by Skye Malone
A few minutes passed before she heard crunching on the snow behind her, and a short glance back confirmed it was Wes following, a backpack slung over his shoulders with a rolled-up sleeping bag on top.
She returned her attention to the road, her eyes darting over the icy expanse as time ticked by. That frost giant was gone, somehow vanishing over the horizon during however long she’d been unconscious, but God knew what else could be out here. Beneath the snow, every vehicle she passed looked burned to charcoal, which might mean draugar, might mean something worse. She wanted to think the flat fields and endless snow would at least give them a chance to see a threat coming, but myth held too many monsters for her to be sure.
“Someone’s threatening your family,” Wes said, his soft voice breaking the quiet. “Aren’t they?”
She didn’t respond. Another minute crept by.
“Who?”
She walked faster.
Wes sighed. “Lindy, if there’s anything I can do to help you, I—”
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
She gritted her teeth. She shouldn’t have spoken. Shouldn’t have lost control, either, back at the SUV because, damn this wolf, he probably wasn’t going to stop asking. Or wondering. Or staring at her with those deep, gorgeous eyes, waiting for a chance to pry into—
“Listen,” he started.
“My mother, okay? My mother.”
He was silent. She scowled.
“Why is your mom going to kill your family?”
Seething, she looked away. Screw him. Nosy, prying, goddamn wolf with his gentle questions like this was so easy to explain. Like he even had a right to know.
Like he wouldn’t kill her over the truth.
“Has she tried before?”
“Dammit, this isn’t any of your—” She spun at him, furious, only to have her words falter at the look in his eyes.
The concern was palpable. A gentle care for her, for her family, and it hurt, somehow. Hurt like a knife slipped between her ribs, stabbing whatever was left of her heart, because it couldn’t remain, not if he knew the truth. Wes was ulfhednar—and not one like Hayden who hadn’t been raised by the wolves, who didn’t think the way they all did. Even if Dad and Frankie had never been part of the Order like Lindy had, they’d still joined. Not because they believed, really. But because they didn’t have a choice.
But that wouldn’t matter. Not to a wolf. He’d leave them to die.
Two less Order members in the world.
“I just want to help, if I can,” Wes said.
A painful scoff rose in her chest, and she swallowed it back down. That wouldn’t happen if the truth came out. But she’d also seen enough of him in this past day to know the persistent bastard wouldn’t quit asking, no matter what.
He’d followed her halfway across the country on less than this, after all.
Cursing to herself, she started walking again. “My mother is dangerous,” she allowed, choosing her words carefully. “She… She thinks Dad stole us from her after their divorce. And before all this happened—” Her hand twitched toward the world around her. “Dad had ways of keeping us safe. Courts and video recordings and threats of restraining orders. But now…” A shiver ran through her. “I’m sure Dad’s considered she might be coming, but… Mom is ruthless. She wants my brother back. Me too. And if Dad gets in her way…”
For a long moment, Wes didn’t say anything. “Is she why you learned to fight like that?”
Lindy’s eyes flicked to him, wary, but there was only sympathy in his gaze. “You could say that.”
She returned her attention to scanning their surroundings for enemies, hoping he wouldn’t pry any further. A highway sign remained standing up ahead. Snow caked most of its surface, but a sheet had fallen away, revealing enough bubbled paint and surviving markings to show Lincoln was still miles off.
Tugging the bag higher on her shoulders, she tried to walk faster.
“I get it,” Wes said quietly.
She looked over at him.
“My, uh…” He cleared his throat. “My folks weren’t the best, and, um… after I was changed”—his head bobbed while he searched for words—“they didn’t take it well.”
She hesitated. “Changed?”
“Bitten. When I was eleven. And when I shifted for the first time…” He scrubbed a gloved hand over his face. “See, my parents had this church. Real hardcore kind of place. Nothing like those nice churches who feed the homeless or whatever. Dad was the preacher; Mom was the dutiful wife, and when they saw their son turn into a wolf…” He laughed. There was no humor in the sound. “They decided Satan had gotten me. Turned me into a demon. So they tried to exorcise it. And when that failed…” His brow shrugged. “Kill me. Because, you know, they thought I was a monster.”
She stared.
“I got away. Obviously. But I guess my point is… I get it. Kind of, I mean.” Wes met her eyes. “We’ll find your dad and your brother. We’ll get them back safe, and you…” He started to smile, but the expression seemed strained. “You’ll have the whole pack around you, making sure no one can hurt any of you. Okay?”
Lindy swallowed hard. God, she wanted it to be like that. Wanted that world, where her family could be safe with protective wolves all around, ready to tear into the draugar and the Order and who knew what else if ever they were threatened.
Her chest ached. She wanted that so badly she could cry.
Even if she never lived to see it.
She nodded, looking away. “Is, um…” How the hell did she ask what she wanted to know without giving anything about herself away? “Is that common? The ulfhednar, you know… biting kids?”
“No.” Wes was quiet for a second. “The one who attacked me… He was a sick bastard. I wasn’t the first. Wouldn’t have been the last. He’d been tearing kids apart up and down the Mississippi River, but everyone thought it was a human serial killer. Until me. I was the only one who, uh”—he cleared his throat—“lived through what he did and the change that came after it. But once the other wolves learned what was really going on, they tracked him down. Stopped him.”
She blinked, at a loss for what to say.
He drew in a breath. “But the pack took me in. Gave me a place to stay.” He gave her a smile. “They’re my family. Best one I could have asked for.”
Weakly, she struggled to return the expression.
“So what about you?” he continued.
She tensed.
“What are your dad and brother like?”
Turning back to the road, she struggled for words that wouldn’t give anything away. “They’re, um…” Her shoulder shrugged. “They’re great. Frankie—my brother—he, um… he’s just a kid, you know? Thirteen, but… still a kid.” Her chuckle took her by surprise. “Not that I could tell him that, of course.”
“Of course,” Wes agreed, smiling.
She found a smile tugging at her lips too. “But yeah, he loves his Fortnite and Minecraft and anything like that. It’s all he talks about. Well, that and the cello. He… he plays. A lot. He’s so good at it, like he was born for it. He’s going to a camp this summer and…”
Her words trailed off as the strangely cathartic feeling of talking about her family drained away. It was May now, almost June, and the world was encased in snow if not burned.
“Or he was,” she finished.
“Sounds like a great kid.”
She drew in a sharp breath, refocusing as she nodded. “He is.”
“So if he plays the cello…” Wes began. “What about you?”
A sharp laugh escaped her. “Yeah, um, no. Not so much.” She hesitated, her smile fading. “There wasn’t much music when I was a kid. Frankie’s lucky.”
Wes was quiet for a second. “What kind do you like?”
She glanced at him.
“Music?” he prompted, his expression friendly, as if he wanted to help things be better somehow.
“Little bit of everything, reall
y,” she managed with a shrug. “Even country.”
His brow climbed. “Seriously?”
“What?”
He grinned. “Nothing.”
“It’s not a disease, you know. There are some really good artists.”
He held up his hands, still smiling.
“What about you, then?” she retorted, finding herself grinning too, in spite of everything.
“Not country.”
She scoffed at the theatrically disdainful look on his face.
The conversation continued, meandering through music and movies and food. He liked anchovy pizza, which she couldn’t believe, and the fact that she enjoyed sauerkraut made him shudder. He loved old comedy movies, same as her, though they disagreed on what was the best of the Mel Brooks canon.
And for a little while, she almost forgot how many things in her life had gone wrong.
Gradually, the light began to grow weaker as they walked, hinting that evening was on the way. In fits and starts, their conversation stalled while they both kept an even warier eye on the terrain around them. Despite all the truck stops and assorted remnants of buildings they’d passed, nothing was left fully standing. The highways were dotted with burned vehicles, their occupants charred and motionless beneath the ice and snow.
And she’d thought Mariposa was hit badly by the flames…
But for all the destruction, one thing was missing, and as much as that should have been a relief, she found herself getting more nervous by the moment.
“Have you, um, noticed…” she began in a quiet voice to Wes.
“No draugar.”
She glanced at him. His jaw muscles jumped beneath the scruff on his cheeks, and his sharp eyes scanned the landscape with a focus that led her to think he saw more than even she could. In one hand, he adjusted his grip on a piece of metal he’d picked up a few miles back, the closest thing to a machete they had now that the last was stuck in a huldra.
“We need to find a place to get inside,” he said.
“Or a car.”
He glanced at her, not saying anything, and then returned his attention to studying their surroundings. Everything was reduced to rubble around the highway, offering nowhere to hide, and the flat land made it difficult to see anything too far in the distance beyond the destruction. “This way.”
Leaving the highway, he started up the slope of an overpass, his boots slipping in the snow. Grimacing, she followed. A few abandoned cars dotted the road when they reached the rise, none of the vehicles appearing usable.
“Those look like buildings to you?” Wes asked, pointing to a spot on the horizon away from where the interstate curved.
Lindy squinted. In the distance beyond the charred and frozen terrain, she could just make out shapes like tall, narrow rectangles, what she would have obviously called architecture before she knew frost giants were in the world.
“I think so,” she allowed.
“Come on.” He headed toward a junction where the overpass met with another road leading toward the buildings in the distance.
She sighed. Structures still standing meant areas with less damage—hopefully, anyway. Maybe that would mean a car or another SUV they could use, rather than more walking through the exhausting snow.
And more time slipping away from her.
Even though she suspected they were heading into the city, the rubble of destroyed structures was still spread out along the road. A burned husk of a fast-food store here, the charred and bubbled remnants of a car dealership there, and swaths of snowy nothing in between. The long, straight road stretched out ahead of them, feeling endless with the distant buildings never growing closer, as if they were walking on a treadmill.
And overhead, the sky grew darker.
Lindy bit her lip. She still had a flashlight in her bag if worst came to worst, but she wasn’t sure whether it’d be safe to use it. Yeah, it’d let her see, but in the great, dark world, that beam of light would also make them a target. And despite the fact the ruins of each structure were far apart compared to some towns she’d seen, after so long on the empty interstate, she felt like anything could be lying in wait, as if they were surrounded by countless traps waiting to be sprung.
“Son of a—” Wes stopped cold, his eyes locked on the distance to her right.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Draugar. I can’t hear how many. Lots.” He looked left. “More that way, I think. Fuck.”
“Come on.” She forced her tired legs to move faster, and she could hear Wes take a ragged breath as he followed her.
She glanced at him, a new worry gnawing at the edge of her adrenaline. He had to be exhausted, even more than she was, given that he hadn’t slept in nearly two days. The realization brought guilt, too. Sure, she hadn’t forced him to stay awake like that, but he’d done it because of her all the same.
“There.” He pointed, and she followed the gesture, her heart pounding.
A strip mall still stood about half a mile ahead. Other buildings waited beyond it, as if she and Wes had finally found the place the fires had stopped.
The shrieks of the draugar carried on the breeze.
Wes grabbed her arm. “Run.”
They bolted down the road, her backpack bouncing on her spine. She could barely hear over the sound of her own breathing, and at any moment, she expected the draugar to come charging past the rubble, ready to tear them apart.
“This way.” Wes pulled her with him as he ran for the back of the strip mall.
“Where are you—” she started.
“Can’t break the glass doors in front.” He dashed along the rear wall. “We won’t have anything between us and them.”
Skidding to a stop at a rusted metal door, he threw a look around fast and then jammed the sharper end of the metal beam he’d been carrying into the space between the door and its frame, wrenching the steel like a crowbar. “Come on… come on…”
The lock gave.
Looking around, he motioned for her to get inside. Slinging her backpack down, she fumbled around within it for a flashlight, clicking the device on quickly before hurrying through the doorway.
No draugar lunged at her. A small storage room barely larger than a glorified closet surrounded her. Metal shelving held everything from shoeboxes to clear garbage bags of what appeared to be clothes, and when she peered past the door on the other side of the tiny space, a disorganized thrift shop full of old toys, ragged clothes, and ancient electronics equipment waited.
She clicked off the flashlight while she inched past the storage room doorway, not wanting any light to pass through the windows at the front of the store and draw attention. The ambient light still outside was barely enough to see by, thinning the shadows of the store and picking out the shapes of clothing racks and glass cases. Warily, she crept farther in, checking carefully past the displays for any sign of bodies.
Nothing.
A breath left her, a puff of fog in the shadows. Whatever looters may have survived in this town clearly hadn’t made it here yet, which would have been a relief if those types were the worst things the two of them had to worry about. Meanwhile, the light was fading fast outside, and the parking lot was empty. With the draugar somewhere in the distance, hunting a usable car right now might well be suicide.
Resignation settled over her, weighing heavy on her tired muscles. Guess they were staying here for the night.
She glanced back to see Wes carry a wooden chair from behind the register and wedge it under the door handle of the stockroom exit. Returning to the front of the shop, he checked around briefly and then took a box of old toys from the shelf, bringing it with him into the stockroom as well.
“Wes, what are you—”
“Alarm system.” Carefully, he set the toys down on the floor in front of the rear exit and then in front of the storeroom door as well.
Her confusion faded. Right. Clever. Even if something got past the chair on the door, it’d make noise coming in,
warning the two of them.
Taking another box from the shelves, he strode past her, heading for the metal-framed glass door at the front of the shop. The arrangement of the rudimentary alarm system done, he stayed by the windows, watching the darkening world outside.
Her eyes lingered on him. No way she was letting him be the one to stay up keeping watch tonight. The man hadn’t slept in two days.
In the fading light, her eyes skimmed the racks around her, spotting what she needed a moment later. Careful not to make noise, she pulled down the quilts hanging on a display near the wall. The two of them were carrying blankets, sure, but more would always be welcome. Scanning the shop, she settled on a spot behind a display cabinet filled with costume jewelry. Tossing the heavy quilts down, she went and retrieved several more, along with a bundle of comforters hanging nearby.
Rough bed, but better than a hard floor, anyway.
Shedding her backpack and gloves, she sighed and then crossed the small store. In the shadows to one side of the front window, Wes stood, his tall form barely visible in the swiftly deepening darkness.
“Go ahead and get some sleep,” she said. “I can take first watch.”
He looked over at her, hesitating.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, irritation in her voice. “Draugar and darkness and burned cars, right? Bad plan?”
Wes paused a moment longer before nodding. “Let’s get some food first, eh?”
Her mouth tightened. “Okay, but I’m still taking first—”
His eyes snapped to the windows, alarm on his face. “Shit.”
Moving fast, he pulled her deeper into the shadows of the corner and pushed her behind him. Her back hit the wall, and his firm grip held her there as he kept his focus on the glass. He was so close, she could feel every quick breath he took in the way his coat brushed against her, and his scent surrounded her in the tiny space, inexplicably tempting and yet distracting as hell.
Seconds crept by.
Shuffling forms staggered along the sidewalk only inches from the window of the thrift shop. Their rotted mouths dangled open, and one of them was missing a lower jaw entirely. Several looked as if they’d been dead for years, while others were clearly new additions. A draug at the front of the group wore a work uniform, blood and gore staining his khakis, and his name tag hung askew from his shredded polo shirt.