Undaunted

by Kat Falls

The cabin had built-in bunks with crunchy foam mattresses and thin wool blankets. I winced to think how old the mattresses were and what microorganisms lived inside them. But I was bone-tired, and an old mattress was better than the floor.

  Rafe toed off his boots and came to stand in front of me, his hands in his pockets, his eyes glowing in the dark. And there it was again, that electricity between us, short-circuiting my ability to think.

  “Which bunk do you want?” he asked, casual once more. But I was through backtracking.

  “Whichever one you’re in,” I said.

  His eyes widened at my boldness, and I felt an exhilarating flash of victory. I climbed into the bottom bunk and scooted close to the wall to make room for him. I spread out the blanket, and he lay down under it, facing me. We locked eyes, and I reached out and touched his stomach, his rib cage. His muscles tensed as if he might leap away at any moment. His eyes searched my face, and then he groaned and reached for me, sliding his hand under my shirt and over the curve of my waist. I sucked in a breath at the contact, and he shuddered as if answering me.

  “Silky,” he murmured. “That’s your manimal name. Not that you’ll ever need one.”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “We can’t.” He sounded gutted. “I shouldn’t even be this close to you.”

  “But it’s just right …” I whispered, snuggling in close to him, and he tightened his hold on me, and we slept.

  What must have been hours later, I woke alone in the dark to the sound of gunfire.

  “Rafe!” I lurched out of the bunk, slung my backpack over my shoulders, and stumbled out of the cabin. It was still pitch-black outside, hours before daylight. I didn’t see Rafe anywhere. He couldn’t have left the camp without me. He wouldn’t. Would he?

  The shots were coming from somewhere near the front of the property. I sidled along the cabins toward the dining hall, where I found Everson loading his rifle.

  “What’s happening?”

  “The patrol’s here!”

  “What do they want?”

  “Rafe,” he said grimly.

  “He’s gone,” I said. “He left while I was sleeping.”

  “Typical,” Everson said. “But now I’m kind of glad he did.”

  I nodded, my throat tight with emotion. I followed Everson to the fence, staying clear of the open archway. Light shafted between the slats — flashlights or gun sights. Why didn’t the line guards just come in, with no gate to stop them? Then it occurred to me: They were afraid of infection.

  Everson glanced up at the tree stand on our side of the archway, where Mahari, Deepnita, and Neve crouched among the budding branches.

  “Attack them,” Everson snapped at them, “and we’re done!”

  With a snarl, Mahari jumped down from the platform to face him. “They’re attacking us.”

  I climbed the slats nailed to the trunk and hauled myself onto the tree stand to try to see what was going on outside the fence. Deepnita, Neve, and I watched as a guard wearing night-vision goggles motioned to his team to spread out. Moving quickly, they set up a series of boxes along the fence.

  Captain Hyrax motioned to the guards and then put on padded headphones. The others did the same as the guard next to Hyrax fiddled with a small handheld device. On Hyrax’s nod, the guard flipped a switch, and a high-frequency whine cut through the night. I clamped my hands to my ears while Deepnita and Neve writhed and yowled on the platform next to me. Howls erupted from all over the campground, some tortured, some angry. Just as abruptly, the sound cut out. The howling took longer to fade.

  Hyrax smiled at the manimals’ distress. “Bring Rafe out, and it stops,” he shouted. “Fail to bring him, we power up the flamethrowers and burn down this garbage dump.”

  The three of us scrambled down from the platform and huddled with Everson and Mahari.

  “How did they find us?” I asked.

  “Best guess, one of us is carrying a tracking chip. Could be tucked into a jacket.”

  “Or implanted in Mahari,” I snapped.

  Her glowing eyes narrowed. “What?”

  I wasn’t about to tell her that in the West, most pet owners implanted tracking chips in their beloved animals these days.

  Everson frowned but didn’t discount my theory.

  “I told you to let us take Rafe’s blood,” Mahari said to Everson. “Then we’d already be on our way to Arsenal, and I wouldn’t have to kill these humans.”

  Deepnita and Neve nodded. Wait, when had Mahari and Everson discussed the lionesses taking Rafe’s blood? And what else had they been talking about behind my back? It was a good thing they hadn’t tried. I didn’t want to picture what a showdown between Rafe and the pride would look like.

  “I saw a place in the fence where we can slip outside and pounce from behind,” Deepnita said. “Their first mistake is thinking they’ve got the upper hand.”

  “Show me where,” Mahari said.

  Neve bounced up and down. “Yay! We get to pounce!”

  “I don’t pounce, but I can attack in my own way,” Happy said, holding up a crossbow. He and the other manimals had begun to gather around us.

  “Me too,” Little One said.

  “I’m in,” said Vengeance, his mottled skin glistening in the dark.

  “Are the children someplace safe?” I asked Little One.

  She nodded grimly. “Kindness is with them in the storm cellar, but they’re scared.”

  “Nobody’s pouncing. Or attacking,” Everson said, and everyone turned toward him. He stepped up to Mahari until they stood toe to toe, chest to chest. She jutted out a hip, all casual nonchalance, but I could feel the tension crackling between them.

  “You’re not doing this,” he said.

  “You have a better plan, human?” Mahari asked, acid dripping from her voice, and a murmur rose from the manimals.

  “They have machine guns and flamethrowers,” Everson countered. “And you have claws.”

  “Oh, no, we have much more than that,” she purred. “We’re walking, talking weapons. Bioweapons. One bucket of our blood dumped from on high, and I guarantee they’ll scatter.”

  “Yeah,” Everson agreed. “They’ll scatter … and then pull out the grenade launchers.”

  “Back off,” she ordered the others. “I need to make this guard see sense.”

  They backed off fast.

  “Without Wraith’s blood,” Mahari hissed at Everson, “we have no bargaining chip to trade for the cure.” She tilted her head up until she was nose to nose with him. “You really think we’re going to back down from this fight? We have nothing to lose … except our minds.”

  Something occurred to me in a flash. “Wait!” I said. “We do have another bargaining chip!”

  Everson and Mahari turned to me in tandem. I stared intently at Everson. “Hyrax knows you’re here, right? He has to.”

  Realization dawned in Everson’s eyes. “Lane,” he said with a warning in his voice.

  “Back at the lab, you said you were just trying to help. So help.”

  Everson groaned. His shoulders sagged.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Neve asked, looking from Everson’s face to mine and back again. “Do we still get to pounce?”

  “How can he help?” Mahari demanded.

  “I’m your bargaining chip. You’ll take me hostage and exchange me for the cure,” Everson said.

  “They won’t make that deal,” Mahari snapped. “You’re one guard among hundreds.”

  “Not to my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Ilsa Prejean. She owns it all — the wall, the patrol, the lab — it’s all hers.”

  “That’s why they call you the prince!” Mahari said with a gasp, and then a slow grin spread over her black lips.

  Everson was not intimidated — or amused. “Don’t ever call me that.”

  “The other guards used to joke about locking you in with me,” Mahari went on in a purr. “One even
promised to free me if I took a bite out of you. I would’ve done it if I’d ever gotten the chance. Not that I trusted him to keep his end of the bargain — I just liked the idea of you turning into one of us. I like it even better now that I know you’re Ilsa Prejean’s son.”

  Everson eyed her. “You say my mother’s name like you know her.”

  “Yes, we’re old friends. We used to have little chats. Just her and me.”

  “Chats?” he scoffed.

  “Her on a screen,” Mahari went on. “Me in a cage.”

  “About what?” he demanded.

  “The zone. About what’s out there and how to kill it.”

  My heart sped up. “And you told her?”

  Mahari cut me an exasperated look. “I told her exactly how I’d disembowel her the first chance I got.” She held up splayed claws.

  “Perfect!” I pulled out Spurling’s dial. “Stay just like that.”

  Everson swung to me. “How is that perfect?”

  “Your mother already knows she’s a bloodthirsty beast.” I glanced at Mahari. “No offense.”

  Mahari grinned. “None taken.”

  “She’s a threat,” I explained quickly. “A very, very dangerous threat.”

  The crease between Everson’s brows deepened. “To who?”

  “You.” I beckoned to Neve. “Still ready to pounce?”

  She bounced in place. “On him?” She pointed at Everson.

  “No,” Mahari snapped.

  “Yes,” I said. A split second after I hit record, Neve took him down.

  As Everson shoved and shouted at her to get off, Deepnita dropped to her knees by his shoulders, tossed his gun aside, and caught hold of his hands. With a laugh, Neve scrambled back to straddle his thighs, pinning them down with her considerable weight. Another guy might have enjoyed wrestling with a pair of wild, beautiful women, but Everson looked furious as he fought to throw them off. And he almost succeeded. But then Mahari dropped onto his chest and took the breath right out of him. Literally.

  I recorded it all, sweat sliming my skin because it looked all too real. Certainly Everson was acquiring very real bruises. I hissed in a breath when Mahari tore open his shirt with her claws and then raked them down his chest — hard enough to leave red welts, but light enough not to draw blood.

  With a jerk of my hand, I got Deepnita to pull him into a sitting position. Mahari slid down to settle on his lap. She leaned back into Neve’s embrace as I edged closer, trying to get the best angle. Neve rested her chin on Mahari’s shoulder, fangs bared, looking dangerously unhinged. When she snarled at him, my nerves jerked taut. Was she so caught up in the moment she’d forgotten it was an act? I jabbed a finger at Everson, directing him to speak. Coughing and sputtering, he struggled to catch his breath.

  “Captain Hyrax,” he finally rasped. “Take the guards and go. If you attack the camp, they’ll infect me. The only way they’ll free me is if you bring them a hundred doses of the antigen and a hundred blood tests. Only Bear Lake can make the drop. Please pass this on to my mother. If she doesn’t give them the cure, they’ll infect me. Without it, they’ve got nothing to lose.”

  I climbed into the tree stand and located Captain Hyrax among the guards. Then I projected the video in 3-D outside the fence where he would see it. I played it twice, and the second time he held up his lapel mic, letting someone else hear the threat. Then he had a heated conversation via radio with, I assumed, Chairman Prejean.

  Hyrax approached the archway and shouted, “The terms have been received and accepted.”

  A low cheer went up below me inside the compound.

  Outside the fence, Hyrax made a circular motion with his hand above his head. “Withdraw!” he shouted. “I repeat, we are withdrawing, people!”

  The line guards fell into formation and moved back into the dark forest. I wondered where their hovercopters were and hoped it was nowhere near where Rafe was going. Where I was going.

  I climbed down from the tree and found Everson.

  “Hyrax came all this way for two things,” I said. “You and Rafe’s blood. He can’t touch you, so what’re the chances he’s going after Rafe right now? I have to find him. I have to warn him the guards are close,” I said. “And then I’m going to Heartland Compound and showing them the footage I shot here. They need to know that their family members are still alive. I need to tell them. To show them.” I held up the dial. “So they can help their loved ones if the patrol comes back.”

  “Right,” Everson said. “’Cause footage of infected people worked so well in the West. You know what the reaction was? Terror. Not ‘How can we help?’ but ‘Hire more guards.’ ”

  “I have to try,” I snapped. “These people don’t have the luxury of time.”

  Everson crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine,” he said reluctantly. “But I’m going with you.”

  “I’m going too,” someone said from behind me.

  I turned around. It was Aaron.

  “Aaron, no,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. And you’ve been sick.”

  “I feel fine, strong,” he said. He showed no signs of infection. If he took a Ferae test now, I wondered if it would come back negative, as Rafe had suggested.

  “With Boone gone,” Aaron said, “they might listen to us. I think they’ll come. Besides, I know how to get into the compound without the lookouts seeing us. I know who to talk to.”

  Everson and I exchanged a look — it would be crazy to turn Aaron down.

  “Okay,” Everson said. “We’ll go to Gabe’s territory first and find Rafe. Then we’ll backtrack to Heartland.”

  “That’ll take too long. I’ll find Rafe.” I pushed the dial into Everson’s hand. “You go to Heartland and show them what’s on here.”

  Everson gave me a look, and I thought he was going to argue with me, but then he nodded curtly and pocketed the dial. “All right. We’ll hike together to just outside Heartland, near the place where we camped. Can you find Gabe’s territory from there?”

  I nodded and hoped it was true. I took off my backpack and dug around in it until I found my compass, which I hooked to a belt loop. Someone behind me touched my shoulder. It was Little One.

  “Good luck,” she said. Then she held out a pistol in a holster and two loaded magazines. “Here,” she said. “It’s an extra. In case you need more than luck.” She hugged me.

  My hands shook as I pushed one of the magazines into the gun and threaded my belt through the holster. I stowed the extra magazine in my backpack.

  Everson turned to Mahari. “Set a twenty-four-hour watch,” he said. “I don’t think Hyrax will come back — the stakes are too high — but plan an evacuation just in case. And brainstorm ideas for defense against the sonic weapon they used. That could be devastating.”

  “You’d better be careful, guard,” Mahari hissed. “If anything happens to you, we lose everything.”

  When Everson, Aaron, and I set out, the woods were utterly black, and mist had begun to blanket the forest floor. Everson, in the lead, carried a glow stick, but we couldn’t risk any more light, with all the ferals prowling around at night. Every so often, we heard rustling in the brush nearby, and once, we heard the truncated scream of a rabbit. Twice something howled, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

  Everson gave me a glow stick of my own hours later, when we reached the point where our paths would part. By then, the sun was up, and I tucked the light into my backpack and hoped that I wouldn’t need it, that by nightfall we would all be back at Echo.

  I started the solo part of my hike, checking my compass often, and soon I located the path that Boone and I had taken. Up the cliff and through the woods, until I reached the ravine. The ropes still dangled from the tree on the other side, but Boone had gotten across somehow, and I had to find the crossing. I stuck close to the edge and headed toward the source of the snowmelt. The tallest peaks. I hoped Gabe would stay on his side of the ravine until I got there.

&
nbsp; I tasted blood and realized I’d been biting the inside of my cheek. No surprise. I was close to losing the lock I had on my fear. I couldn’t believe I was looking for Gabe rather than looking for ways to avoid him for the rest of my life. But wherever he was, that’s where I would find Rafe, so all I could do was put my blinders on and plunge forward.

  From the top of the ridge, I spotted a narrow section of the ravine where a fallen tree lay across it — maybe the tree Everson and the pride had put there when they were looking for me. That’s where I crossed, inch by inch on my hands and knees, not looking down.

  I didn’t find Rafe until late afternoon when I climbed a pine tree to mask my scent and get a lay of the land. I spotted him in the distance, creeping through the foliage at the edge of a steep drop-off. He paused to extend the back handle of his gun and click it into place. Had he spotted Gabe with his tiger-enhanced vision, or was he just waiting for Gabe to show up? I started to shimmy down the tree, planning to circle back so I could come up behind him. Alerting him to my presence from this distance might also alert Gabe, and I figured Rafe would catch my scent before I reached him.

  Suddenly Rafe’s head whipped to the left, and a split second later, he roared and spasmed so hard he fell over. Line guards swarmed out of the woods to surround him. One was holding a Taser.

  “No!” I screamed, scrambling the rest of the way down the tree and crashing through the brush toward them.

  By the time I reached the spot where Rafe had been standing, the guards had bound his hands and feet and were carrying him away at a quick pace through the trees and down the rocky slope out of sight.

  I sprinted to catch up with them, shouting, “Just take his blood! You don’t need him!”

  I was gaining on them, pebbles cascading down the slope under my feet. They were headed for the two hovercopters in the clearing below. Halfway down the slope, Captain Hyrax stepped from behind a pine, between the guards and me, talking into his radio. “Asset acquired,” he said.

  “Why are you taking him?” I shouted at him as the guards threw Rafe’s inert body into one of the copters. “You only need a blood sample!”