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She spat into his face.
Gasping, Wolf started back. A fleeting expression of shock sparrowed through his eyes. Later, she would remember and wonder about that.
But inside her skull, deep in her brain, something let go. There was a sudden hitch, like the clunk of a lock, and then the release of a catch as whatever gripped her consciousness let go. She expelled a long, shaky breath of relief. She might die in the next second, but at least she wasn’t drowning in whatever passed for Wolf ’s mind.
For one long moment, the wolf-boy only stared. She willed herself not to look away. Her eyes fixed on the foamy slick of her saliva slithering down his upper lip like thick snot.
Then the air suddenly snapped with that sharp, expectant tang. A second later, she felt Beretta and Slash moving in to flank her and hook an arm.
She’d been right. Wolf had just given a command, and that was interesting. However the Changed spoke, that particular tangy scent was a signal. Were there more odors, gradations of some kind that added up to meaning but that, for the moment, her nose just couldn’t detect? Maybe. If she lived long enough, she might even figure out their vocabulary, but that still might not do her much good. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to understand them.
She watched Wolf raise a hand and smear away her spit. His eyes never left hers. They were inches apart, so close she saw his scar eel and squirm over his Adam’s apple when he swallowed. So close that all Wolf had to do was lean in a little and use his teeth.
But he did not.
Instead, the monster with Chris’s face smiled.
15
Chris knew something was up when the entire Council trooped in, trailed by guards. Nathan slouched as if held up by a string. Weller was haunted and hollow-eyed. The others were only grim. When his grandfather, Yeager, ordered Jet, Chris’s black shepherd, into the kitchen with the other animals, Chris knew this something was likely to be very bad. His grandfather also wanted Kincaid to wait with the girls and their new housemother, a grisly woman named Hammerbach, who would be there for the foreseeable future until—unless—Jess came out of her coma. But Chris nixed that. The more witnesses, the better protected he felt, and this wasn’t a trial. Not yet, anyway. Besides, he wanted to make sure Lena heard what he said in case they questioned her. No use both of them going down.
He was in deep, deep trouble. But why, exactly? He had no idea. Alex had been gone for eight days. Those same days of his life had vanished with her, poof. He’d been at Jess’s for more than a week, and barely remembered any of it. What also nagged him was that his memories of the couple days before—when he’d still been on the road, away from Rule—were a jumble. The only thing he recalled with any clarity was that one last, precious moment when Alex’s horse had reared and she’d looked back, and their eyes locked. But that was it. The rest was only a big, white blank.
“I don’t understand why you broke off the search. You don’t know that Peter’s dead,” Chris said. He’d elected to stand. Sitting was too pathetic. But his head was swirling, and he felt gutted as a shriveled pumpkin with nothing left but the shell. “There’s no body. He’s still out there somewhere. ”
“Chris, it’s Saturday, for God’s sake. ” Weller’s voice was a weary croak. “Eight days since the ambush, and there’s nothing, no trace, not a sign of either Peter or Tyler, and no trail either. I couldn’t tell you if those bastards went east or west, north or south, but I do know this: that boy, Tyler—there was no way he was gonna live another five minutes. As for Peter . . . I did the best I could. He’s young, strong. He might have made it, but it’s more than likely that he didn’t. I don’t like it, but I accept that he’s gone. ”
“Well, I don’t,” Chris said. “It makes no sense. If I were a raider, I would just strip the bodies. I wouldn’t take them. ”
“Maybe they weren’t raiders,” Weller said, simply. “How do you mean?” Then Chris gasped. “The Changed? No, that’s impossible. They’re not that organized. ”
“As far as we know,” Weller said.
That had never occurred to Chris, and the idea shook him. But there were a lot of bodies. The rescue party didn’t make it out there until noon. Plenty of time for the Changed to grab as much fresh meat as they wanted. But why take only Peter and—
“Wait a minute. ” He looked back at Weller. “Peter and Tyler were the only Spared. ”
“Yes, we noticed that. ” Blind in one eye, Stiemke rarely spoke, only listened like a drowsing lizard. Now Stiemke tilted his head to one side, his left eyelid twitching to reveal a thumbnail of milky iris. “What do you think that means?”
“Me?” Chris frowned. “I don’t know. ”
“Weller said there were rumors,” his grandfather, Yeager, prompted. His eyes, black as freshly mined coal, narrowed. “Something about bounty hunters?”
“That’s right. We heard the military was recruiting locals to hand over Spared and round up Changed. You think bounty hunters set up an ambush just to capture Peter and Tyler?”
“And you, if you’d been there. ” An imposing man in his black robes, Ernst always looked and sounded a little like Darth Vader, minus the heavy breathing. “The question is, how did the shooters know where to stage the ambush? How did they know where to intercept the runner, Lang?” Lang’s horse was found ten miles from Rule, a frozen worm of blood in its left ear and a big piece missing from the right side of its face where the bullet had blasted through. Lang, though, was simply gone.
“I don’t know. We don’t follow the same roads all the time for this very reason. ” Chris looked at Weller. “Tell them. ”
“I already did. ” Weller’s eyes slipped to the floor. “Peter said you guys talked about taking Dead Man four, maybe five days back, right before you split off to go north. ”
Had they? “I honestly don’t remember. ”
Behind him, he heard Kincaid speak up for the first time. “That’s normal with a concussion, Rev. Boy’s going to be spotty. ”
“The point is Chris knew ahead of time,” Yeager said.
“I guess I knew it was a possibility,” Chris said. Then it finally clicked. “Wait, you think I had something to do with this? That’s crazy. I would never—”
“Then why leave your men?”
“I didn’t leave anybody. I already told you. We caught a rumor of Spared near Oren. ”
“Ah yes. ” From his seat on the far right, Born let out a raspy cackle. “You and your famous rumors. Why is it that Weller has no recollection of such a story?”
Shuffling uneasily, Weller threw Chris a pained, apologetic look. “Chris, I—”
“Don’t worry about it. ” The fire was high and the room stuffy and overheated, but he didn’t think that had much to do with the sudden sweat starting on his upper lip. Peter had asked no questions, so Chris had fed him no lies. But now these old men wanted answers he could not risk giving.
“Weller didn’t know because he wasn’t there,” he said to Born. “Peter and I scouted a farmstead just east of the border, and this old guy told us. ” They had visited a farmstead, too, although it was long deserted.
“And you always follow up a rumor. ”
“Of course. What else do you think we have to go on? Listen, we’re stealing and killing so you can sit there and say you can’t trust me?”
Kincaid’s voice floated up in a warning. “Easy, Chris. ”
“I’m fine. ” He kept his eyes trained on the Council, his gaze flicking from one judge to the next. “Look, you guys aren’t out there, but I am—me and Peter and some kids like Tyler and anyone else who isn’t so ancient he needs diapers so he doesn’t piss the bed. ”
“Chris,” Kincaid said. “Don’t—”
“I’ll handle this, Doctor, thank you. ” Yeager’s bird-bright eyes never wavered from Chris’s face. “Watch your language, young man. Don’t presume to challenge us. ”
“I??
?m not,” Chris said. Oh, he wanted to, though. Blame the concussion or losing Alex and now Peter, but he was suddenly sick to death of these old men. “I just don’t get what you’re driving at. I would never hurt Peter, ever. ”
“Fine. ” His grandfather glided from his chair on a whisper of black robes. He extended his hands, palms up. “Then all you have to do is answer our questions. ”
Chris hesitated for the briefest of moments, then told his first lie. “Sure, I have nothing to hide,” he said, and then slid his hands onto his grandfather’s palms. The old man’s flesh felt artificial, like slick plastic, and the hairs on Chris’s neck prickled. “What do you want?”
“First, I want you to sit down,” Yeager said.
“No. ” He saw the old man’s face crease with surprise. Good. If he could keep his grandfather off-balance, do the unexpected, maybe he had a chance. Whatever I say next has to be the truth. “I’d rather stand. ”
“I see. ” As if to reassert his authority, Yeager looked at the guard hovering by Kincaid’s shoulder. “I think it’s time the doctor and the others waited in the kitchen. ”
“No,” Chris said again. He aimed a quick glance over his shoulder. His eyes brushed over Lena’s pale face, but she was still as a sphinx. He turned back to the Council. “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Do you?”
“That’s not how things are done, young man. ” Prigge’s lips puckered like a prissy schoolteacher’s. “We decide, not you. ”
“This isn’t a trial. What are you going to do? Shoot them or me? Are you that afraid of what I’m going to say?” When Prigge didn’t reply, Chris’s eyes shifted back to Yeager. “Go on, what do you want to know?”
His grandfather’s expression hadn’t changed, and his face, almost waxy, was blank as a mannequin’s. Only his eyes showed any sign of life, and they were glittery now, like those of a vulture eyeing roadkill. “Did you have anything to do with the ambush?”