Monsters (Page 45)

Discounting Acne, now moaning and slobbering on the snow, and Wolf, there were three others: Marley, that lanky kid with the dreads she remembered, and two younger boys, maybe sophomores and obviously brothers. Same pug nose, same piggy little eyes. Both had hair that was either very dark brown or black, and toted Bushmaster ACRs, the business ends pointed her way. The taller brother was the nervous, twitchy type; the minty fizz of his anxiety leaked through his pores. By contrast, his brother was rounder, shorter, calmer, and she thought, Bert and Ernie.

Wolf had made his feet. His expression, which was Chris’s in another life, was taut and intent but not drawn in the predatory snarl he wore right before zeroing in on his next Happy Meal. A second later, she also sussed out that telltale resin pop, the sparking of pine sap from a fire burning too hot, very bright. The air grew weighty as a heavy coat as the Changed did their weird, unknowable Changedspeak mumbo jumbo. Seated in her brain, the monster shifted, nosing up for a sniff as if about to butt into the conversation. Or only land her inside Wolf ’s head again, as had happened in the tunnel during the mine’s collapse.

Oh no, you don’t. Her mouth felt crawly, as if there was a busy little spider in there, bustling over her tongue. Had Wolf kissed her? No, no, that was a dream. Or, maybe, that was what Wolf wanted: her and him, together. She could feel a new flare of hysteria as her self-control tried to unravel. It didn’t happen. You didn’t want him, you don’t. It was the monster, it was all the monster. Reaching out to its own kind, the way it had when she was slipping away, slowly suffocating under the snow? She remembered that bizarre moment when her mind had shimmied, stepped away, and how then she’d seen a field of snow and broken trees and rocks . . .

And a ski pole. My God, that wasn’t the bright light at the end of the tunnel. I was in Wolf ’s head again. He was looking for me after the avalanche, trying to figure out where I was under the snow.

That was the only explanation for why she was alive. When she’d passed out for that final time, only minutes from death, the monster had slipped its noose, oiling out in black tendrils. Because like seeks like.

“What do you want from me?” Her voice quaked. Leopard’s knife wobbled, and she clutched with both hands to steady it. She was hunched over, very cold now, trembling uncontrollably. Her hair hung in icy clots, although her parka was . . . dry? How could that be? Her clothes were still wet. Wait, wait a minute. Her breath hung in her throat. My parka was sopping wet. How can it—

Her gaze drifted to her right arm, and she saw, immediately, why this parka was dry. The color, gunmetal gray, was wrong. It was also too large, the cuff loose around her wrist. The coat puffed out from her chest, and was clearly intended for someone much bigger and more muscular. The parka actually reminded her of Tom’s turtleneck, the one he’d given her in the Waucamaw after he’d carried her, bleeding, unconscious, and soaked through, back to his camp and then gotten her out of her wet clothes to keep her warm.

Her eyes shot to Wolf, who reeked of sweat and boiled raccoon guts and damp iron. Blood crusted half his face. That rock; she remembered he’d been hit. Now that she was shocked enough to notice, she saw that he wore only a bulky wool sweater over which was knotted a wolf ’s skin. From the streaks of amber in the fur, she knew this cowl was new, a replacement for the one Leopard had stolen when Spider took over the pack.

She understood then: Wolf had given up his parka for her. Her grimy white coat, still wet, was spread over rocks, close to the fire.

Only later would she appreciate the huge risk Wolf was taking. The day into which she’d awakened was clear. Judging from the stabs of strong light through trees, it was well into mid-morning, maybe close to noon, and yet the Changed were still awake, still moving. That fact alone—Wolf ’s crew pulling their version of an all-nighter—should’ve clued her in on just how desperate they must be, and how dangerous the current situation was. The mine was gone. A lot of Changed and prisoners were dead. Any Changed who’d gotten away or been somewhere in the vicinity would be hungry—and she was fresh meat. Catch her scent, might as well ring the dinner bell. Once Wolf and his crew had pulled her from that icy tomb, they had to make tracks or risk being overwhelmed.

But then Wolf had made them stop and build a fire. He’d stripped her sodden parka and given up his to save her from freezing to death. It was exactly what Tom had done, what Chris would do in the same situation. Wolf was doing his best to keep her alive, and warm.

“Why?” she said to him. “What do you want from me, Wolf ? What do you want?”

She got a partial answer when the Changed got ready to move out and Wolf handed her a green canvas combat medic’s pack. She’d seen one before. Her dad once stowed something just like it in the trunk of his cruiser because, by definition, all cops were firstresponders. His wasn’t all that stuffed: just the barest essentials to keep a smashed-up person from tanking before the EMTs arrived.

This pack was much different, with a gazillion pockets and flaps, and loaded for bear: bandages, gauze, glucose tablets, syringes, scissors, a few dozen packets of antibiotics—even that special QuikClot gauze combat medics used to staunch bleeding PDQ. Kincaid would’ve given his eyeteeth for something like this.

She also knew what the pack meant and now had an inkling about why Wolf had gone to such trouble to rescue her. Wolf knew she had the basics down. After all, he’d eaten part of her shoulder and then seen her dress the wound. True, Wolf might have grown very attached to her, might want her . . . but for him, she was also a very valuable prisoner: a camp nurse with a skill-set that just might come in handy.

Winters were long in the U.P.; spring was a good month and a half in the future. The days were so bone-chilling that whenever Wolf and his crew weren’t out hunting, they all burrowed deep into their bags and in every stitch of clothing. Alex slept with her boots clamped between her knees and a water bottle tucked against her stomach to keep everything from freezing.

More and more frequently, Wolf and his people also hunted by day, because that’s when the scarce game was out and moving around. (Or maybe the Changed were Changing in other ways. If they grew to own the days . . . that was bad.) So far away from Rule, there were no more pit stops at the equivalent of a McDonald’s drivethrough, no regular game trail or route they followed. This meant no convenient herd to drive from one fun house to the next. So, no more getting down, getting funky, getting laid, getting wasted on a Saturday night.