but she felt a hand—Slash’s, she thought—clutch the nape of her neck and squeeze.

Oh no you don’t, bitch . Another starburst of pain as the jammed shoe came loose, and then she’d planted her feet and was uncoiling, surging up, her fist driving—

At the last second, she realized that it wasn’t Slash who had her.

Quick as a snake, Wolf lashed out, his hand closing around her wrist, stopping her fist in midair.

Please, God. Panting, she strained to complete the swing, but his grip was iron. Her body quivered, a coiled spring under too much pressure. Let me finish this. Help me just one more time.

“You shouldn’t fight.” An old lady’s quaver. Alex had no idea which of the three women had spoken and wasn’t about to take her eyes off Wolf to check. “It’ll only make them mad,” the old lady said.

“Quiet, Ruby.” A man’s rumble. “She wants it to end sooner than later, that’s her business.”

Yes, but at least she’d go down fighting, not cowed and broken like these old people. If Wolf let up, just for a second, she would finish what she started. He probably knew that, too, although his dark eyes were as fathomless as deep wells and unreadable. His breath, scented with a coppery tang of half-digested meat, slanted over her cheeks. That was her blood in his mouth, on his tongue—

His body shifted then. The change was subtle: the set of his feet, the way he held his shoulders. The hand at the back of her neck tightened, and then she realized: he was pulling her closer.

The better to bite out your throat. She saw his lips peel back and the slow slink of his tongue. The Changed’s thick funk of dead animal and stewed guts flooded her nose and mouth. The better to drink nice, warm—

Her thoughts stuttered as another, more familiar scent of cool shadows intensified, wreathing her like smoke . . . and now, there came the faint but unmistakable effervescence of crisp, sweet apples.

Chris. It was Chris’s smell but much more pointed, insistent, and it touched her, found its way into her chest as it—and Chris— had before. In a different time and place, this would be that dizzying moment of anticipation right before he crushed her mouth to his and then—

Something deep in her mind turned over . . . and . . . flexed.

No. My God, what is that? The sensation was nearly indescribable, a kind of deep mental shift, as if some part of her brain had suddenly decided to stretch and twist around to search for a better view. Her head was simultaneously both muzzy—and crowded. She remembered the instant Wolf ’s consciousness had slithered into hers and settled there; how she’d felt her body under his hands and his mouth dragging over—

No, don’t. What was happening to her? She was losing her mind. That had to be it. She was finally cracking up, going insane—and who wouldn’t? Help me, please, somebody help me. But there would be no rescue. She was on her own. Whatever happened next was up to her.

Do something. The choke of Wolf ’s excitement was gagging. Her mind was clouding. She was going to lose it; God, she was losing it . . . Break it, do something, do anything, but do it now.

She spat into his face.

Gasping, Wolf started back. A fleeting expression of shock sparrowed through his eyes. Later, she would remember and wonder about that.

But inside her skull, deep in her brain, something let go. There was a sudden hitch, like the clunk of a lock, and then the release of a catch as whatever gripped her consciousness let go. She expelled a long, shaky breath of relief. She might die in the next second, but at least she wasn’t drowning in whatever passed for Wolf ’s mind.

For one long moment, the wolf-boy only stared. She willed herself not to look away. Her eyes fixed on the foamy slick of her saliva slithering down his upper lip like thick snot.

Then the air suddenly snapped with that sharp, expectant tang. A second later, she felt Beretta and Slash moving in to flank her and hook an arm.

She’d been right. Wolf had just given a command, and that was interesting. However the Changed spoke, that particular tangy scent was a signal. Were there more odors, gradations of some kind that added up to meaning but that, for the moment, her nose just couldn’t detect? Maybe. If she lived long enough, she might even figure out their vocabulary, but that still might not do her much good. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to understand them.