Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

“What does that have to do with Alex? Why would they throw her in a prison?”

“Let’s just say she, ah, wouldn’t cooperate.” Weller’s features arranged themselves into an expression of regret.

“Meaning?”

“You seem like a smart boy, Tom,” Mellie interrupted. “You’ve been to war. You’ve seen how fast things break down. So what do you think happens to young girls at the hands of old men?”

“And not all of ’em old,” Weller added, softly. He and Mellie traded another long look before he repeated, “Not all.”

Oh my God. He had to close his eyes. Now Weller’s reluctance, how carefully he’d seemed to search for words, made perfect sense. This is my fault. If she hadn’t been alone, if I hadn’t gotten myself shot, none of this would’ve happened.

He heard his voice rise as if from the hollow blackness at the bottom of a well. “Tell me what to do to get her out, and I’ll do it.” He opened his eyes and found Weller. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

There was a tiny, nearly invisible tug at one corner of Weller’s mouth, a look of satisfaction there and gone in the blink of an eye. “Well, the kid who called the shots,” he said, “his name was Peter. But you don’t have to worry about him. He got himself killed in an ambush, and good riddance. But the kid who’s taken over? Son of a bitch is a psychopath.”

“What kid?” Tom asked. “What’s his name?”

“Boy by the name of Prentiss,” Weller said. “Chris Prentiss.”

60

“Are you all right?” Still huffing, winded from the desperate struggle, Chris pushed up from the bloodied snow. He looked toward Nathan, who sprawled against the school’s north wall. Nathan was breathing hard, a hand clamped to his left bicep. Blood oozed between his fingers. His parka was shredded from shoulder to elbow. “He bite you anywhere else?”

“No. Lucky his feet went out from under on the ice, though.” Nathan’s face was the color of ash. “Little bastard latched onto her like a damned leech.” The old man pulled his head around his shoulder and called, “He get you bad?”

“No.” Lena huddled in a heap of clothing at the corner of the building and beneath the breezeway where they’d tethered the horses. The breezeway ran on the east wall and led to a snowcovered jungle gym and the tatters of a lonely basketball hoop. The Changed had torn her parka open at the throat. Livid, brightred scratches stood in parallel tracks on her neck where his nails had first stripped away her scarf before clawing at her sweater. That he hadn’t used his teeth was a miracle. “Where did he come from? Why was he here? The school’s all by itself. No houses nearby, nothing.”

“I don’t know.” Chris stared down at the boy. The Changed wasn’t quite dead but still gulping, trying to pull in air through the blood pulsing from his mouth and around the knife jammed halfway in his throat. His feet scraped snow in a slow shamble. Then the boy managed a faint, gurgling caw, and Chris couldn’t stand it any longer. Kneeling, he wrapped his hands around the knife, felt it move against his palms as the boy’s throat convulsed—and rammed the blade home. He felt the tip scrape bone, the slight hesitation as it parted tough tendon and muscle along the boy’s spine. Chris let his weight fall.

The boy flopped as the steel found his spinal cord. A bright crimson gusher boiled from his mouth. His hands were fluttery starfish that twitched and jumped before folding, going limp, and, finally, dying. Chris waited a few more seconds to make sure, then tugged out his knife. There was blood everywhere: on the snow, the boy, his own hands.

“She’s right. I don’t get it,” Nathan said. “There are no tracks out here. He had to be in the school.”

Which meant that the boy had bypassed them to get to Lena, and that made no sense. When Lena screamed, Chris had been on the second floor, slipping from room to room. There had been many bodies, people-popsicles, really: all of them frozen solid and only some with portions—an arm here, a foot there—gnawed to bare bone. The halls were filmed with a fine cover of ice and snow, but he’d seen no tracks except his own. So there had been plenty of food and no need for the boy to show himself at all. From his tracks, the Changed had vaulted out of the school’s library, which was the way both he and Nathan had entered. Still on the ground floor and at the back of the school, Nathan had made it out first.

But Nathan was right there. Why not go after him, or me? We were inside and much closer. Why leave? Why go outside for Lena? Hell, why go after her in the first place?

He looked back at Lena, still cringing, a hand bunched to her scratched throat. Although he’d had plenty of time, the boy hadn’t bitten her anywhere. It’s like he wanted to get at her. He eyed the tangle of green scarf and that torn parka. Like maybe he wanted to . . . A chill shivered over his skin. The idea that the boy might have had rape on his mind disturbed him almost more than if the Changed had only wanted to tear out Lena’s throat.

“Do you think there are others?” Lena asked.

Good question. He rifled a glance at the horses, but they’d quieted. Not that horses were all that reliable an indicator: dogs were much more sensitive to the Changed. “I don’t think so, but we probably should get out of here. Even if he was by himself, there are a lot of bodies in there. Might be others who decide to drop by for a meal, you know? Our horses were pretty loud and so were we.”

“Move? Again?” Lena’s skin was milky, the circles under her eyes as dark as charcoal. She was sick, eating barely enough to keep a tick alive, but she wouldn’t talk about it. He was starting to have a nasty suspicion why. The question was, what could—would—he do about it? “Chris,” she said, “we haven’t gotten any rest in—”

“In days. I know.” Trotting over to the roan, he unhooked his pack and then came back to kneel by Nathan. Through the rip, he could see the blood welling through a jagged rip but no pumpers. He dug out a medical kit. “But we can’t stay here, Lena. Not now.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere. The school’s all by itself. There are no other tracks, so he’s probably the only one. Chris, we have to rest sometime.”

He bit back an impatient reply. Getting angry wouldn’t help. Instead, he turned his attention to Nathan, easing the old man’s injured arm from its sleeve and then setting about sponging off blood. He had no answers for Lena, and she was right. They were all tired. Although they’d finally decided to start looping back north and west, they’d been on the road for eleven days now. At their current rate, Oren was still a good ten days in the future if they were lucky, and two weeks if they weren’t. They had to get some rest.