The Hunt (The Wilds Book Two)

by Donna Augustine

  “Are we being honest here, or are you still living in Moobieland where everyone does things because it’s the right thing and for some ridiculous code?”

  I kept my chin up and my face stoic even as his words were chipping away at me again. The smile was a lost cause, though. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, but I was all for honesty. My code might have been made up, but weren’t all codes? Some person looked around and decided they wanted to be better? Have a higher standard? He could say whatever he wanted about my code; that wasn’t something that was going away. Wasn’t even up for debate. But again, I didn’t argue. I wanted answers, not arguments. I needed to finally know where I stood with Dax. Where I stood in his world.

  “Lay your truths on me,” I said, and I meant it.

  “You can see Dark Walkers. I can’t. I need that asset enough to help.”

  “But why did you take so long?”

  “I was weighing the costs.”

  “What costs?”

  He straightened up from the beam. “I’m here. You don’t need to see my tally sheet.”

  I guessed that was the end of that, but I could live with it. Yeah, according to my new self, it was enough.

  “So you still want to hunt Dark Walkers?”

  He strode across the barn, and there was something in his movement that was pure beast. A lesser person would’ve stepped back, but I held my ground.

  “You know what I am. Don’t ever forget it. It will never change.”

  I might not always know his thoughts, but he was right. I knew what he was, a hunter, and like no other I’d ever seen. That was one thing that hadn’t needed to be said. Instinct told me that there was a bigger reason, beyond being born from a Plaguer, that he was a beast, and the only one that could master every aspect of it.

  He was warning me off. I didn’t know why or if I was even interpreting his words correctly, but he didn’t get it? There was no warning me off. I needed his help, and at any cost. I’d been past the point of being warned off by four years old. Warnings didn’t even slow my stride. I wanted to be like him and would pay any cost.

  “Where do we start?” I crossed my arms over my chest as I waited to find out what came next.

  “We figure out how you tap into the magic.”

  “If you change into the beast with magic, then don’t you know how to do it already?” How could someone who turned into a beast not know how to tap into magic?

  He was shaking his head before he said a word. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.”

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?” I asked, wondering if this were some sort of magic too.

  “The same way I know what you just thought now. Your distrust in people is painfully obvious at times.”

  “So then you’ll tell me how this works?”

  “Everyone has their own connection and way they channel it. You need to learn to connect to it. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Think of it as creating a well-worn path.”

  “So how do I go about that?” I asked. I did want to know, but I wanted to move the conversation on even more than wanting the knowledge.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  I had to force myself not to argue and do as he said, even though it completely went against the grain of who I was.

  “Empty your mind.”

  “Completely empty? That’s a tough one. You know—”

  “Empty,” he barked.

  “Okay, okay.” It was going to be tough. I didn’t like an empty mind, and I wasn’t very good at the emptying part.

  I felt him lay his fingers on the flesh above my neckline, and it felt like it was burning my skin. That wasn’t helping the emptying, for sure.

  “Visualize a light deep inside of you. Feel it burning within your chest.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t talk.”

  Really? This was the teacher I picked?

  “Slowly, let that glow fill you, your arms, legs, fingers, until it consumes you.

  “Know that your skin is nothing. It’s an illusion. You don’t stop there. The glow extends past you and into the ground you are standing on, the air around you—it’s all connected to you. With every breath, you take from it. With every exhale, you reach out to it.”

  I stood there, eyes closed, with no idea what he was talking about, but trying to play along. That was when I felt a warmth growing, like someone had placed a hot compress against my chest. It was quite nice, to be honest, as if I was snuggled up around a hot cup of cocoa or something, or maybe like I’d taken a big shot of whiskey.

  “That’s it,” he said, as if he knew something was happening. How could he know my chest felt warm? Did it reach his fingers? His hand left my flesh and I heard him as he stepped back.

  My body was moving before I gave thought to what I was doing. I ducked low as I felt a draft of air coming from right where my body had been a split second before. I dropped to a roll and jumped to my feet halfway across the barn, eyes wide open now.

  “Wow, how did I know to do that? I can’t even do that when I’m trying to.” Now this was the badass stuff I’d been hoping for.

  “Because your instincts are good when you don’t overthink them,” he said from a good ten feet away now.

  “But how did I know you were going to try and hit me?”

  “You used magic, the magic within and all around you.”

  I did? This was even cooler than what Moobie could do. “What else can I do?”

  “Whatever it is you planned for the day, gardening, helping Bookie with the animals…I’ve got other plans.”

  I watched as he left the barn. It was a start. It was enough.

  Chapter 5

  The door to the big barn, where the horses were kept, creaked as I pushed it open. Bookie’s head popped above one of the stall doors where he’d been checking on a foal.

  “How’s she doing?” I knew this one had gotten colicky on and off since birth, and he’d been keeping an eye on her.

  “She’s looking good,” he said. “You ready? When I saw you go into the small barn with Dax, I thought maybe you were canceling this afternoon.”

  “No way. I have to be ready.” Until I was where I needed to be, I wanted to get the books. I’d never depended on anyone completely before and I couldn’t start now. This past month had taught me that. What if Dax flaked out on me again? No. All avenues forward were being left open. I didn’t only want a plan A—I wanted a B, C, and D, too. Sooner or later the Dark Walkers would show back up here and I had to be as prepared as I could when the time came.

  “No one would let you get hurt. It’s different here. I would do anything to keep you safe,” he said, his stare faltering slightly before he went back to running his hands over the foal’s sides, checking for bloat even though he’d already said the foal was doing okay.

  I rested my hands on the stall door as I watched him work. “Bookie, that’s the problem. I don’t want to need protection. It’s always different until it isn’t. I don’t want to depend on anyone else. I can’t. You don’t understand the things that are coming for me.”

  “How do you know they’ll keep coming?”

  “I just do.” Because I’m the key to something.

  I didn’t know how else to reply to that, so when the conversation sputtered out, I let it. I backed up and watched as he exited the stall and moved to another horse.

  Bookie was a natural at healing. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and yet he’d taken part in blowing up the Cement Giant to help save me. People had their limits of what they could do, especially the good ones like him. There was only so much of a load their minds could bear before they broke or became someone they couldn’t live with.

  He’d make some girl really happy one day. I wouldn’t be that girl, even if I thought his feelings might run a little softer toward me. He deserved a house and a family, and that wasn’t where my life was headed. He sho
uld be with someone as kind and soft in the center as he was, and that wasn’t me either. He might not know it yet, but I did. If I ended up with anyone, and that had a really large question mark by it, they’d have their hands full.

  “Is Dax helping you now?” Bookie said after a good five minutes of silence had elapsed.

  I nodded as we entered into uncharted waters. We’d never had this talk, about me or what I was, and I didn’t know what he knew about Dax. I was sure he didn’t know about the beast.

  “Bookie, you know I’m…” There was a reason we hadn’t talked about it. I tried to think of the correct approach. “I’m different. You know that.”

  He nodded.

  “Turns out, it runs a little deeper than just seeing memories.”

  He nodded as I waited for questions I didn’t have answers for.

  “Is there something I can help you with, besides getting books and stuff?”

  This was worse than the questions I was dreading. He was looking at me, huge hazel eyes practically pleading to be of some help. How could I tell him that he didn’t have what it took without crushing him? I knew what it felt like to have to sit on your hands and feel useless when your friends needed you.

  “The books are a huge help.”

  “There’s nothing else?”

  I wished I could think of something, but he’d know it for a lie. I shrugged.

  He looked back at the horse before he said softly, “But Dax can.”

  “Sort of, yeah.” Why was this conversation feeling so horribly awkward? And why did I feel like I was getting sucked even deeper into a vacuum of emotional muck?

  I snapped my fingers and then clapped my hands together to keep them from doing their telltale fidgeting. “You almost ready to get going?” And get on the bike, where it’s hard to speak?

  “I think maybe there’s something else we should start doing now that your arm is ‘enough.’ Something I can help with.” His smile, the one that had looked forced before, got a little warmer. “If you’re game and feeling up to it?”

  “Lay it on me.” I would’ve tried to become a fire-eater if it meant we could stop talking.

  He wiped his hands off on a rag as he stepped out of the stall. “Come on,” he said, waving me toward the smaller door out the back of the barn. I followed him, looking for clues to what he had in mind.

  The bike he always used was sitting there, waiting.

  “I thought you didn’t want to go to the library?”

  “I don’t.” He walked over to the bike but stopped by the handlebars. “Don’t you want to learn to ride?”

  He didn’t have to ask me twice. I nearly skipped the last steps over to it and climbed on. I leaned forward, imaging the wind hitting me as I rode this bad boy through the Wilds.

  He started pointing to different handles and levers. “This is the clutch, the brake, the gas—”

  “What do I do with all of it?”

  He smiled, realizing I had very limited exposure to mechanical things, and ran through a more in-depth explanation. If I did this and twisted the handle, it would go. Do this and it would stop. After a few repeats, I thought I had the basics. Was even feeling a little cocky when I managed to start it on my own.

  “See that tree?” He pointed to one about fifty feet away. “There shouldn’t be any grooves or ruts that’ll mess you up between here and there.”

  I grabbed the handle that controlled the fuel and rotated it forward. The bike reacted like I’d cranked it full blast, and then the top wheel was kicking up before landing again and taking off at a crazy speed toward the tree.

  Three seconds later, the bike was on its side and sliding forward as I landed on my ass, which was definitely going to be bruised tomorrow. After a split-second evaluation, I surmised that nothing hurt enough to probably be permanent damage. I’d had enough experience doing self-triage to know.

  Bookie was running over to me, but I was more concerned about the bike. Bikes were nearly irreplaceable, practically priceless out here. Even replacement parts were rare. Bookie was always on the lookout for spare parts when he went “digging,” as he called it.

  He squatted down beside me. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, already sitting up. “I’m afraid to look at the bike.”

  “It’s been through worse than that.”

  I wasn’t so sure. He was saying the right words, but I saw his gaze trying to size up the damage.

  “Go check, please?” I said. I didn’t need to ask him twice, as he headed over toward where it had slid quite a ways farther.

  I was sick with the idea I might have ruined his bike. Worse, there were people watching now, and I needed to stand up before they felt like they had no choice but to check on me. Nobody wanted to avoid that more than I.

  Some of the people, the ones who didn’t openly hate me, had gotten it into their heads that I was favored by Dax for no fathomable reason. They did this forced tiptoe thing around me that I despised. I could deal with hate and fear, but for the love of all that’s right in the world, don’t fake like me. Life was too short to waste energy faking anything.

  I bent forward and a hand on my arm gave me a boost up, and I realized my Dax radar had fritzed out with my bruised bum.

  “What are you doing?” Dax asked.

  I’d thought it was pretty obvious, but okay, I’d play along. “Trying to learn to ride a bike.”

  His voice was low and irritated as he said, “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Your magic screws with the mechanics.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Did the bike just take off like it had its own mind?”

  I thought I’d messed up, but that sounded pretty accurate. “You ride.”

  “Because I have control of my magic. I need you alive right now. You can learn to ride after I don’t.”

  “You could’ve warned me.”

  “I didn’t think I had to.” Dax dropped my arm and walked away before Bookie finished rolling the bike back to me.

  He looked in Dax’s direction and then at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s such a dick sometimes. He’ll do one nice thing and then turn into a total dick the next minute, like he can’t figure out whether he wants to be a nice guy or a dick.”

  “Do you think you used the word dick enough? Didn’t you pick up a thesaurus last trip, against my better judgment, by the way?”

  “It was more worthy of taking space on the bike than your dungeon book. Who are you even going to play those games with? Don’t we have enough real stuff to worry about without your fantasy dragons?”

  “It looked interesting. And the thesaurus was because you didn’t want to be redundant in your speech. Considering how much good it’s done, the dungeon book was more worthy of the trip, not to mention the other book.”

  My face felt a little warm at the mention of the other book, and I evaded that subject altogether. “Tirades are exempt from the redundancy rule. And stop cutting off my tirade about Dax.”

  “Sorry, screech away.”

  “I wish he could just figure out whether he was a dick or not so I could decide how I should treat him, is all.”

  Bookie was back to staring after him. “I think he’s got one thing figured out.”

  “What’s he got figured out? That he needs me alive so he can use me?”

  “He wants to do something with you,” Bookie said as he watched Dax crossing the field.

  “What does that mean?”

  He kept watching Dax as he was walking away, and shook his head. “Nothing. You’re right, is all. He wants to use you.” He finally turned away from Dax.

  “The bike is fine other than another ding or two to blend in with the rest. You ready to give it another go?”

  “I think we should call it a day.”

  “You don’t usually give up this easy,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just a little bruised.” Mostly m
y pride, though, at having to pretend such a little bruise would take me out of commission, but I didn’t feel like opening up the whole magic can of worms with Bookie.

  Chapter 6

  I’d thought I couldn’t have an unpleasant meal. Sitting there with a tableful of Fudge’s food, how could I not be in a good mood? I was right. Even with the tension that seemed to be brewing under the surface tonight, it wasn’t anything a little red meat couldn’t handle. I couldn’t wait to take that first bite, as everyone knows the first few are the best.

  For some reason the tension seemed to grow even thicker as Dax joined the table. Tank, the basement dweller and Dax’s go-to enforcer, seemed preoccupied. Lucy was looking really smug for some unknown reason, while Tank was shooting daggers her way with his eyes.

  Bookie was sitting on the opposite side of the table, diagonal from me, not looking overjoyed but not upset either. He’d seemed off ever since Dax had come over during the bike lesson this afternoon. Tiffy was doing her own thing as usual, but this time it was making shapes in her mashed potatoes, which was something very like a six-year-old for a change. Fudge was Fudge, as always. Nothing budged her mood much.

  I used my time productively by heaping a massive amount of potatoes on my plate before anyone noticed that perhaps I’d gotten a little greedy. If they kept slacking, the pile of corn I was about to dump next to the potatoes would put the other pile to shame.

  I’d almost made it to the carrots before anyone noticed, but it happened to be Dax, who only nodded in encouragement. It kind of annoyed me. I didn’t want an okay. I liked the idea that I’d won the extra food by stealth. I plopped the bowl of corn down with disappointment and moved on to some stuffing, but it just wasn’t the same now.

  Then again, it was hard to be disappointed with anything at the moment. Fudge had really outdone herself today. Not only would I be happy, I was going to be nearly ecstatic after this meal.

  “I’ve been getting word of strangers in the area,” Dax said, dropping the news like a bomb on the table, saying the only thing that could possibly take the glow out of my soon-to-be-full belly and the lure of red meat in front of a carnivore.