Through the blur that passed for her vision, she saw them: Wolf and Acne, across the room, facing off. The air in the cabin had quickened, popping and crackling with heat, the acrid sting of murder, the cold steel of Wolf ’s rage. Blood trickled from Acne’s nose, and he was shaking his head like a bull. Crouching, eyes narrowed, Wolf began to circle. Acne tried to follow, but he was either still stunned from Wolf ’s first punch or simply weakened by lack of food, because he stumbled. Seizing his chance, Wolf ducked and charged. Dazed, Acne actually backed up and tried a sidestep, but not fast enough. Plowing into Acne, Wolf wrapped his arms around the other boy’s waist and gave a mighty heave. Acne’s legs flew out from under as Wolf upended and then smashed him to the floor. Acne’s head rebounded against wood with a sharp crack. His limbs went limp, the connections between brain and body winking out as Wolf dropped like a boulder on top of him. He brought his fist down like a hammer, once, twice—
A huge roar shook the cabin. From her place on the floor, Alex saw Marley, long dreads still frosty from cold, swinging the Mossberg’s muzzle from the ceiling and bringing it to bear on the two boys. Wolf and Acne froze in an almost comical tableau: Wolf astride Acne’s chest, his bloody fist cocked for another blow. Acne’s eyes were swelling and purpling in a mask of blood. Combined with all those acne scars, the boy looked as if his skin was being chewed from the inside out. His chest was a broad bib of red. With every breath, blood bubbled through his shattered nose.
To Marley’s left were the brothers, Bert and Ernie. From the smell drifting out of that green duffel slung over Bert’s shoulder, she knew that the woman was frail and birdy, wreathed in a fruity bouquet of starvation, with very little meat. Look at it a certain way, maybe Wolf and his crew had only done the birdy woman a favor, in the same way that sheriffs shot deer too weak to even realize they’d wandered into the middle of the road during a hard winter. If, that is, you really could see things from the Changed’s point of view.
It scared her, a little, that she could.
Wolf didn’t kill Acne, and neither did any in his crew. What they did was send Acne packing. Curled in a corner, throat aching, cheek throbbing, Alex kept still as Acne, moving very slowly and stiffly, rolled up his sleeping bag under Wolf ’s watchful eye and Marley’s Mossberg.
Don’t notice me. She hugged her knees a little closer. Don’t see me. I’m not here. Fat chance of that. Through it all, she thought about the monster: that jump behind Acne’s eyes, Wolf ’s sudden appearance. It was possible that Wolf was close by anyway, and banged through the door just in time. But just as likely that the monster had something to do with this, same as when I was under the snow. Now as then, she’d been teetering on the edge of consciousness, and the monster panicked. Wouldn’t be the first time, and what the hell was she going to do about that? What could she do?
Got to think of something; got to keep the monster under control. Her face throbbed. She thought about her med pack. Might be something for pain. No, stay sharp; it’s when you start to lose it that the monster gets out. She sucked blood from a tear on her lower lip. I can take this. Besides, I really ought to save that stuff for when we need it.
Only after another second did she truly hear what she’d just thought: We?
Stop it, Alex; you’re going to drive yourself crazy. For want of anything better to do, she watched as Bert grabbed that green duffel, pulled it up, gave the nylon bag a shake. The birdy woman’s body slithered out in a loose-limbed splay like a limp, white, plucked chicken. After Bert smoothed the duffel on the floor, Ernie rolled the body onto the sack, then pulled a well-used knife, with a fine and silvery edge, from a leg sheath and went to work.
Don’t look, Alex. Fighting the sting of tears, she dropped her head on her knees. The air bloomed with wet iron, raw meat, fresh bone. Hell with the monster. You’re Alex. You’ll always be Alex, no matter what . . .
She felt the suck of cold air as the door closed behind Acne. A moment later, she heard hesitant footsteps coming toward her. Even before he knelt—before she felt his tentative hand in her hair—she knew who it was. For a moment, she didn’t move, but not because she was afraid.
She didn’t move because—God help her—she wasn’t scared of him. At all.
Wolf ’s rage, that steel bite, was gone. What remained was rot and mist, gassy flesh and crisp apples, and for a second, she surrendered to a very simple, basic need. For her, at that moment, even the touch of a monster would do.
I am so scared. All at once, she was crying, silently, shoulders shuddering. Angry at herself, too. Stop this, stop this . . . no one will rescue you but you. No one else can. Yet here was Wolf, and she wasn’t fighting this, or him. Maybe she should. But she was so worn out. She felt his hand move through her hair, very gently, quite carefully, as if he were trying not to hurt her more than she was already. Don’t touch me, don’t touch me. But she wanted this, craved it—a touch that was not a blow—and she thought that meant she was pretty far gone. She let his fingers travel over her uninjured cheek, felt his thumb skim away her tears, trace her jaw. When he lifted her chin, she didn’t fight that either.
Wolf ’s face—Chris’s face—was very still. Watchful. Trying to . . . understand, she thought. His dark eyes were riveted to hers, as if trying to see behind these windows to her mind. His scent was hard to read, but it was light and floral, the smell of safe and family. There might even be a smidgeon of pity there, or sympathy.
“Please let me go, Wolf.” She winced against a stinging swallow of salt. “Don’t you see? I don’t belong with you. I’m not one of you.”
Nothing changed in his scent. Maybe nothing could because he couldn’t understand, or didn’t want to. But his thumb kept stroking her cheek the way you might comfort a small child or lost kitten. Right around then, she realized she wasn’t crying anymore either.
What type of monster are you, Wolf ? It was a question she could’ve asked herself. What was she now? What lived in her head that could do these things: jump behind Acne’s eyes, slide into Spider, slither into Leopard?
Reach for Wolf ?
The monster wants him. Because she did? No, not like that, never. Whatever the monster was doing, its needs were its own; she had to believe that, or she might as well use the tanto on herself.
But . . . what if I can use the monster somehow? Her mind brushed that idea, lightly, not lingering, a touch that was as gentle as Wolf ’s on her cheek. What if I can control when and how the monster jumps? Or maybe let the monster try to reach Wolf, talk to him? Just let go and get into Wolf and see myself the way he really sees me—