Taken by Storm (Raised by Wolves #3)(46)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“Once you realized we were dealing with a Shadow,” I said, neatly cutting those questions out of the equation. “Two hours ago, when we were on the phone, and you knew that a Shadow was stalking Maddy, why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Had we not gotten cut off, I would have.”

I believed him—not because he wouldn’t hide key information from me, but because we were dealing with an enemy whose actions he couldn’t foresee. If he’d had a line on the future, Callum would have had no qualms about withholding information, but I didn’t think he’d play fast and loose with my life, not when he had no way of knowing how that might turn out.

This particular Rabid had died obsessed with the idea of Changing me.

“He and Griffin can’t be at the same place at the same time.” I leaned back against the wall, wincing as my shoulder protested the movement. “If Griffin hadn’t broken back through when he did, I’d be dead. And if Wilson isn’t tied to Maddy, if he’s playing with her because he can and not because he has to, there’s no limit on where or who he might have killed.”

I could see the victims in my mind, their corpses lined up like paper dolls. The boy in the cabin. The girl in Winchester. The unidentifiable mass of skin and blood and bones in Missouri.

How many victims had we’d missed? How many more would there be if we didn’t find a way to stop this thing? In life, Samuel Wilson had been the worst kind of monster. He hadn’t just attacked teenagers. He’d killed children.

And now he was bullet proof.

“This is just the beginning.” I tried to stay calm. I tried to be rational. “Sooner or later, he’ll find a way to push Griffin out. He’ll come to finish the job, and then—”

The corpses in my mind multiplied, stacks upon stacks of bodies. Little bodies. The Shadow would kill me, and then he’d move on—to Caroline and Jed, Chase and Lake. To humans who never stood a chance. To children.

There was nothing we could do to fight back. Nothing.

To kill a Shadow …

I couldn’t afford to follow that thought to completion. In my mind, I saw Devon’s face. I saw his smile, the way he could look utterly ridiculous one minute and like a lethal fighter the next. I saw Sora, who had his eyes, but none of his humor.

No.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Sora was this monster’s twin. It wasn’t fair that stopping him should fall to us. But most of all, it wasn’t fair that being alpha had turned me into the kind of person who could think the unthinkable.

I didn’t want to be that person.

“We don’t know how to kill him, Callum.” I swallowed, hard. “All we have is a theory.”

What we had wasn’t a theory. It was unspeakable. And there I was, saying the words.

“Now that he’s tasted my blood, he’ll be hungry for more. He’ll kill me, but it won’t stop there.” I paused, wishing that my life was the only one on the line, that this was my sacrifice to make. “It won’t ever stop.”

“No.” Callum wasn’t telling me I was wrong about this monster. He was saying what the voice in my head kept saying, over and over again.

No. No. No.

“Tell me there’s another way,” I pleaded. “Tell me there’s something I can do, somewhere I can go to look for answers. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Callum didn’t say a word.

“Tell me.”

Nothing.

“We have no way of fighting back,” I whispered. “Once he gets done with us, who’s next? Ali? The twins? Human children who don’t understand that monsters are real, any more than I did, cowering underneath that sink?”

Even if there were another option, another way of fighting back, there was no guarantee that we would find it in time—and while we looked, more people would die.

No matter what I did, people always died.

“You do not know what you are asking, Bronwyn.”

For the first time, Callum’s use of my full first name didn’t affect me at all. I knew exactly what I was saying, and he was the one who’d raised me to be the kind of person who could say it.

“Sora’s his twin, Callum. He’s a Shadow because he’s shadowing her. She’s his link to this world.”

Get rid of the link, get rid of the Shadow. I wanted him to tell me there was a flaw in my logic. I wanted to be wrong.

“You’ll hold the knife, then?” Callum asked. “You’ll look into Sora’s eyes and cut out her heart?”

Devon had his mother’s eyes.

The temperature in the room around me seemed to drop ten degrees. My face felt clammy and flushed. The brutality of what I was suggesting hit me full force.

To kill the Shadow, we might have to kill Sora. Sora, who’d bandaged my cuts and fed me cookies when I was a kid. Sora, who’d taught me to use a slingshot. Sora, who for better or worse, was one of Callum’s most trusted soldiers.

Devon’s mom.

“I’ll have no part of this,” Callum said. “If you’re certain it’s the only way, you’ll do it yourself.”

I hadn’t expected this from him, hadn’t imagined he would put this decision in my hands. Sora was his wolf. At one point in time, our killer had been, too. Everything Callum had done in the past few years had been aimed at protecting me, shaping me. But this?

This wasn’t a choice the Callum I knew would ever have put in my hands. I still dreamed about Lucas, still thought about him, still felt the weight of snuffing out his life, and that had been self-defense. He’d been a danger to the pack, a loose cannon, and he was the one who’d challenged me.

But Sora wasn’t a danger. She wasn’t evil. This wasn’t self-defense. This was me, sitting on a ratty bed in a motel room, thinking about sacrificing her life for the greater good.

This was me, talking about murder like it was an option.

“I don’t know what else to do,” I said.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and I waited for him to say something to make this—any of it—better.

“What would you do if it were Lake?” Callum asked finally. Something in his tone made me feel like, this time, he was looking for something from me—absolution, understanding? I wasn’t sure which.

“If it were Griffin that was the killer, and the only way to kill him was to kill Lake, what would you do?”

I’d thought that Griffin might be the killer, but I’d never let myself follow that thought to completion, because the idea of hurting Lake, sacrificing Lake—I couldn’t have done it.