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28

AUbrEY

I keep my gun trained on Jensen’s head, fury and fear warring inside me.

He calls my bluff.

The lock clicks, and I brace myself, finger tensing on the trigger—though I know I won’t shoot him. The door swings open and cold air rushes in, carrying swirls of snow and something else, something that makes the hair on my neck stand on end.

A child stands on the threshold, a wispy little thing with dark hair showered in snowflakes, wrapped in a black wool coat. Eight, maybe nine years old. His eyes meet mine immediately, bypassing Jensen as if he’s inconsequential. Something in that gaze, so fucking direct, makes the alarm bells ring and it takes everything to not aim my gun at him.

He stares and gives me a small smile. His eyes are blue, very blue, but not the glowing unnatural blue of the hungry ones.

Still, I adjust my grip and keep the gun ready at my side.

“Thank you, sir,” the boy says to Jensen, his voice unnaturally precise. “May I please come in? It’s dreadfully cold.”

He steps inside before Jensen can properly invite him, moving with a fluidity that reminds me of a cat.

“Of course,” Jensen says, stepping back while keeping his axe ready. “Where are your parents? What’s your name?”

“They’re waiting,” the boy says, studying our cabin with methodical precision, gaze lingering on the windows, the door, as if cataloging exits. His eyes finally settle on Eli’s still form, frowning at his body. “At home. My name is Nate. Is that your friend there?”

“Yes, he’s sleeping,” I tell him. I crouch down at Nate’s side, slipping into my agent role with ease. Too much ease. “You said your parents are at home? Where is home? How did you get to be here?” I manage to ask, proud of how normal my voice sounds despite the ice forming in my veins.

The boy smiles and my stomach drops. It doesn’t reach his eyes, which remain fixed and calculating on Eli.

“In the caves, of course. Where the family has always lived.”

The casual mention sends shock waves through me. I straighten up, squeezing my gun harder, exchanging a look with Jensen over the boy’s head. His brows are raised, fingers thrumming along the axe handle.

“Actually, that’s not true,” Nate corrects himself. “We used to live in a cabin, not too far from here. A very long time ago. Before we had to hide. I prefer the caves. The cabin was small and smelly and always cold.”

His gaze shifts to me, eyes narrowing with sudden interest. Something knowing crosses his face, and my skin crawls with the sense of being recognized by a stranger.

“You’re a McAlister,” he says, and it’s not a question but a statement of fact.

“My name is Aubrey. Aubrey Wells,” I say to him, my voice trembling.

“McAlister,” he says simply, like I’m wrong. “We share the same blood, you and I. Like the girl who came before. Elaine.”

My composure cracks, the gun wavering at my side. “Lainey? You knew my sister? Where is she?” The questions burst out before I can stop them, desperate and raw.

“Knew?” he repeats. “I know her still.”

The revelation nearly makes my knees buckle.

“What do you mean you know her still? Where is she?” I repeat.

“With the others.” The boy, Nate, moves to the fire, holding his small hands toward the flames without any visible relief from the warmth. The movement causes me to raise the gun, automatically tracking his movement, finger still on the trigger, though some instinct tells me bullets won’t stop whatever he is.

Not to mention, now that he’s here and speaking to us, showing no signs of being one of them even though he must be, it feels terribly wrong and against all my principles to even think about shooting a child.

“I was the first, you know,” he says conversationally, as if discussing the weather. “They fed me the people meat, telling me it was a deer. They wanted to make sure I would survive. My mother was pregnant but even so, they wanted me to survive. The hunger came on slowly for me. When my father finally ate the flesh, it wasn’t long before he tried to eat me, but I was already changing, so…” He looks up at us, smiling again.

A chill runs through me as I stare at him wide-eyed. The implications of what he’s saying—what he’s claiming to be—are impossible. And yet, after what we’ve seen, can I really dismiss anything as impossible anymore?

“Nate,” Jensen muses, positioning himself closer to me, a gesture that might be protective. “You’re Nathaniel McAlister.”

“Father says I’m not supposed to use our name with strangers.” His voice shifts suddenly, deepening into a perfect adult male tone: “It makes them ask questions we don’t want to answer.”

I flinch at the sudden transformation, my weapon wavering before I force it steady again. My mind races, connecting dots, forming a hypothesis too terrible to contemplate. The Donner Party. The McAlister family. The stories from my childhood—not fairytales but history.

My history.

“But there’s…there’s no way,” I say, shaking my head. “The Donner Party…that was 1847…You can’t have been alive since 1847.”

“Oh, but I am,” Nate interrupts, his child’s voice returning. “The hunger preserves us. My mother says it’s a good thing. I’ll always be her little boy.” His eyes flick to Eli again, lingering on the bandaged wound. “Is your friend going to join us? He smells ripe for changing.”

“He’s going nowhere with you,” Jensen growls, moving to block Nathaniel’s view of Eli, though my heart sinks. If this child thinks Eli is changing, he probably is.

The boy—if he can be called that—sighs with the weary patience of an adult dealing with stubborn children. “He needs to eat soon, you know. The hunger is the worst at first for the bitten. When he wakes up, he’s going to try and eat you, even if he wouldn’t want to. At first.” He looks at me. “Elaine thought she could fight it too, at first.”

“So she’s…” I begin, too afraid to ask even though I know the answer. “So Lainey is alive?”

“She’s as alive as I am,” he says. “She’s not like the rest of them. She’s more like my family, probably because she is part of our family. She’s one of the originals. The new ones…” he shakes his head, looking at Eli. “My father says they’re just animals. Hungry animals that won’t die.” He glances at me. “You’re one of the originals too.”

Something cold slithers down my spine. “Original?”

“Bloodlines,” Nate continues, the word carried on a sigh. “Blood is special. It remembers, even after generations.” He studies me with clinical interest. “Elaine said she was always pulled to these mountains, to her history. Don’t you feel it too?”

Images flash through my mind—my mother’s deterioration, her ramblings about monsters. My own nightmares of snow and blood. Lainey’s obsession with the Donner Party, her feeling of connection to a tragedy that should have been merely historical.

“Don’t listen to him,” Jensen warns, eyeing me with concern. “He’s trying to manipulate you.”

“I don’t lie,” Nathaniel says, sounding genuinely offended. “Mother says lying is for the weak. For prey.” He looks at Jensen pointedly. “Like you.”

He turns back to me, expression softening to something almost sympathetic. “I know Elaine would want to see you. She’s been waiting so long for you to finally come.” His voice changes again, higher now, a young woman’s: “Aubrey, please come home. I need you.”

I freeze, the gun nearly slipping from my grasp. The voice is perfect—Lainey’s voice, with its slight rasp and the way she always emphasized the second syllable of my name. A voice I haven’t heard in three years, except in my dreams.

I nearly break down in tears.

“Stop it,” Jensen snaps at Nate, raising the axe in warning. “Shut your little fucking mouth and stop playing games.”

“I’m not playing a game,” the boy says, reverting to his own voice. “It’s family. The blood always remembers.”

Nate moves toward the door suddenly, his movement too smooth and fast. “I should return. Mother worries when I’m gone too long and I’m getting tired. It takes a lot of effort to try and be like this, to be…as I once was. Otherwise, I would have eaten you by now,” he says simply as he pauses, hand on the door. “They’re coming for you anyway.”

“Who are?” I ask.

“The rest of them,” he says. “My parents, and even Elaine, we can get by with eating…other things. We can make do with our hunger. But the new ones, they can’t. They’re regrouping and then they’ll come.”

“Why tell us this?” Jensen asks, his knuckles white around the axe handle. “Why warn us?”

Nathaniel’s smile is patient, indulgent even. “Because the hunt is no fun if the prey doesn’t run.” His lips twist into a smirk. “At least that’s what my father says.”

He opens the door, letting in another gust of cold air. “I’d run north if I were you.”

Without another word, he slips outside, disappearing into the blinding white with unnatural speed. Jensen slams the door shut, throwing the bolt with shaking hands.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers, turning to face me.

I lower my gun slowly, my arms suddenly leaden. “That was Lainey’s voice,” I say hollowly. “Exactly her voice.”

“It wasn’t her,” Jensen insists, though uncertainty colors his tone. “He’s playing mind games.”

“For what purpose?”

“To make us run.”

“He knew things, Jensen. And the kid is from the fucking 1800s. Lainey is alive.”

He stares at me for a moment, wildness in his eyes as he tries to make sense of it all. “Even if she’s alive, she’s not…”

“Not what? You saw the kid! He was able to control his hunger.”

“He was able to trick us and we’re just lucky I never put my axe down. It would have taken two seconds for him to turn and bite you. Fuck, maybe I should have chopped his head off when I had a chance.”

“Well, I need to find Lainey,” I say, the certainty settling in my chest like a stone. “If there’s even a chance she’s alive like he is, and can talk to me?—”

“That’s exactly what he wants,” Jensen interrupts. “He wants you to find the caves, he wants you to follow him. He told us to run north, but I wouldn’t trust that either. He was sent here on purpose.”

“You don’t know that,” I admit, meeting his concerned gaze. “If they sent him, they would have just come to kill us. They would have already attacked in the night. Why have they left us alone for the last twenty-four hours? That boy came here because Lainey sent him. She’s protecting us somehow.”

Jensen watches me for a long moment, conflict clear in his rumpled brow. Finally, he sighs. “I can’t let you go, Aubrey. I’m sorry.”

“Let me?” I repeat. “How are you going to stop me? Tie me to a pole like you did with Red?”

He sighs, running his hand down his face, and looks over at Eli. “Believe me, I would, if it could keep you safe. But I think we’re going to need the last of our rope for him.” He walks over and stares down at his friend, still breathing steadily under the blanket, though his skin does look a bit waxier now.

“The boy said he’s turning,” I say, and in those words, there are the things I’m not saying.

Jensen looks at me with glassy eyes. “He’s my best friend, Aubrey. I can’t kill him yet. And I won’t let you do it yet, either. Just…not yet.”

I nod, though I’m still frustrated at our impasse. “So then what? Either we wait for him to turn and have to kill him, or we tie him up and we go. I want to go to the caves, you want to head where?”

“Sugar Bowl,” he says, coming over to me. He stops, boots against mine, towering over me as he cups my face in his hands and stares into my eyes. “You can fight me, Aubrey, but I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t want you going to those caves. I won’t let you. The cost of your life might be worth it to you, but it’s not worth it to me. I refuse to lose you.” He kisses me softly on the lips before pulling away. “You’re mine, through and through.”

I have to admit, my resolve is weakening slightly, having this man say those words and stare at me the way he is, like I’m some national treasure.

But I’m not conceding to anything.

“So, what do we do now?” I whisper.

He glances over my shoulder at the window. “We won’t make it anywhere before dark. Think we’ll be spending the night in.”

“Then they’ll be coming to us.”

He nods. “Yeah. I reckon they will. But we’ll be ready for them.”