Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
We take it slow on our way out. Grayson broke in through the window at the end of the halfway and the near—enough—arbor leading like a ladder down into the raised beds where Mom grows her herbs.
A wild tangle of thyme obscures any footprints he left in the softened mulch.
I’m not as deft as he is. On the way down, my feet slip on the diamond rungs and I get splinters between my fingers. Dried clematis leaves crunch under my hands. Grayson makes it to the bottom first and stumbles, his balance lost before he holds out his hands to me.
If I fall, I’ll take us both down.
His arms are sure as they band around my waist, assisting my hop to the ground. He brushes dead leaves from my sleeves.
“I never thought anyone would look so adorable in bunny pajamas,” he murmurs.
“Better than the flannel?”
“Different. You’re adorable in anything you wear, Mandi.”
His rough tone brushes over me. Then reality knocks me on the side of the head and instincts urge me to fucking run, my veins filled with ice instead of blood. Another glance at the window shows it closed, free from shadows or ghosts.
Our luck won’t hold for long, not with so many wolves prowling with their amazing noses.
“I want to hear more about this later.” I tug Grayson toward the edge of the yard and the small pathway leading to the woods beyond.
Each house in the community is bracketed by a large expanse of trees bleeding into more land for us to roam.
The high fence stretches around the community and every acre purchased by the pack acts like their version of a bunker.
But I know where the tear in the fence is located. The same tear I’d once burst through only to find Grayson wounded, newly bitten, condemned to this life he hadn’t asked for.
“If they realize we’re gone before we’re out, then we’re finished. This is our last chance.”
The last thing my body wants is to jog. The emptiness inside doesn’t make me lighter, it only muddles my head with dizziness.
Grayson glares straight ahead. “Trust me, I get it.”
He ambles beside me and tilts to the side, listening. I do the same for a very different reason.
It’s early enough in the day for the rest of the pack to be up with the sun, morning risers most of them. But with the excitement of the research party and my absence, they’re probably catching up on other things.
I cross mental fingers.
The busier they are, the more distracted they are, the better for us.
“It’s this way.” I tug on Grayson’s elbow to course-correct him.
The dappled shade of the woods behind our house melts into cleaner paths. There are no thorns to snag us here. Moss grows on the sides of trees and stones, and the clearings are packed with clover and hairy bittercress. This isn’t the wilderness.
But there are still monsters.
We make it to the edge of the neighbor’s yard before I freeze, my senses on high alert.
Grayson stops and uses me for balance. “Mandi, what is it?”
His ears prick at the distant rumble, the thud of footsteps echoing my heartbeat. Then the inevitable.
A ragged, wet howl blisters through my eardrum, landing like the tip of an arrow, close enough to spell disaster.
Moon-mad wolves are all the same. It’s like the curse shreds through their vocal cords, warping and twisting until the sound is familiar but not.
Our eyes meet, lock, and share panic. “Oh, no.” My fingers go numb.
They’re along the fence, in the daytime. They’ve found us.
Grayson shakes his head. “We can’t. We have to go”
“But my pack—”
He grabs my numb hand and drags me forward, hard, when I refuse to move. “They’re going to have to fend for themselves.”
The roar comes again, this time closer.
“It’s inside the fence, Grayson!”
Terror splits me in two and makes sure the pieces are not in communication.
We’ve gotten to the wood’s edge, grass rolling down toward the communal park space.
And beyond the fence, where the scrolling ironwork gate keeps the rest of the world out and the rest of us inside, patrol tightens ranks against our enemy.
Except now we’re trapped.
How did it get in? Through my hole in the fence?
The roar sounds again but from a different direction. There are at least two of them inside. Does it really matter how they found a way? They’re here.
Chaos erupts behind us. The patrol wolves shift midstride, stronger in their wolf form despite the dawn sun lifting high instead of the moon.
They take off and once again, the world slows. Each heartbeat stretches out for a day, a week, and Grayson and I turn in unison to the scene behind us.
Moon-mad beasts vault over a picket fence, some of them blasting the wood into chunks and grabbing at the patrolmen who meet them at the sidewalk.
The first scream is a herald. A tornado siren.
Some people run and others shift to join the fight, landing on all fours and meeting the prowling moon-mad beasts head on.
They topple together to the asphalt and the moon-mad creature tears out the other’s throat.
No. Not again.
This wasn’t supposed to happen here.
Blood arcs across the sidewalk and colors the grass with gore. An ache spreads from my eyes and spikes through my skull. Only Grayson holding me keeps me from shattering.
“We need to help them!” I pull against him hard enough for skin to go tight and slide against my bones.
“If we help them, we’re as good as dead. You know that as well as I do.”
His words make sense. Somewhere in my brain, I recognize the rightness of it.
But these are my people falling. My people dying. Howls and yells draw fighters out from their homes to protect their loved ones.
Soon enough, my father will be there.
More wolves come barreling down the street and throw themselves on the moon-mad creatures. One of them barely blinks before clawing at them, tearing through muscle and sinew.
The men can try all they want to fight. They haven’t learned anything from this enemy; they only know the moon-mad are feral and refuse to stop.
They are singularly focused. And this war goes beyond any new battles. It’s been raging for years.
We got away from the thing outside the cabin.
Miracles don’t happen twice.
“Mandi,” Grayson says. “Please.”
I’ll never forgive myself for this. Will I?
With the fighting behind us, the awful tearing sounds followed by grunts and gurgles from the dying, we run.
We run from the fight, both of us stumbling over ourselves and our reservations.
The gates are locked but we hike to the right and slap our palms to the fence.
It steadies us, stretching away from the gatehouse.
A few more steps. One after the other. Then we’ll be free and my people will be dead.
“If you can’t believe in them, then they aren’t as strong as you are. Not by a long shot,” Grayson breathes out.
Tension moves me like a puppet master. The heat rolling off Grayson scalds through my back and when he collapses against me, his weight takes us both to the ground. We hit, breath exploding from my lungs, my chin hitting the ground and teeth clacking together.
I bite the inside of my cheek on impact and the coppery tang of blood coats my tongue. With a groan, I push up, trying to get my legs and arms underneath me. My lungs seize and Grayson rolls to the side with a groan.
“Are you okay? Grayson?”
He doesn’t answer me.
When I push him onto his back, his shirt snags, and the spot he’s been scratching for the last two days is red and raw. The rash spreads across his entire arm, the skin peeling and flaying.
I’m hollow. The awful realization, a reality there’s no room to ignore, settles over me and constricts, the world’s axis tilting. There’s no way to avoid it now.
He’s got the moon madness without a doubt.
“No, no no! No, Grayson.” I pull him up by the front of his shirt, his eyes rolling around behind closed lids.
Slowly he blinks his eyes open.
I should leave him. The smart thing would be to cut my losses here and go help my family before the other moon-mad wolves get to Holly. Dad will never allow it.
Just like I know without a doubt I’ll never let myself abandon Grayson now.
He needs help, the kind we won’t find if we stick around. I glance behind us a final time, the roars distant, the screams filtering away to the silence of either defeat or victory.
“Can you move? Here, lean on me.” I duck beneath him and rise from my knees, taking us both up with the same movement.
“You don’t have to take care of me like this, Mandi.” His voice strains. “I’ll be fine. I’m not sure what’s wrong…but I’ll be f-fine.”
He most definitely won’t be. My throat constricts around the words. Soon I’ll have to let them breathe. But not yet.
We inch toward the tear in the fence and I settle Grayson before prying the chain link up. “Can you make it through?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“All I do is worry. You’re just at the top of my list.”
Hard decisions have replaced the blood rushing through me. I left my pack to get him help. It’s not about me anymore.
He ducks through the triangular hole on his hands and knees and I follow behind him, the sharp edges of metal tearing at my hair.
So, we leave.
One of us in bunny pajamas, and the other one devolving into a curse.
I shoulder his weight again but Grayson is determined to do it himself. He shuffles beside me and we move deeper into the forest around the community, away from the neat rows of houses terrorized by our enemy.
We move until the tree limbs erase even the smallest strands of sunlight overhead. I shiver and my ear burns at the memory of the hunter and the bullets that would have ended things sooner if he’d hit his target.
“I’m sorry,” Grayson manages. “I’m so damn sorry for this.”
“For what?”
“For being useless. For putting you in this position. I know how hard it’s got to be for you.”
He grinds out the rest of the words and I shake my head.
“I made my choice.”
“Why do i feel like I pushed you into it”
His chuckle undoes me because it’s hiding his own flavor of guilt.
“Look, dude, I might have lived my life with my father pulling the strings, but this is a different story. I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do.” Those are pretty words.
I wonder if they’ll ever get easier to believe.
“You don’t owe me anything. And I don’t want you to think of me like some project where you feel beholden to—”
“Stop it,” I interrupt hotly. “It’s not like that.”
I straighten when he drags his arm free, walking on his own. “Then what’s it like?” he asks.
“I know what it’s like to be an outcast, even when no one else sees it. That’s all.”
The story is incomplete by a mile. I’m not sure what words to use to fill in the blanks yet. Not until we’re out of this and I know there’s a shot at safety.
“It’s not going to be much further. A few miles,” I soothe.
Okay, ten. Or more. Grayson doesn’t need to know. He needs to keep going.
He stumbles and I grab his arm and help him despite his weak protests.
He’s off balance and sweating, mumbling under his breath. How the hell are we going to make it to the witch’s house?
So, I lie the same way I always have.
“You’ve got this. You’re a football player and a damn Boy Scout with a doomsday prepper dad. You’re used to having to push through to score the winning goal when you’ve got a game, right?”
My breath catches in my lungs, the combination of adrenaline and sickness making it hard to breathe.
Grayson is so heavy.
He grunts. “Touchdown,” he corrects.
There we go.
Get him thinking about something else, anything else. I help him move deeper into the forest toward town, toward our destination. The moon madness might be right there knocking at the door and demanding entry, but if RJ and Aimee made it—
If we can get to them—
We might have a shot.
Because I’m so good at it, I lie to myself, too. I spin those fantasies of everything working out exactly right and refuse to pay attention to any fantasy where Grayson is whole and healthy and looking at me the way my fiancé is supposed to.
Trees thin out the closer we get to town. The recognizable landmarks of storefronts and road signs are a welcome end to this horrible trek.
And I left my sister behind in the carnage.
Odds are good the others will eventually take down the moon-mad wolves, but at what cost to the pack? And how much destruction will there be to clean up?
Please let my family be okay.
“We’re almost there,” I assure Grayson.
My legs tremble and rather than stopping, the tremor creeps higher. My vision blurs and for a second, blackness swims across my vision.
I swallow compulsively. Now would be the worst time to pass out.
Grayson recovers long enough to switch our positions. He nudges me, gathering my weight, and we lean on each other. Two young people whose lives haven’t even started but don’t realize we’re already dead.
And when we stop in front of the right house, on the right street, I almost pass out. Aimee is in the yard with a bruise on her cheekbone but otherwise fine. She lifts her arms to hang a talisman of twigs and bone and crystals from a maple tree branch.
The scent of magic, sweet but laced with ozone, cackles through my senses.
They’re enforcing the wards around the house. Smart.
Aimee turns at the sensation of eyes on her and cries out, dropping the talisman before she completes the knot.
Even from a distance, the scratches on her forehead are clear.
“RJ! They’re here.” Aimee draws in a breath before jogging toward us. “They made it.”
She pulls up short at whatever she catches on her inhale. Her knowing gaze falls on Grayson’s face.
“I thought things were turning around because you managed to get free,” she mutters, rushing over to help me.
“Oh, no. It’s too much to ask for,” I mutter. “The best we can do is mildly maimed. Does it still count?”
Things are only getting worse for us.
“How long has he been sick?” Aimee asks me the question instead of Grayson. “He’s got a fever.”
He’s also hearing voices that aren’t there, and answering them more than he’s answering me.
“Long enough.”
“Come inside,” Aimee says. “Mom’s visiting one of our sister covens this week so we have the place to ourselves.”
RJ runs over and takes up the slack on Grayson’s other side. “Yeah, that’s one less thing to worry about at least.”
She may have meant that to be comforting, but as we cross the threshold of the old house, I can’t help thinking how long that list of problems is turning out to be and how quickly it’s all catching up to us.