Chapter 29
chapter
twenty-nine
Bile rose in Alexander’s throat as Tobias curled up in agony.
Josh fell to his knees beside him as their bones lengthened and splintered.
Even Donna was screaming, and not from her broken bone: she was changing.
A wolf bite pulsed on her injured arm. Alexander had been too busy watching Tobias to notice it.
“Mother!” Alexander snapped. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting my son back,” Meredith replied impassively. She twisted the amulet’s dial up further, almost to its limit.
The screams grew louder. A low growl joined them, and Alexander turned to see Sadie doubled over clutching her stomach as Honey pleaded with her.
“The hunger doesn’t own you,” she insisted. “Hey! You’re mine, remember? It doesn’t get to have you.”
Bart cleared his throat worriedly, watching Donna writhe. “Sweetheart? What’s the plan?”
Meredith ignored him. Her gaze was fixed on Alexander as she held the amulet dial in place. “You’re a hunter,” she told him. “Now hunt.”
She dropped her bloody shrapnel shard at his feet. Alexander stared at it numbly. The arena was full of screams, grotesque cracking, and horrible slick noises as Tobias, Josh, Sadie, and Donna fought against the transformation.
Honey’s scream joined them. Alexander saw her pressed into the concrete, using her ax as a barrier. Sadie was on top of her, fangs locked around the hilt as she growled and swiped.
“Do you hear her yell for help?” Meredith asked. “You are a hunter. You save humans and kill the monsters. Do your duty.”
She kicked his crossbow toward him.
“I’m not yelling for help!” Honey shrieked, her arms trembling from holding her feral girlfriend at bay. “I’m yelling for you to break that fucking amulet! Alex!”
The amulet glinted in Meredith’s hand. Her fingers closed around it, her lip twisting as she saw Alexander look at it.
“Ignore her,” Meredith said. “Take your bow and do it.”
Alexander picked up his bow shakily. His friends—his friends—lay around the arena, twisting in agony. Tobias’s hair was getting messy again, after Alexander had smoothed his fingers through it so carefully.
“They haven’t…” His voice failed. He cleared his throat. “They haven’t hurt anyone. You said…if they help us, you said—”
“You will not fail us again,” Meredith barked. Her nostrils flared, and she took a limping step toward him, her cool breath washing over his face. “Not for him. I should have killed him last time, but his sister was so damn stubborn.”
Alexander stared at her, uncomprehending. Then it finally clicked.
“You killed his sister,” he whispered. “Not Muzzle.”
Meredith scoffed. “Don’t look so scandalized, Alexander. Not with that knife in your pocket.”
“What are you talking about?”
Meredith fixed him with a look that froze his blood.
Suddenly the weight of his jawbone knife wasn’t so comforting anymore. Alexander pulled it out and flipped it open with trembling fingers. He’d polished it every night. Ran his fingers over the bolts and the filed-down fangs. He’d never wondered who the jawbone once belonged to.
He thought back to that smashed photo on Tobias’s windowsill. His big sister with her arm slung easily around her brother’s shoulders, grinning with those same teeth that would one day stud this very knife. What was her name again? Alexander couldn’t remember. How dare he not remember?
He dropped the jawbone knife. It clattered onto the concrete next to Tobias’s head. Tobias was mostly wolf now, his limbs a horrifying jumble as he shuddered.
Meredith grabbed Alexander’s hand so it wrapped tighter around his crossbow. “Atone for your mistake and you can come home with us! Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
Alexander’s stomach rolled. “Mother,” he croaked. “I’m—”
“Whatever he’s told you,” Meredith said, her voice softer now. “It’s a lie. He doesn’t care about you—he can’t. It’s not his fault. His soul is dust. Remember? And if he does think he cares, it’s only because his damn wolf thinks you’re his mate. It’s not real.”
Alexander blinked, dazed. “I’m…his mate?”
“It’s not real,” she repeated. “We’re real. Your family. Your home. Come home, Alexander.”
She squeezed his hand again, pressing it hard against the crossbow. She was giving him a rare and tremulous smile now. Alexander could hardly look at it. The hope in it made him want to vomit.
He stared down at Tobias, who was twisting in agony on the ground.
Mate, Alexander thought, dazed. He’s my mate.
A month ago, even a week ago, it would have filled him with shaky disgust. But it wasn’t disgust that rose in him as he watched his mate writhe.
That strange, icy feeling that had been plaguing him so often recently was rising again, huge and horrible.
A realization he’d been on the verge of so many times, a realization he’d beaten back without fail.
It was coming. And this time, it was breaking through.
Alexander looked up. “Mother?”
She smiled, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “Alexander?”
He hesitated. He’d been about to say he was sorry. A stupid idea. It would give her that split second she could use to stop him.
For all her faults, Meredith had trained him well.
Alexander lowered his crossbow and pressed the trigger. A bolt slammed through Meredith’s good leg, shattering muscle and bone.
She fell on her side and howled. For a moment she was louder than the agonized cries of the monsters squirming half-transformed around the arena.
Bart jerked up from his vigil over Donna and screamed, “Mer!”
Alexander wrenched the amulet from her shocked grip. He smashed it against the ground. It shattered, metal and gold flying over the concrete. Every monster slumped. The arena filled with sounds of bones cracking back into place, extra skin retreating, Sadie’s jaws unlatching from Honey’s ax hilt.
Alexander dropped to his knees in front of Tobias. “Tobias! Hey!”
He shook Tobias’s beloved face. Tobias’s mouth stayed slack, his eyes fluttering under their lids before stilling.
Alexander shook him harder. But before the real panic could set in, Josh struggled up beside him.
“He’s okay,” Josh managed, wobbling in place. “He can sleep anything off.”
Meredith’s snarl made them both turn. She was trying and failing to stand, trailing blood over the dusty arena.
“What did you do?” she demanded. “You can’t choose him! Your soul will be dust!”
“I’m not dust,” Alexander said. “I’m his.”
For a moment he almost expected her to bite him. But what she did was much worse.
She grabbed the bloody shrapnel she’d dropped at his feet and lunged.
Bart yelled. Alexander barely heard it. He lifted his arm to block her, but surely too late. He braced for impact. But it didn’t come in the form he expected. It came from the side, hard and desperate, knocking him to the ground.
Alexander looked up. Josh was standing in the same spot where he had been just a moment earlier. There was a hunk of shrapnel sticking out of his chest. It had gone right through his heart.
Meredith wrenched the shrapnel out and fell back.
Bart caught her. His cheeks were wet. He was staring at them like he suddenly didn’t recognize either of them.
Alexander had shot his mother. Meredith had tried to stab their only living child in the chest. Later, Alexander would think it was inevitable.
But in that moment, he only had eyes for Josh.
Josh made a breathless noise and staggered forward. Alexander grabbed him and pulled him out of Meredith’s reach.
“You’ll be okay,” he said as he dragged. “We can fix this. Tobias will know what to do.”
Josh coughed. Blood spilled over his chin, dripping onto Alexander’s hands. No, Alexander thought. No, no, no.
“I lied,” Josh whispered.
“What?” Alexander looked around desperately for help. Donna was pushing herself to her feet, Honey was helping Sadie up. Bart held Meredith back, whispering urgently. And Tobias was unconscious, completely unaware that one of his only friends was bleeding out beside him.
“I’m not sixteen,” Josh said, his voice wet with blood. “Tobias was r-right. I’m fifteen. But my birthday…”
He blinked slowly. One of his eyes was red, blood blooming behind the cornea. Alexander panicked, grabbing his hand. What would Tobias do? He’d make a joke. Keep him talking.
“Birthday,” Alexander prompted. “Tell me when your birthday is, Josh. And keep squeezing my hand, just like that. Alright?”
“Two weeks,” Josh gurgled. “Tobias said he’d…make me a cake. Chocolate. I’ve never had a…”
His hand went slack in Alexander’s grip. His eyes stared at the arena ceiling, unseeing.
“Josh.” Alexander squeezed his hand as hard as he could, trying to provoke a response. “Josh!”
Nothing. Alexander shook him. Josh rocked side to side with the movement, limp as a rag doll.
A cold hand touched his shoulder. Alexander smacked it away, mind full of Meredith and her clutching fingers.
“It’s just me,” Sadie said quietly.
He stared up at her. If her hair wasn’t so messy and she didn’t have a woodchip from the axe hilt on her chin, he would never have believed she’d been trying to eat her girlfriend a minute ago.
“We need to go,” Sadie said, almost gently. She looked back at Alexander’s parents.
Alexander didn’t look. He could hear them perfectly well from here: Meredith hissing and spitting about souls and dust, Bart trying desperately to calm her down. From his frequent grunts and panting, it sounded like he was continuously taking away her weapons after she tried to wrestle them back.
Donna sniffed, her eyes red. The bite mark on her arm was still bleeding, but sluggishly. She would heal within the night and wake up forever changed.
“I can carry someone,” she croaked. “I only have one functional arm, but it’s pretty strong.”
“More than you know,” Alexander told her.
He let Sadie pick up Josh’s limp body. Then he hauled Tobias up, straining to lift his heavy bulk over his shoulder. Even with all his training, he shook under the weight.
“I have him,” he assured Sadie when she offered to take him over her other shoulder.
He turned toward the empty barracks that led out to the parking lot. A scream echoed behind him, loud and feral enough to make him turn.
Meredith was crying. He’d never seen her cry before, even at Samson’s funeral. She was holding an empty crossbow, trying to get past Bart to where he’d thrown the arrows.
Bart turned to look at him. Alexander had seen Bart crying, though it was still unfamiliar enough to make him deeply uncomfortable.
Alexander waited for another condemnation. But if Bart had any thoughts about the dubious nature of Alexander’s soul, he didn’t say them.
“Go,” Bart croaked. He batted away another one of his limping wife’s attempts to get past him to the arrows and turned back to his son. “Go!”
Alexander carried Tobias all the way through the deserted barracks and up the stairs. The girls kept offering to help, Donna even pinching Tobias’s sneaker to keep it aloft, but Alexander shooed them all away.
“I have him,” he repeated, even after they were sitting in the backseat of Steve-van and he had Tobias’s head in his lap. “It’s okay. I have him.”