He snorted. “It beats a plunger.”
I elbowed him in the ribs and then we both jumped clear just as Derek and another wolf rolled over the spot where we’d just been standing.
“I heard Benny brought a party bus,” Derek said from somewhere inside the tangle of fur and claws. Only Derek could have a conversation around a mouthful of enemy fur.
“And a new girlfriend. Painted it himself,” Wes said.
“The bus or the girlfriend?” Derek asked.
“Come and find out,” Wes said.
“Be there in two shakes,” he said and then bit down on the other wolf’s leg and shook it wildly.
“Show off,” Wes yelled to Derek as we ran.
Around us, Werewolves littered the lot. And there were more than half a dozen like Cambria had first counted. Some still on their feet, fighting, but most were on the ground, unmoving. I scanned for my friends and family as I let Wes lead me toward the bus.
Derek and George were each wrestling, end over end, with another wolf. Jack and Fee were doing the same without nearly as much scuffling as the boys.
“Where’s Emma?” I called.
“She’s here,” Cambria called from the bus. I found her watching through an open window halfway back, still on two legs. “And Astor and Victoria,” she added.
“Has anyone seen Cord?” I asked.
Wes stopped running and we scanned the lot together. “I don’t think I’ve seen her since they started filming,” I said.
“She was supposed to be guarding the back. Come on,” Wes said and we sprinted off toward the far end of the lot.
Wes got there first and disappeared around the corner. “Tara, here,” he yelled almost immediately.
I rounded the corner and found him crouched over Cord. She was lying on her back, her eyes closed, a spray of blood staining her cheek and her shirt. In her hand lay a metal stake coated in blood up to her fist.
My heart stuttered and my breath caught. I dropped to my knees beside her.
“Cord,” Wes said, leaning over her and wiping her hair out of her face. “Wake up.” He hit her cheek lightly with his palm.
I picked up her free hand and wrapped it in mine. “Cord, please,” I whispered. “We need you.”
Cord’s eyes fluttered. “When have you not?” she said, the words punctuated by a moan. She dropped the stake and pressed her hand to her forehead. “My head is killing me,” she said, squinting up at us. She froze when she saw her other hand in mine. I dropped it abruptly and sat back on my heels.
“What happened?” she asked warily.
“An ambush. They must’ve knocked you out and gone in the back,” Wes said.
“Why didn’t they just kill me?” she muttered, still rubbing at the knot on her temple.
“I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t sure whose side you were on,” Wes said. “They weren’t here for us.”
Cord struggled to push herself up. She wavered where she sat but I could see the understanding dawning at Wes’s words. “We have to get to Steppe,” she said.
“Steppe is dead,” I told her as gently as I could.
“What?” She blinked at me and for a split second, I caught a glimpse of the cracked wall she’d constructed to keep him out, the father who had thrown her out. But then, the crack shored up and Cord’s expression turned to concrete. “What a bastard.”
“For dying?” Wes asked.
“Yes, for dying,” she snapped. “Help me up.”
Wes propped his hand underneath her elbow, but I hung back. I knew Cord way too well to try and help her now. She grunted and heaved but managed to get on her feet. Her blonde hair hung in knots around her shoulders. The blood stains on her cheeks combined with the vacant expression made her look a little zombie-ish.
“What’s happening?” she asked, breathless and still leaning on Wes. Not a good sign.
“They’re fighting in the front. Benny showed up with a bus. We’re leaving the cars here and riding with him.”
“Casualties?” she asked.
From the front, someone yelled but I couldn’t make out the words. My skin twitched from the inside.
“Steppe and Lexington so far,” Wes said.
“Lexington?” Cord said and mouthed something else that looked like a curse. “What about Kane and Flaherty?”
“Tara! Wes! Let’s go!” Cambria’s voice echoed off the walls and around the corner to the alleyway before bouncing back. It was loud and serious. I exchanged a look with Wes and ran to the corner.
The bus was moving, slowly at first, but then Cambria yelled, “There! In the back, I see them. Go!”
The engine roared and the bus creaked forward, faster now. “They’re coming to pick us up,” I said. “Everyone else must already be on board. Come on.”
Wes helped Cord and we made our way to meet the bus. I climbed the steps first, greeting Cambria’s mom and Benny with a simple hello. There would be time for more later, but for now—
“Where is everyone?” I asked, stopping short just past the driver’s seat. Only half the seats were filled. “Where’s my mom? And Grandma? Jack and Fee? Where’s—”
“Hang on,” Benny called from the front. The bus lurched and I grabbed the seat to keep from being thrown sideways. “Hang on,” he added.
Cambria rolled her eyes. Behind me, Wes lowered Cord into an empty seat and made his way to the window. “They’re still fighting,” Wes said. “It looks like more of them. How are there more? Where the hell are they coming from?”
“Coming around,” Benny announced.
The bus swung wildly and somehow, Benny managed a U-turn. He pulled alongside the group, now fending off the newest wave of Werewolves.
Grandma looked up and her expression clouded. “You guys need to go,” she called. “Steppe and Lexington are—”
She broke off and twisted sideways to avoid the sharp teeth at her back.
“Holy ... How did she even see that coming?” Cambria muttered.
“George, Derek, get the hell out of here!” Grandma called, swinging her arm up and around to grab another arrow and load her gun.
The boys, both with blood on their jaws, looked up. First at Grandma, then at the enemy assembled. I could see the argument forming, but then so could Grandma. By now, several of the Werewolves had spotted the bus and half a dozen broke off from the fight and ran toward us.
“We have to go, people,” Benny sang nervously.
Across the lot, the door banged open and Professor Flaherty and Kane stumbled out, a trio of wolves at their heels. Both looked exhausted but otherwise intact. They glanced at the busy lot and paused when they spotted the bus.
“Derek, don’t sass me,” Grandma called out. “You boys need to stay with Tara. Protect her. We’ll stay and hold the fort.”
“Um, Tara,” Emma said quietly.
“Yeah. What’s up?” I asked quickly, still watching Grandma trying to convince the boys to get on board.
“You should look at this,” she said. She handed me her phone and I glanced down, barely registering what I was seeing. I started to hand it back but then the picture clicked and made sense through my panic.
“This is the live feed from inside. It’s still streaming,” I said.
“And that’s Mr. Lexington,” she said, pointing. Sure enough, at the edge of the screen lay a body. There was a large, bloody gash in his throat but I recognized his profile easily enough where he stared, unseeing, at the ceiling.
“What the...” As I watched, Mr. Lexington’s form shivered. First his arms and then his feet and legs. They shivered and almost vanished before reappearing, stretching, shrinking, and morphing. It was the slowest shift I’d ever seen. “He’s shifting,” I said.
Wes peered over my shoulder and, one by one, the others crowded in to watch. Victoria was the only one who didn’t look. I caught a tear streaking down her pale cheek. She brushed it away when she saw me watching.
“We can’t leave him,” I said.
“What?” Wes, Cambria, and Benny all said in unison.
“I mean it,” I said. “We need to bring him. If it were one of us lying there, we’d do it. And, in the end, he is.”
No one argued, but no one agreed either.
Outside, Grandma was screaming at George and Derek. They broke off and ran toward the wolves now circling our bus. “Guys...” Benny said.
“Tara, we can’t—”
“I’ll go with you,” Cord said, struggling to her feet.
“No,” Wes said quickly. “No one on this bus is getting off.” He leaned over and called out the window to the others, the words so rushed and muffled around the growls and yells beyond that I barely caught it.
Near the door, Professor Flaherty and Kane nodded and darted back inside. “Pull to the back, Benny,” Wes said.
“Uh, dude, we’re surrounded,” Benny said.
Even as he spoke, Derek and George took out the two wolves blocking our way. Benny hit the gas and we lurched toward the back of the lot for a second time. When we turned the corner, tires squealing, Professor Flaherty was already at the back door, dragging Lexington along behind her.
George rushed into help, using his teeth to get hold of Lexington’s scruff and the two of them dragged Lexington, now a wolf, to the bus door.
Victoria nodded at me, brushing tears from her cheeks. “Thanks,” she said.
“He’s one of us,” I told her. And, without overthinking, I hugged her. I felt her shoulder wrack with silent sobs. “So are you,” I whispered.
When I let her go, Logan was there to collect her and lead her to the back where Mr. Lexington’s wolf form now rested. I watched Victoria walking slowly toward her father, my heart aching.
He’d been so sure Steppe had cured him. So sure his wolf was gone. In death, it had returned. “Your body takes your true form,” Alex had once told me when I’d asked what determined the shift after death.
I wondered what mine would be. And I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out anytime soon. One dead Werewolf in the back of the party bus was enough.
Chapter Twenty-three
Mr. Lexington stared back at me from the corner of the bus floor. Well, his eyes were open and he faced me. But I knew he wasn’t seeing anything. I looked away but couldn’t help darting back to the sight of him as Benny bobbed around traffic and attempted to navigate us out of the city. Victoria’s father, the man who’d spent his whole life as a Hunter, had shifted into a wolf after death. I knew what that meant. Alex had told me once that the dominant creature always took over after your heart stopped beating and your brain stopped shoving one side of your soul to the back.
According to Steppe, Mr. Lexington should’ve been cured of his wolf. But clearly, that theory had just been proven wrong. Strange, how a man who’d spent his whole life as human became an animal in death. Maybe there’d been a version of animal in him before the change.
“Are you thinking about Liliana?” Wes asked, sitting beside me and blocking my view. I looked up in surprise but then shook my head. He knew me so well.
“Sort of,” I said. “Mostly, thinking about what form I’ll take when I die.”
“Maybe you’ll go Dutch, half and half like your uncle.”
I smiled at his joke and saw the relief color his expression. “I’m fine,” I said in response to his unanswered question.
“I know.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “But just in case,” he whispered and kissed me again.
His phone beeped and I leaned in close as he checked the incoming text. “It’s from Fee,” he said and his mouth quirked deeper and deeper into a frown as he read.
“What does it say?” I asked. “Are they all right?”
“They’re fine. Cleaning up and disposing of ... everything,” he said. “Alex says the inquiry board saw the whole thing. They know Steppe was blowing smoke about you. But ... that’s not why she texted.”
“What’s going on?” Derek asked, rising from where he’d huddled close to Cambria two seats ahead. She rose beside him and they leaned over the back of the seat with matching looks of concern.
“She said they’re getting messages from the packs. Allies are interested in what happened to Lexington.”
“I bet they are,” I muttered.
“No, they’re not angry about it. They’re curious but they also saw Professor Flaherty carry him off. They want to know what we’re going to do with him,” Wes said.
“We’re going to bury him,” I said.
Wes typed something back to Fee and a second later, his phone beeped again. We waited while Wes read the message. He looked up and his eyes landed on Victoria. She’d risen as well, with Logan beside her, and her cheeks were dry. “Fee says we should broadcast the burial. She says the packs seem open to the possibility that Steppe was playing them.”
“Showing them we’re sympathetic to Werewolves,” I said slowly, “could help diffuse things.”
“Steppe outing us, outing you, is my fault. I’m sorry,” Cambria said.
“None of this is your fault,” I assured her.
“They’d have to be idiots to believe him anyway,” Derek put in. “I mean, Tara’s half Werewolf herself.”
“Yeah, but at some point, my list of crimes overshadowed my similarities to them,” I said. “Steppe was all Hunter but he committed plenty of hate crimes against them in order to get what he wanted.”
“And don’t forget the videos he released portraying Tara as the criminal instead,” George added. He’d shifted back and now sat as close to Emma as humanly possible on their shared seat.
“I’d say he got what he wanted,” Derek said, giving me a pointed look.
My throat closed as I remembered Steppe’s last whispered words. “Vic, would it be okay if we streamed his service?” I asked.
She blinked and the expression she wore was such a blank slate, it made my chest hurt. This was not, nor would it ever be, the Victoria I’d met at Wood Point.
“Yes, that will be fine,” she said quietly. Logan leaned in beside her and spoke quietly, rubbing her arm.
When I turned back to the others, I found every one of them waiting, watching me expectantly. And I realized this was it. I wasn’t being sidelined for strategic reasons or overshadowed by a worrywart mother. Nor was I out of my depth of experience compared to a badass warrior Grandma. It was up to me. Always had been.
I channeled Vera and squared my shoulders. “Okay, so, here’s the deal. No more compulsion or running. We stream the funeral and then we face them. Once and for all. And we do it together, no more sitting out while the adults do the fighting.”
“Tara, we have to think this through,” Wes began, but I stopped him and climbed over him to stand in the aisle.
“I am thinking it through,” I insisted. “Remember once you told me the difference between chess and whack-a-mole?”
“Strategy,” he said.
“Right. And I’ve thought this through. In fact, I’ve had plenty of time to fine-tune it while everyone made me rest and heal and stay behind to protect me. The bond is gone. I’m ready and I know what we have to do,” I said.
I looked from face to face and found all of them leaning in. Even Victoria had stood up again and her face shone with a thin layer of determination. Cambria opened her mouth but Derek nudged her and she closed it again.
Everyone waited, watching Wes.
He looked from them to me and back. Finally, he exhaled and nodded at me. “All right,” he said. “How do you want to play it?”
Derek and George grinned and offered Wes a high five. Cambria rubbed her hands together and I couldn’t help but laugh at the surging of emotion I felt in this moment. We were a team, a great one. Always had been, and now, when it counted, we got to act like it.
“Tell us what to do, Tara,” Emma said.
“We need a way to unite everyone. Hunters, Werewolves—and to recreate The Cause,” I said. “Before it escalates into something out of control.”
“They’re pretty united in hating you,” Cord said. Cambria shot her a glare. “Well they are,” she muttered.
“Something else,” I said.
“They were united in the cure, until that happened,” Derek said.
I winced at his insensitive reference to Mr. Lexington slumped in a heap behind us, but Victoria held it together.
“But there is no cure, not really. And even if there was, they’d never believe it or go for it at this point,” Logan pointed out.
“No, they wouldn’t. They aren’t united in a cure, just in the option to choose,” I said.
“Are you saying you want to give them that?” Derek asked.
“I’m saying we don’t need a cure. Astor,” I prompted.
He threw his hands up just as the bus hit a bump and he almost tumbled. Cord caught him and righted him again and he scowled. “Oh, now everyone wants to hear the truth. Fine, I’ll tell you all about how the wolf’s nervous system—”
“Astor. English,” I said.
“Right.” He crossed his arms in a huff. “The cure was a lie.”
“You couldn’t have told us that before?” George asked.
Astor snapped back with something that sounded like a scientifically-inspired insult. George’s face went red and he called Astor a “periodic table,” which made Astor guffaw. Logan smiled and attempted to explain how that made no sense but I tuned them all out as the phone Wes still held beeped again.
He didn’t notice so I reached over and turned his hand so that I could see the incoming message. “What are you—?” He looked down and we read the screen together before locking eyes in disbelief.
“Do you think it’s for real?” I whispered, not daring to hope.
Before he could answer, the phone beeped again and the text was followed up by a picture of The Draven page in question.
“It’s real,” Wes said quietly.
Just like that, the holes in my plan—or the really sketchy ones anyway—sealed up and I finally felt like it had a shot at working.
Around us, the argument stalled.
“Why do you look like you’re holding a pair of Aces?” Cambria asked.
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