Page 18

Chapter 18

Donovan

O nly my promise to Alex kept me walking. It went against every instinct I possessed to leave before I’d laid eyes on Landon, even though I knew there was no way we’d get close to him while we had Raina and Camille with us. I couldn’t truly blame Ori for protecting their friends, but I hated leaving.

The snow continued to kick back up and I’d hoped the need to hurry back to the car would halt any questions, but it was a fool’s hope and I knew it. We’d barely gone a quarter of a mile before Raina stopped and turned to face us, crossing her arms and digging in her heels.

“What are they hiding, Alex?”

A quiet stillness had settled over the woods. Snow swirled through the trees, casting everything in the distance in a white haze. The birds and animals had gone silent, likely seeking refuge from the cold. A layer of snow muffled even the tromp of our boots on the frozen ground. Her words shattered that quiet, dropping like a bomb into the serenity of the moment.

“Can we talk about it when we get home?” he asked. He hadn’t let go of my hand since we’d walked away and he clung to me now for support.

“No, we can’t,” she insisted. “We’re out here looking for a lost, injured kid and we’re walking away before he’s even found? What if he’s hurt enough that he needs medical attention? How are they going to get him back up that ledge? Why don’t they want us to see him? I trust you, Alex, but I know that Jean DeVor and your friend Ori are lying about something, and I know you’re not telling us everything. If we’re supposed to just leave him here, I need to know that he’s safe.”

Camille mirrored me and took Raina’s hand in support, but she didn’t say anything. Of all of us, Camille could usually be counted on to be the most reasonable.

Alex sighed heavily. “I don’t want to keep things from you, it’s just… some secrets aren’t mine to tell. I love you, all of you, but you have to understand that there are some things that were told to me in confidence.”

“What does that even mean?” Raina asked, exasperated.

“I understand,” Camille said quietly. She gave us a sad little smile when Raina and I both looked at her. “When I was younger, before I knew who I really was, I told my best friend that I thought I’d been born in the wrong body. Instead of keeping it secret, he told all our friends. The entire school knew by the next morning.”

“I know none of you would tell a soul, but they trusted me not to tell anyone,” Alex whispered, pleading, and I watched the foundations of Raina’s stubborn defiance crumble.

“Will you tell us what you can?” she asked.

Alex nodded, but it still took him a moment to speak. “They’re different,” he said carefully. “Jean and Landon and the others. I can’t say how, just that they have a way of protecting themselves and each other. That’s how Landon was able to stay alive and mostly safe, even stuck out here. I don’t know why they couldn’t find him without me, but please believe me when I say that none of them will hurt him. It wasn’t them that chased him. He wouldn’t have run from them.”

“You don’t think a bear chased him,” Camille said, reading between the lines. His explanation really didn’t give much to go on, but it was simple enough to deduce that the other group was like him, in a way.

“No, I don’t,” he agreed. “I don’t know who or what it was, but he was absolutely terrified, like it was something he’d never seen before.”

“Well, that’s fantastic,” Raina grumbled. “You swear that Landon is safe and his family can get him home?”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes. They’ll be able to take care of him better than any of us can.”

“Great. Then I vote we get out of here as quick as we can, because after that fun little talk, my skin is crawling and I keep feeling like something is watching me.”

“Agreed,” Camille nodded, glancing around the trees. Visibility had gotten worse and we’d made almost no progress, slowing to a crawl while we talked. Knowing that there were things out in the trees that we knew nothing about made me uneasy, and I understood what they were talking about. It felt like there were eyes on me, raking over me, a hunter stalking prey.

We picked up our pace, almost running through the dense underbrush, trying to follow our trail before the snow buried it. The feeling only got worse the further we got from the ledge and I heard a tiny whimper from Alex, whipped away by the snow, but leaving his panic. He felt it, too.

Where the quiet of the woods had been soothing before, now the utter stillness grated on my senses, rubbing me raw with each step. It was an unnatural silence, not a hint of birdsong on the wind or a whisper of a wandering squirrel. Even with the oncoming snow, it wasn’t normal for the woods to be so completely silent, our increasingly frantic footsteps the only sound to be heard.

Getting to the ledge hadn’t taken too long, compared to the sheer vastness of the woods. The land beyond Lowery’s Crossing was mostly untamed and unsettled, a wilderness stretching to the very heart of the mountains. Going slow, looking for tracks and signs, it’d taken over an hour. We’d only left Jean and the others about ten minutes ago, but with the speed we were moving now, we’d make it back to the cars in half the time it’d taken to find the ledge.

To the left, where the trees were thickest and the snow drew up a white curtain, the snap of a branch echoed in the utter silence. We froze and the girls immediately readied their rifles, mittens ripped off and shoved deep into pockets.

“It could have been nothing,” Alex breathed, his voice shaking. “A limb snapping from the cold.”

It came again, closer this time, and I saw movement, something dark slinking through the underbrush, pausing a second before disappearing again. Something about it felt deliberate. Like it wanted me to see it. Like it wanted me scared.

“Call Ori. Warn them,” I whispered to Alex. “Keep moving toward the cars. Don’t run. Whatever it is, we don’t need to give it a reason to chase us.” I did as Raina and Camille had done, stripping off my gloves and slowly drawing my service weapon. I hadn’t expected to need it, but habit had me grabbing it before we left this morning, something I was grateful for now.

I kept myself between Alex and the spot where I’d seen the movement, with Raina and Camille slightly in front of him and on either side, protecting him by unspoken agreement.

“Ori, there’s something out here following us.” Alex didn’t bother with a greeting when Ori picked up. “I think it’s what was hunting Landon. Be careful and get him out of here while you can.” Ori must have agreed, because Alex ended the call but didn’t put the phone away. “Should I call for help?”

“No one would get here in time and they’d be in just as much danger as us.” Will would drop everything and come if we called, but until I knew what we faced, I wasn’t putting anyone else’s life on the line.

The underbrush rustled, off to the other side this time, and closer. Somehow, it had slipped around us without us seeing a thing.

“How close are we to the car?” Raina asked, real fear in her voice.

Not close enough and we all knew it, but I wasn’t going to be the one to say it. “We’re going to get there.” Another branch snapped, this one even closer, and when I looked back, I saw eyes peering at us through the underbrush, an eerie, unnatural pale orange color that sent a shiver of primordial fear crawling up my spine. It blinked and disappeared and I knew it was toying with us now, savoring our fear.

“Donovan?”

I reached out and gripped Alex’s hand as tight as I could, not daring to take my eyes off the trees. We weren’t close enough to safety. Whatever hunted us had waited, biding its time until we were too far from the others to go back and too far from the cars to make it. We had to try, though.

“Run,” I ordered, giving his hand another squeeze before dropping it and clicking the safety off my gun.

“Donovan, what—”

“Run!”

***

Side by side, we crashed through the trees, the four of us clustered together. Raina and Alex were slower, their breathing ragged. Camille, with her longer legs, could have easily outpaced all of us, but she kept close, slowing her strides to help protect them. Trips to the gym with Will kept me fairly fit, but, like Camille, I kept pace with Raina and Alex. Fear clawed at me and every ancient instinct in my lizard brain screamed at me that a predator was near, something horrifying, something unnatural , but nothing would make me leave behind a single one of them.

The second we broke into a run, the thing began to chase us. Instead of coming directly behind us, though, it ran through the bushes, unseen but not unheard, as though sowing terror was just as exciting as the hunt. If I hadn’t figured it out before, I would have known now that this was no bear. It could have easily caught us, but instead it paced us, letting us think we stood a chance while we wore ourselves down fleeing. We had no choice but to run, though. If we stopped, we were dead. I knew that as certainly as I knew that I loved Alex with all my heart.

Almost imperceptibly, the trees thinned around us, but the snow grew heavier, keeping visibility almost at zero. I’d left the car parked on a gravel shoulder of the road, right near the tree line. It wasn’t far now, and an impossible kernel of hope lodged within me. Maybe it only wanted to scare us, to keep us out of the woods. I couldn’t hear it beside us now. Maybe we’d left its territory? Maybe we’d make it, after all.

The creature burst out of the trees ahead of us, a blur of darkness in the falling snow, forcing us to scramble to stop. Alex slipped in the snow and went down hard, but I didn’t dare take a hand off my gun to help him up, not with that thing in front of us.

“Oh, God,” Raina breathed, a tiny whimper of sound.

The creature in front of us was something wholly wrong . Big as a grizzly bear, but slender and long, more like a panther, it stared us down with those strange orange eyes that almost seemed to glow. Long fangs reached past its chin, easily eight inches or more, and razor sharp. Matching talons grew from its scaled feet and clawed into the ground as it flexed, readying itself to move. The scales ran up its legs and melded into the pitch black fur that covered its body. A long tail curved up behind it, covered in the same dark scales but ending in a wickedly pointed tip reminiscent of a scorpion, while wings not unlike a bat stretched out to the side. Even in the weak sunlight, I could make out gaping holes and fresh, jagged tears in the webbing of the wings, bad enough that it couldn’t possibly use them to fly. It was a small mercy when faced with those fangs and claws.

It didn’t move, just waited, body tensed and ready, blocking our only escape route. A faint tremor wracked its frame as it stood, whether from the cold or maybe even pain from its wounds, I couldn’t tell.

“What do we do?” Alex whispered once he was back on his feet.

“Maybe we can scare it away,” Camille suggested. As slowly as possible, never taking her eyes off the creature, she clicked the guard off her rifle. It was such a small sound I barely heard it even a foot away from her, but the creature’s pointed ears twitched and its claws dug in deeper, body lowering slightly as though to pounce. From its tail, a glistening drop of liquid dripped, sizzling when it hit the snow.

“I don’t think that will work,” I said, as quiet as possible. I took a small step forward, putting myself between the creature and Alex, and the thing took an answering step toward us, a low snarl cutting through the silence. “Shoot to kill.”

The creature and I moved at the same time, like it understood what I’d said. I brought my gun up as it lunged for me, firing off a shot. It hit the thing’s shoulder, sending a spray of crimson blood splashing across the ground, but it didn’t stop coming. I barely dodged out of the way, grabbing Alex just in time. The roar of a shotgun blast echoed in the silence, followed by another. Raina’s shot went wide, but Camille found her mark, hitting it high on its back left leg. The creature stumbled, nearly going down, but regained its footing. It still supported weight on the front leg I’d shot, but it kept its back leg off the ground. Blood dripped down black scales, forming a small pool beneath it.

“Shit. I think we pissed it off,” Raina hissed, hands shaking as she chambered another cartridge. I took another shot at the same time as Camille, but Raina was right. The creature used its shredded wings to gain a burst of speed, whipping to the side and lashing out with its tail. I heard it whistle through the air, missing me by barely an inch.

“Go for the car!” I shouted at the others as I fired again, missing its body but putting another hole in its wing. It let out a bloodcurdling cry of rage, a sound like nothing I could ever describe. Guttural and oddly shrill, it was as unnatural as the creature itself and sent primal terror crawling down my spine.

“We’re not leaving you!” Alex snapped, his voice breaking. He was the most vulnerable of the four of us, the only one without some sort of weapon, and the creature’s attention snapped to him, clearly realizing the same thing. With a low growl, it darted into the trees, silent despite its size. I grabbed for Alex, finding his hand and pulling him closer just as it burst back through the underbrush, landing exactly where Alex had been standing less than five seconds ago.

Raina fired off her second shot and this one hit, the bullet sinking into its back leg only a few inches from where Camille had hit. That bone-chilling cry echoed through the woods again and, to my horror, something moved in the trees behind us, from the direction we’d been fleeing.

“There are more of them?” Camille whispered, and the despair in her voice echoed what I felt. We didn’t stand a chance against one of these things. If another appeared, we’d never leave this place.

“We are not dying in the fucking woods today,” Raina growled. She fumbled to reload her rifle with shaking hands and the sound of her girlfriend’s voice bolstered Camille. I fired again to buy them time, but even as injured as it was, the creature dodged and my bullet hit the tree behind it. It used its momentum to dart toward me, ducking low to the ground to avoid another shot, but instead of slashing me with its claws, it turned at the last second and its tail swung toward me.

“Donovan!” Alex grabbed for me, pulling as hard as he could, and we both fell to the ground just as more creatures burst from the underbrush. Except…

“Are those coyotes ?”

Camille’s shocked voice sounded oddly distant, distorted as though we were underwater. I could only stare as two coyotes ran straight for the creature, drawing its attention from us. One ran behind it and grabbed its wing, the crunch of bone and tendon shockingly loud. When the creature shrieked and snapped at the first coyote, the second lunged and went for the throat. It couldn’t pierce the tough hide protecting the creature, though, forcing it to regroup and go for the other wing.

The creature’s tail swung, forcing the first coyote to retreat, followed by the second, but they took a chunk of the creature’s wing with them. Before they could move in for another attack, the creature screamed again, dripping blood from its injuries, and disappeared into the trees.

“Wait!”

The two coyotes started to give chase, but stopped when a voice called out. A moment later, Ori ran out of the trees, their long hair disheveled, dark eyes wide. The bigger coyote shook itself, and the air around it seemed to almost ripple. A moment later, a naked man stood where the coyote had been. It took longer than it should have for me to recognize the man who’d been with Jean DeVor. My thoughts felt slow, muddled. Was this shock?

“We need to stop it before it goes after someone else!” he protested. He didn’t seem to notice or care that he was standing naked in the middle of a snowstorm.

“The two of you can’t take it on by yourselves. We need backup,” Ori said. They looked over at the four of us and the man glanced back as well.

“Fuck,” he muttered. The air rippled again and a moment later, there were two coyotes.

“It’s a little late for that, Dane,” Ori said with a heavy sigh. “The cat’s out of the bag. Or the coyote, in this case.”

“What the hell is happening here?” Camille asked and the stress must finally be getting to her, because there was an edge of hysteria in her voice.

Logically, I knew what they were. Alex had told me. But nothing could have prepared me for whatever that other creature was. I should be as horrified as Camille and I was, but like the voices, it felt distant, barely worth noticing.

“I guess I’ll explain, but we need to get out of these woods first,” Ori said. “Anjeli, Dane, go find Jean and Landon, and make sure they get home safe. I’ll ride with Alex.” They turned to us as the two coyotes ran off. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

Alex got to his feet and reached a hand out to help me up. I grabbed it, but when I stood up, the ground tipped alarmingly beneath me. The trees spun, a sickening swirl of brown and gray and white.

“Donovan?”

I heard Alex’s voice like an echo down a long tunnel. I said his name, or I tried to, but nothing came out. Those pretty green eyes I loved so much went wide and hands grabbed for me as the ground rose up to meet me and everything went dark.