The Prey (24 page)

And
Gloria
.

Their boat comes to a stop on the rocky beach and the others stretch out their hands. When they see June Bug they freeze.

“Bad?” Twitch asks.

No one answers.

Scylla and Twitch gather branches and construct a triangular stretcher. They slip June Bug onto it, covering him with blankets. Helen gives him willow bark to chew to ease the pain. They're still tending to him when Cat orders them to sink the boats.

“Sink the boats?” Flush asks, incredulous.

“You heard me.”

“But if things don't work out, we'll need 'em if we want to turn back.” He doesn't need to say the words
wolves
or
Skull People
for the others to know exactly what he's thinking.

Cat levels his gaze at him. “There
is
no turning back.” He looks at everyone else, daring someone to contradict him.

As crazy as it is, Hope understands Cat's logic. They're on the run; they've escaped from two separate camps and killed Brown Shirts in the process. There's no point even having the option to return.

So they do as he instructs: dropping handfuls of rocks into the two boats until both are resting on the bottom of the cove.

As Cat goes searching for the trail, Book and Hope empty out the backpacks and share a glance. It's a meager mishmash of objects: a tarp, fishing line, rope, binocs, first aid kit, and flint for starting fires. Although they managed to bring along most of their weapons,
they're both thinking the same thing: the odds are stacked against them.

Cat returns. “Let's go,” he says sharply.

“You found it?” Twitch asks.

He grunts.

“Where's it lead?”

“How the hell should I know? I didn't have time to go up it.”

That's when they hear it: a voice, tinny and muffled and slowly gaining clarity as it sweeps across the lake.

“. . . urge you to come back,” the voice says,
Colonel Westbrook's voice
. It sounds as though it's being projected through a bullhorn. “We're concerned about your safety. And besides”—he pauses—“it'll be easy enough for us to build a bridge and cross the spillway.”

The meaning is clear: Westbrook isn't done chasing them.

“Come on,” says Red. “We'd better catch up with Cat before he climbs the mountain on his own.”

A moment later they're trudging along the bumpy terrain in search of a trail they hope will take them far away, from Brown Shirts and Colonel Westbrook, far away from life as they currently know it.

For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother. . . .
—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
from
Henry V

T
HE FIRST SNOWFLAKES FELL
within the hour—big, wet flakes that made a soft thudding sound when they collided with our clothes. In no time our shoulders were topped with a thick layer of white. A spring snow.

The cold was bad, the footing was worse. More than a couple of us tumbled to the ground on slippery, snow-covered granite, scraping knees, burying hands in icy slush. I remembered the sign from before:
Mountains don't care.

We reached the top of the ridge and followed the trail east. We marched in silence, our feet crunching through snow. The Sisters rarely spoke to the Less Thans, and the Less Thans rarely spoke to the Sisters. Despite those days at Frank's cabin, it was like there was still a divide
between the groups. Even Hope and me.

Especially
Hope and me.

Ever since that kiss in the tunnel, there'd been a certain self-consciousness between the two of us. Which was weird because—for reasons I couldn't put my finger on—I got the feeling she understood me in ways no one else did.

“What happened to you?” I asked, sidling up to her.

“What do you mean?”

“After you were caught in the office. What'd they do?” I remembered her behavior in the fields that day—like a zombie from one of Flush's comic books.

“Who says they did anything?” she said brusquely.

“I just figured. I mean . . .”

“They didn't do anything.”

“Nothing? They must've—”

“I'm here, aren't I?” Her tone of voice made it clear she didn't want to talk about it. She picked up her pace, and I hurried to catch up. We walked in silence. She used her spear like a walking stick.

“What's his name?” she asked, when it was obvious I wasn't going anywhere.

“Who?”

She pointed to Cat; as usual, he was at the front of the line.

“Cat,” I said. “Why?”

“I met him once.”

I could feel my eyes going wide. “You met Cat?”

“He stayed with us. In our cave.”

I suddenly remembered Cat telling me—the night we'd seen the massacre—how he'd been given shelter by a man and his two daughters. How they were on the run from soldiers.

“So that was you,” I said blankly. I wondered what happened to her family. Remembered what she said in the field.
I had a sister.

Hope gave a nod, and I felt a pang of—what?—jealousy at the thought of Cat meeting Hope before I had. For some reason, I wanted to be the one who saw her first.

She walked on ahead before I got a chance to say anything else.

The sun rose and the sky cleared—a blue so intense it hurt to look at it. Whether it was the warming weather or the fact we were one step closer to the Heartland, conversations began springing up.

“Seriously, Batman has a soul,” Twitch said to Flush. “He lost his parents, so he's fueled by pain. That's what propels him forward.”

“Superman lost his parents, too,” Flush countered.

“He never really
knew
his parents. There's a difference.”

Then they abruptly stopped talking, and I looked up. The trees had suddenly ended. All around were
mountain peaks, capped in the purest white. It's like we were on top of the world. A beauty that defied description.

“This is the saddle Frank talked about,” Cat explained, pointing to the stretch of ridgeline that connected one range to the next. The trail looked dangerously narrow, with steep drop-offs on either side, but we were buoyed by the possibility of a new territory. A new life.

We made our way ahead, and soon we came upon a series of red pearls: tiny spheres like cranberries scattered atop the snow. Flush ran to pick one up. No sooner was it in his hand when it squished between his thumb and finger. What was once a perfect sphere was now a messy oval.

“Yuck,” he said, wiping the red goo on his pants. “What is it?”

Twitch scooped up another of the red balls and examined it. “Blood,” he said. “Coagulated blood.”

“From what?”

When we looked farther up the trail, we noticed even more of the globules. Hundreds of them.
Thousands.

We rounded the next bend and saw the source: a huge bull elk with half its stomach missing. The snow encircling the corpse was bright red, as though someone overturned a can of paint. A big, red target, with a dead elk in the bull's-eye. The snow was patted down. Footprints. Animal footprints.

Hope knelt by the dead beast and poked it with her knife.

“Wolves,” she said, then stuck her index finger into the steaming entrails. “Still warm. This was recent.”

“How many, do you think?” Flush asked, trying to maintain a steady voice.

“At least ten. Maybe more.” When she stood up and surveyed the scene, we all became very aware of our surroundings: we were exposed on a naked saddle of land connecting one mountain peak with another. No place to hide. Not from soldiers. Not from wolves. A ripple of fear ran through us all.

“Come on,” Cat said. “We need to find some trees.”

I understood his thinking. A forest would provide wood and wood would provide fire and fire . . . would maybe keep the wolves away.

We marched without speaking. The angle of the sun deepened, lengthening our shadows until they were grotesque beings that didn't resemble us in the least. And still there was no sign of trees for as far as we could see. It was just white mountaintop followed by white mountaintop.

The pace quickened. The lower arc of sun dipped behind a far peak, painting the snow pink and salmon. But the beauty was lost on me. Panic was rising in my throat.

T
HEY MARCH IN SILENCE
.

Swirling thoughts dance around Hope's head. She regrets snapping at Book—she does—but she's in no mood to talk about Faith. Not now. Maybe not ever.

As for Book, she doesn't know what to make of him. Yes, he came back for her—even when she warned him not to. She'll never forget it. But as much as she's drawn to him, there's something there that concerns her. Something hidden.

And then there's Cat. There's no denying his rugged good looks, but he's as perplexing as the animal he's named for. She has even less idea what he's about. Still, she can't forget the night they shared their cave with him, how she and Faith stayed up into the wee hours
just listening to him and their father talk. Even when they all finally went to bed, she still remembers the steady rise and fall of his chest as he fell asleep.

The procession stops and her thoughts are cut short. Stretched out before them is an enormous swirl of the deepest black. They can't make out what it is. When they step forward, the black shape suddenly lifts from the ground—like a scarf caught in a gust of wind.

Flies. Thousands of them. Perfuming the air with the stench of death. The Sisters and Less Thans cover their mouths and noses.

Before the flies settle back down, Hope sees what they're feasting on: elk. But this time it's not a single corpse—more like two dozen. Faces ripped off, stomachs gouged open, intestines dragged across the snow. The bodies are reduced to a heaping pile of steaming entrails.

And left uneaten. These wolves are killing purely for sport.

Helen takes one look and falls to her knees, heaving up what little food is in her stomach. Hope goes over to comfort her. At just that instant the top curve of the sun slips behind the mountains. Utter darkness won't be far behind.

“W-what should we do?” Red asks.

“Keep moving,” Cat says, his meaning clear.
We need to get the hell out of here.

They skirt the corpses, the flies barely budging as they pass. The world around them slowly blackens; only the distant, snowcapped mountains reflect the moon's paltry light. They are suddenly out of snow, and although that makes their walking easier, it doesn't tell them which way the wolves have gone. For all Hope knows, they could be right behind them.

The ridge narrows. They are on the thinnest part of the saddle; a fall down either side would be a certain death. Every so often a shoe sends a rock flying, and they can hear its clattering descent as it plummets thousands of feet to the dark abyss below.

They're forced to stop. It would be suicide to keep going. With no fire, they draw into a tight circle, Less Thans and Sisters together, using the few blankets and one another to create a vague semblance of warmth. Dozer takes first watch, and one by one everyone nods off. In Hope's case, it's never for very long. Her own shivering keeps jolting her awake.

On her fourth or fifth attempt at sleep she hears a dim but insistent scraping, followed by a low, throaty rumble. Her eyes snap open.

A million stars wink overhead, so bright it seems like she can touch them. She lifts her head and peeks at the others. They are sleeping soundly. No one is awake . . . not even Dozer. He has fallen asleep sitting up, head resting on forearms.

She locates the guttural sound: Argos, pressed flat against the ground, teeth bared, having a nightmare of some kind. She's about to breathe a sigh of relief when she realizes something isn't right. Her eyes search the pile of sleeping Sisters and LTs.

June Bug and his stretcher are gone.

Her gaze follows Argos's and lands on the stretcher, a good fifteen feet away. Surrounding it are a dozen pairs of small green circles.

Eyes.

Wolf eyes.

They have dragged the stretcher and the wounded June Bug away from the others.

Her breath catches. She wants to wake the others but fears that any sound will prompt the wolves to attack. But the longer she waits, the more difficult it will be to rescue June Bug.

Something pushes against her side and she nearly jumps. Her eyes lower. It's a slingshot, the base of its handle pressed into her ribs.

The hand holding it is Cat's.

She glances at him. In his lap is a bow and arrow.

Her hand eases over and takes the slingshot. Cat waits until her grip is firm before releasing it. The very bed she's been sleeping on is littered with rocks and stones. Ammo. She lowers her fingers and grasps a handful. Ready.

She has just loaded a pebble into the deer-hide pocket when she feels a whoosh of air past her ear. Cat has sent the first arrow flying. The wolf tugging at the stretcher yelps and falls backward, the arrow's shaft sticking from its flank.

“What's going on?” Book asks, wiping sleep from his eyes. And then he sees. In one blurry moment of tense anticipation, the two sides face off, waiting to see who will attack next.

Teeth bared, claws outstretched, the wolves lunge forward. Hope draws back the elastic and lets it fly. The rock hits the lead wolf—the alpha male—hard in the snout and he yelps in pain. When he realizes he's not seriously hurt, his eyes narrow, saliva dripping from his canine teeth. Even in scant moonlight, Hope can make out his every hair.

He squats on his back haunches and leaps forward, body soaring through air. He is nearly at her neck when an arrow strikes him in the face. It penetrates his right eye and exits the back of his head. The charging animal thuds to the earth.