Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Damien tensed, but he didn’t move, didn’t go for his weapon. He kept his hands up, palms out. “Go ahead, if that’s what you feel like you need to do.”
She should do it. Her father would have. It was too risky not to do it. An image of Zachariah flashed through her brain. Her dad wasn’t wrong. But the right thing wasn’t always the right thing.
There was something in Damien’s eyes, though. A softness, a vulnerability that was hard to fake. She saw it. Even in the fog, the darkness shimmering around the flashlight, still shining a wide spotlight from its position on the ground between them.
Her gut twisted. He was the enemy. He’d also spared her life. Twice.
She could hate him, but she couldn’t kill him. She wasn’t her father.
With a sigh, she lowered the hunting rifle.
For a long moment, they stared at each other without moving or speaking.
“Can I get the flashlight without you trying to shoot me?” he asked.
She nodded.
He bent and retrieved the flashlight, then straightened. “Thanks. You won’t regret this, I swear it.”
“I'd better not.”
He grinned. “Now, we need to—”
A scratching, shuffling sound came from somewhere behind them.
Damien went rigid. Raven tensed. She held up one finger for absolute quiet.
Eyes wide, Damien nodded. He shifted slightly and unholstered his handgun with his right hand, shifting the flashlight to his left. He pointed the beam aimlessly into the fog, swinging it from left to right.
She strained her ears, trying to make out the source of the sounds. The mist was thick as soup around them. The beam of the flashlight barely penetrated ten yards. For a panicked instant, she imagined Vlad stalking them, prowling closer, unsheathed claws clicking the flagstone.
But no. The sounds were wrong.
Several heavy, shuffling steps. A loud snuffling sound.
A larger dark shape reared out of the murk behind Damien.
Damien whirled in alarm. His gun hand rose.
“Don’t shoot!” Raven lunged forward. With her free hand, she grasped the barrel of Damien’s gun and slapped it down.
Damien shot her a horrified look. “What are you doing—!”
“Stay still, and he won’t hurt you.”
“What—?” And then Damien saw it, too.
An enormous black bear emerged from the thick fog, not twenty feet away.
Damien made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.
Kodiak lumbered toward them, his huge head low. He sniffed hungrily at the bushes along the path, searching for potential dinner. His fur was thick and black but for the white star-shaped patch between his eyes.
About ten feet away, the big bear hesitated. He looked at them curiously, his head swinging from Damien to Raven.
“Don’t move,” she murmured. “He’s more curious than anything.”
To Damien’s credit, he didn’t move a single muscle. He probably stopped breathing, too. His face was so pale, his freckles stood out like drops of blood.
Haven’s black bears were big, lazy oafs. They could cause harm, sure. They weighed three hundred pounds and had teeth and claws, but they were not aggressive. Not if you knew what you were doing.
“There’s no food here for you, Kodiak,” she said calmly. “The exit you want is back the way you came. The woods are full of the food you want.”
Kodiak snuffled. He lumbered straight at them. The huge black shape passed not five feet from where she and Damien stood. The sour dankness of his fur filled her nostrils. He was so close, she could’ve counted the thick coarse hairs of his pelt.
The bear ambled past them. His mouth agape, Damien turned and stared after the black bear until he vanished into the fog. Damien turned back to Raven with a look of absolute awe. “I thought for sure he was gonna eat us.”
“Most animals aren’t a threat to humans unless the humans are a threat first.”
He ran his hands through his hair and took a steadying breath. His gaze fell to Rex’s body. “I have to go back and alert Vaughn and Dekker.”
Of course. His first loyalty was still to his uncle. Raven had her loyalties, too. Her responsibilities. She’d dallied here for far too long. Every second she stood here with him increased the chance of discovery.
Squatting, she set down the rifle just long enough to shoulder her backpack and seize the whittling knife. Retrieving the rifle with one hand, she stood and wiped the knife clean on her pants with her other hand, then closed it and stuffed it in her pocket.
Part of her never wanted to lay eyes on the blade again. Part of her couldn’t bear to leave it behind. The whittling knife was her mother’s last gift to her.
Besides, it had saved her life. Perhaps, it might again. She started up the flagstone path. “I need to go.”
Damien swiftly crossed the space between them and seized her arm. “Wait.”
His touch shuddered up her arm. Alarm buzzed through her blood. But also, something else. Something she couldn’t name. It turned her stomach inside out. Her skin felt too tight, the air too dense. “Let go!”
He was stronger than she was. He could have forced her to do whatever he wanted, but he didn’t. Frowning, he released her arm. “Sorry.”
“I just—I don’t like to be touched.”
He shrugged. “Okay. Just don’t go yet.”
“What do you want?” Her voice came out harsh. She rubbed her arm with her free hand. His touch had surprised her, set her even further on edge.
“There’s something you need to know.”
The fog enveloped them in a murky white soup. They stood facing each other, tension sizzling between them like electricity. Her muscles tensed, ready to flee at the slightest provocation.
If he touched her again, she was gone.
“They’ll hunt you now,” he said hoarsely. “They were losing interest, getting bored since they didn’t find you right away, but not now. Dekker won’t stop now that Rex is dead. When it comes to vengeance, he’s like a dog with a bone.”
She stared at him, numb. “It was self-defense.”
“Do you think they care about that? Do you think Dekker will care? This isn’t just anybody.” He took a sharp breath. “Rex is—was—Dekker’s brother.”
A frisson of dread zapped down her spine. All the blood rushed to her head. Dekker was dangerous. The terrible images flooded her brain. Carl’s face imploding. All that blood. Dekker’s flat, dead-fish eyes seeking hers.
Before, she’d been a plaything, an object he could use and then discard. Nothing special or very important. A passing interest.
Before Rex’s death, she could have left like she’d planned. None of the Headhunters would’ve been the wiser for it. They wouldn’t have bothered to search for her outside of the wildlife sanctuary.
Now, she would be pursued. She would be hunted.
Damien’s mouth thinned. “You need to understand. Vaughn wanted to take you in alive before this. To… to sell you, like I told you. It wouldn’t matter what Dekker wanted—he’d have to obey. But now Dekker has a blood debt against you. Vaughn won’t stop him. Dekker will kill you.”
“I got that part.”
“It won’t be pleasant. He’ll… he’ll want to torture you first. I’ve seen it before. It’s how he gets.”
She swallowed hard. Fear pressed up against her throat, making it difficult to breathe.
“You gonna tell me your name yet?”
She gave a sharp shake of her head. “Haven’t earned it.”
“I will.” He shot her a grim smile. For a tense moment, they just stared at each other. Damien cleared his throat. “Want to know why I was hiding in that back bedroom when I first saw you?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid. Okay? I’m afraid, too.
Every time Dekker looks at me, I don’t know if he’s gonna smile that slick smile or slide a blade between my ribs.
Or maybe both at the same time. He sees me as a threat because of who I am to Vaughn.
He’d take over the Headhunters if he thought he could get away with it. He’s dangerous.”
She nodded and licked her dry lips. Her scalp prickled with cold sweat. “I’ll hide the body. They won’t know what happened to him, not until I’m far enough away where they can’t find me.”
“There’s blood all over the flagstone. No way we can get it all out before sunrise.”
“They’ll think it was one of the wild animals. The tiger or one of the bears.”
“Even I know animals don’t kill with a knife.
” He grimaced. “Vaughn knows hunting. We wouldn’t be able to make it look convincing that an animal did it.
He’d know. I have no choice. I have to tell Dekker what happened—or a version of it.
If I don’t, they’ll discover the body anyway, and he’ll suspect me, too.
He knows Rex and me went out together. Vaughn won’t be able to stop him.
He’ll start cutting off my fingers one by one until he gets the truth. ”
There were no good choices. Only terrible ones.
Impotent rage burned through her veins. At Damien, at the Headhunters, at her dead father, at her mother who’d left her all alone, at this whole stupid dying world.
“You have to get out of here,” Damien said. “I’ll wait as long as I can, but I can’t wait too long. It will be dawn soon. I’ll try to divert the search, send them in the wrong direction. It won’t work long-term, but I can give you time. Use it wisely.”
Fear roiled through her stomach. So did something else, something sick and dark. Raven straightened her shoulders, bracing herself. “I’m not running. Not yet, anyway.”
Damien stared at her, aghast. “What do you mean? No, you have to run. Run as far away as you can, and never come back. Dekker will kill you. They’ll all try to kill you.”
“I understand that. They’re hunting the animals, too.”
“But—”
“Haven is my home. I released the animals, but they’re still here, wandering around in confusion inside the refuge or the nearby woods.
They’re not free yet. They’re not safe. I can’t leave them, and this place, in the hands of the Headhunters.
Not until I give the animals a better chance to get away. ”
And not while Luna and Shadow were still here, too. She didn’t say that part out loud. He wouldn’t understand.
“No, you don’t get it—”
“I get it,” she said. “There are some things I can live with, and some things I can’t.
My whole life, I thought I couldn’t wait to get away from this place.
It turns out, my heart is here. It was here all along.
My dad, he dedicated his whole life to the Haven, to these animals.
I—I can’t just leave them defenseless. I have to at least give them a chance. ”
She didn’t say that she was probably infected and likely to die anyway. It wasn’t any of his business. Besides, she didn’t want to voice it into existence. Not yet.
Raven waited for him to say that they were just animals. That they didn’t matter. That they weren’t as valuable as her human life. But he didn’t.
Instead, he handed her his flashlight. “Hide out in the woods for the night, at least. Find a safe place if you can. There’s nowhere for you to hide here. I’ll do what I can to help you from this side. If—If I can do something to help, I will.”
For the first time in what felt like months, warmth filled her chest. She had a flashlight in her pack, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
She accepted the flashlight. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Good luck,” Damien said. “You’ll need it.”