Monsters (Ashes Trilogy 3)

God, please. Please, help me. She had to fight. Can’t break. Can’t give in. Got to stay me, no matter what Wolf wants or thinks.

She began to swim, dragging herself on hands and knees, carving a snail’s path through snow, heading for a dilapidated shed next to a curtain of corroded chicken wire, sucking air through a windpipe that felt as if it had been slashed by razor wire. Another few seconds with his hands around her neck and Acne would’ve crushed her throat.

On her knees now before that mound. Patchy with snow, the hill was about three feet high and reared on the shed’s south side, where there was the most light and warmth. She stared at the mound a good ten seconds, maybe as long as thirty. A loamy aroma steamed from the rich, dark earth. The smell was a little like flat beer.

Then her eyes snagged on something small and black scuttling over a white patch.

Don’t think, Alex. She eyed another tiny black scuttle. Fight, you’ve got to fight. Just do it.

Because things were bad. Really, really bad.

Ten days ago: Her memories of what happened after the avalanche were vague, a jumpy, chaotic collage about as comprehensible as a badly edited YouTube video. What came to her first was a rhythmic swaying like the pitch of a small boat in a high swell. Her chest was very hot, the tortured lining of her lungs on fire, even as her body shuddered with cold. Mostly, everything was a swirly blur as she swayed back and forth and back and forth—and then she went away again, sinking into the dark waters of unconsciousness. She probably did that a couple times, like a periscope coming up for a peek.

Finally, fading back, she was first aware of a hand cupping the back of her head. She was falling, too, and she landed on . . . a bed? A boat? Her head was swimmy but also ballooning, expanding, the monster swelling and stretching as if it had sprouted arms and hands and fingers and was searching for something—someone—to grab. She was very relaxed, almost peaceful, which was strange if you considered the cold and the steady pressure on her chest, like the heel of a sturdy boot.

Then something skimmed her right cheek. The back of a hand— and were those fingers? Her head lolled toward a coil of scent that was black mist and something sweet, crisp . . . Chris? Or wait, no—the aroma was deep and rich and smoky. Tom. It felt like a thought and then a sigh because she tasted his name in a dreamy whisper. “Tom. Tom?”

In the next moment, she was falling even further, sinking away from herself but pulling him down with her, tasting him, warm, so warm, Tom’s urgent mouth on hers, the sigh of his breath over her tongue, the desire a hot rose that unfurled in her chest. A strange liquid heat raced up her thighs, and she felt her back arching, her heart beginning to thump harder and harder, and then his weight on her body, her arms twining around his neck, his hands slipping into her hair, over her face, and she moaned into his mouth—yes yes yes yes—as Tom’s fingers trailed over the sensitive skin of her throat, the ridge of her collarbone, before slipping just a little further—

And that was when she felt a very strange tug.

Tom was . . . working a zipper? Yes, that’s what it was, and that was fine, it was good; she wanted this and him; she was so hot, burning up. And yet, she was also strangely cold, and why was that?

Suddenly, all these things—the sensations, her thoughts—slid and shifted like a slow dissolve in a movie. Now, there were other hands and a different body on hers. The aroma of wood smoke and musk gave way to shadows and sweet apples as—Chris, that’s Chris—his mouth found hers. The moment was electric, exactly like the morning, months back in Rule, when she and Chris had kissed in the sleigh: mist and darkness and a blaze of desire as their hands twined, and their bodies, too.

Yet there was still something off. She felt the hitch, the way her mind tripped over a detail that did not belong, and then she had it. It was the smell, no longer mist and apples but something fetid and spoiled. Oozy green pus flooded into her mouth. Wait. Choking, she recoiled, her throat working, the muck slithering down her throat, and now she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t . . .

“Ugh!” Gasping, she slammed back into herself, her consciousness collapsing to a point as she pulled away from the dream, and woke.

Wolf was there, haloed against a stunning, bright blue sky. He wasn’t draped over her body. His hands weren’t tracing her cheeks or the angle of her jaw, and his mouth was most certainly not on hers. But she was flat on her back, not in the snow but on a sleeping bag, and his fingers were working at a snarl of parka trapped in the teeth of a zipper, and he was trying to undress her.

“No!” She gave a spastic little jerk. She tried punching, but her arms were lead pipes, her muscles balky and uncooperative. This was like Leopard, coming for her in the mine and . . . Wait. Knife. I have Leopard’s knife . . . Get up, get up! She bolted to a sit. Caught off-guard, Wolf flinched back to sprawl in the snow, dangerously close to a small, crackling fire. Heart sputtering, she slapped awkward fingers along her right leg, clumsy fingers searching for the sheath.

Someone jammed a hand into her right shoulder and slammed her back. Thrashing, she got both hands up before Acne—the boy who had been Ben Stiemke—grabbed her wrists. Pinning her, he let his weight drop with a hard thump that drove the air from her lungs in a grunt. If she’d been thinking, she’d have twisted around for a bite or tucked her knees, but she was so panicked that she reared instead, craning her neck, teeth clashing. He jerked his face out of the way, a little too far, and that was just as good. She felt the pressure on her chest let up, read the bow of his back. Acne was off-balance and she wouldn’t have another chance. Howling, she rammed the point of her knee into his groin.

Acne let out an abortive guh! It was like she’d hit the emergency override. Acne’s eyes went round as headlamps; all the blood fled his face. She didn’t think he was even breathing. Then he crumpled, slumping to one side, hands cupping his crotch, mouth hanging open to let out this weird, choked aaawww.

As soon as his weight left her legs, she bucked him the rest of the way. Awkward as a crab, she scurried off the sleeping bag. Her body was electric, as if all the circuit breakers had been reset, the connections sizzling back to life. Dimly, she heard the clatter of bolts being thrown, the rasp of metal, and knew the others—wherever they were; she was so wild with fear she’d lost track even of Wolf— had drawn their weapons. She didn’t care. Screeching, she scrambled to her feet, Leopard’s knife now in hand, and shouted through terrified tears, “Get away, get away, get away!”