Wolfen (13 page)

The bowl dropped from Bryce’s grip; a metallic snap that
twitched him back to the present. He blinked at the little spoon in his hand.

“You okay, B?”

Bryce looked at Aiden sitting next to him. They were in the
woods, a small fire crackling happily, and a pretty female with matted brown
hair braided back sat across from them, picking at a steel bowl.

He was breathing too hard, his heart beating way too fast.
Bryce squeezed his eyes shut.
Pull it back. It’s over and done with. You’re
among friends, and you have someone to protect.

“Go take a walk, man,” Aiden said carefully.
Get ahold of
yourself
was the unspoken message, though he wouldn’t say it in front of
the female. She was scared enough already. “See if there’s any water nearby.
I’ll keep watch here.”

Bryce shoved to his feet and went, managing to keep his pace
steady until he got out of sight. Then he broke into a sprint, pushing his body
as far as he could, heedless of where he might be headed as long as it was away
from here.
Walk it off. Run it out.

He ran until his lungs burned, and when he stopped, he
raised his head and realized he couldn’t scent the fire or his companions
anymore. Swearing, Bryce struck out at a tree, cracking the trunk down the
middle with one punch. Years gone, long after he’d torn them all apart, those
humans still had power over him, and he hated them for it so damned much it was
eating him alive.

Bryce rubbed at his face, felt the smooth scars, and
growled, digging his claws into the tree bark. He could never get rid of them;
not the scars, nor the memories. They were a constant reminder that he was
broken and might never be right again. His head was too fucked up.

Bryce wasn’t an idiot. He knew the only reason the pack
hadn’t put him down yet was because of Aiden. Sometimes Bryce wished one of
them would just grow a pair and put a fucking end to him already. He was tired
of being the monster in their midst.

But Aiden wouldn’t allow it. He still held out hope that
Bryce would get himself together again. That was why he kept organizing these
scavenging missions. He thought if only Bryce had some quiet time out here,
away from the pack and the den, something would change. Right. As if all it
took to erase a lifetime of trauma was a fucking nature walk.

Bryce rubbed his brow, sighed, and started back toward the
camp. He didn’t like leaving Sinna and Aiden alone. His brother could handle
converts and animals, but if any humans happened by, he’d need Bryce for
backup.

Tracking his own path was a lot easier than it should have
been; he’d torn through the foliage like a Sherman tank.
Still not right in
the head.
He might as well have left bright pink neon signs to point the
way.

As he neared the camp, Bryce picked up on Aiden’s voice, and
he slowed to listen in.

“Don’t think you wanna hear this story, little bit. It’s not
exactly a fairy tale. Although, come to think of it, the original fairy tales
weren’t a walk in the park either.”

Bryce rolled his eyes. Aiden used to have a verbal filter.
Since Bryce’s meltdown, it was like Aiden was trying to make up for Bryce’s
silence by talking
too
much.

Sinna’s reply was too soft to make out. He liked her voice;
it was feminine and sweet, but cautious. She spoke with an innate awareness of
knowing how to listen, a gift Aiden sadly did not possess.

“It’s complicated. Animals aren’t the only ones with claws
anymore, you know that.” The wind shifted, and Aiden drew out his last word, no
doubt having caught Bryce’s scent. But instead of telling Sinna or calling out
to him, Aiden loudly proclaimed, “Maybe we do need a campfire story.”

Bryce scowled.

“Once upon a time, in a far away land called Montana… No,
that doesn’t sound right. Okay, for once, I’m gonna keep it short and simple.”
Thank
God.
“You know that saying, ‘power corrupts’?”

Sinna replied in a hushed voice.

“Exactly. Well, that’s pretty much what happened.” Aiden’s
voice lowered an octave, quieted. Bryce was forced to get closer to hear. “The
people who created us got drunk on their own power. They toyed with us, hurt
us, some more than others. You know how we told you Wolfen are pack animals? We
are born feeling that connection with each other. If one of us is hurt, we all
feel it on some level.”

Bryce crouched behind a raspberry bush and peeked out. Part
of him wanted to march out there and shut Aiden up, but rational thought won
over instinct. Forewarned was forearmed. They still had a long way to go to
reach Montana and anything might happen along the way. Sinna needed to hear
this, to be aware of the danger, so she’d know to run like hell if Bryce ever
snapped.

“One day, they pushed too far. Hurt one of us too much,
poked at our instincts too hard. Something clicked the wrong way and blew up in
their faces.”

“They hurt Bryce.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah, little bit,” Aiden said softly. “They hurt him.”

“Did he kill them?” Sinna asked gravely, hugging herself.

Aiden made a face. “
Kill
isn’t the right word.
Slaughter
,
I think, might be more appropriate. If it moved, he ripped its head off. Didn’t
matter what species they were; humans, cats, dogs, even some goats and
chickens. And he would have wiped out the Wolfen too, if it hadn’t been for the
cages.”

Sinna made a small sound of distress that made Bryce shrink farther
into shadow. She’d be scared of him now.

“Hey,” Aiden said. “Look at me.” He waited until Sinna
raised her head. “What happened was bad, but trust me when I tell you it didn’t
happen out of the blue, and it sure as shit wasn’t for no reason.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It should,” Aiden said in earnest. “We’re no more than what
they made us. We were meant to be their guardians, protectors against converts,
and if they’d treated us with even the smallest hint of their vaunted humanity,
we would have done it gladly. Instead, they treated us like monsters. So,
monsters we became. Is it in us? Absolutely. Every single one of us, even you.
But it’s not who we are. It’s not who Bryce is.”

Sinna was silent while Aiden stoked the fire, tossed more
wood onto it. She stared into the flames for so long, Bryce got fidgety in his
hiding place, but he stayed, waiting to hear what she would say. Her words
surprised him.

“So, what happened?”

Aiden shrugged. “All that killing took a lot out of him. He
collapsed in front of my cell, and by the time he woke up, he’d calmed down
some. Took one look at me, at the blood on his hands, and just sort of…checked
out for a while. Gabby, the girl he thought they’d killed, woke up at some
point and saw it happen. She managed to drag herself to a crate and hide until
she healed. Then she came out, found keys, and released everyone. We got Bryce
to the infirmary and waited for his face to start healing, but it didn’t.

“Since I couldn’t leave him on his own, I sent someone to
check out the arena. They came back with a severed hand wearing the scariest
fucking version of brass knuckles I’ve ever seen. They had wicked curved claws
on them, like fish hooks. One glancing punch, and the claws had gouged his face
wide open. The tips had been coated with an anticoagulant to make the wounds
bleed longer. It took a hell of a lot of stitches to get them closed and, as
you already know, it definitely left its mark.”

Yeah, good times.

Bryce had lain there without moving a muscle, wishing for
death as they’d dug the bullets out and stitched up his face. He’d been awake,
halfway lucid the whole time—for hours—until Aiden finally bashed him over the
head and turned out his lights.

That should have been the end of it. But Bryce had woken up
again, body in one piece. “Don’t you ever—
ever
—look at me like that
again,” Aiden had snarled. Bryce had never seen his brother so furious.

Now, Aiden frowned at the campfire. “I wasn’t there,” he
said. “That’s what kills me. They kept taking him away and bringing him back,
half-dead, and he wouldn’t talk to me. I had to question the others to find out
what really happened to him.”

Bryce shifted to his feet and leaned against the tree.
Wouldn’t
have made a difference, big brother. Still doesn’t. You should have let me die.
It would have been easier for all of them. He didn’t hold it against Aiden,
though. In his place, Bryce would have done exactly the same thing. They
weren’t just pack; they were family. And you didn’t give up on family. Not
ever.

Bryce pushed away from the tree, ready for another run, when
Aiden’s joints popped as he stretched, and Bryce heard him say, “But it’s all
in the past now, so who cares? Right, B?”

Bryce cringed. “Right,” he growled over his shoulder. He
stalked back to the camp, studiously avoiding meeting anyone’s gaze. “I didn’t
find any water.”

“Bummer,” Aiden said. “Well, we should probably get going.
Sinna, why don’t you and Bryce clean up the mess inside the mule some? I don’t
think we’ll be needing a lookout for a while. I’ll take care of the camp.”

Bryce grunted and turned to the mule, happy to have
something to do. After the hard driving they’d done, he needed to make sure the
truck was still in one piece, anyway. He cracked his knuckles and got to work.

The mule was a genius piece of post-apocalyptic engineering.
The more mechanically inclined among their pack had taken the chassis of an old
military Humvee and built the next generation of personal transportation. It
was big-boned, but sleek; all muscle and function, with a smooth-lined body for
aerodynamics, an electric motor, and a heavy frame lined with batteries to
store solar power. Every square inch of its surface was coated in photovoltaic
paint. When fully charged, the mule shone bright white. As the power cells
depleted, the color dulled and faded to black, a nifty feature that allowed it
charge much faster when it was needed most.

The back had been built like a heavy duty truck, with an
open bed and trunks around its edges for storage. Half of them were now filled
with electronics and supplies. The other half had ammo. Bryce checked all of
them to make sure nothing had gotten damaged and the watertight seal was still
intact. The skies weren’t very bright with cloud cover gathering overhead, so
he wiped the dust off of all top surfaces with a rag to optimize solar
collection.

He came around to the side opposite Sinna and leaned in to
check on their supplies. The cabin had been designed for utility more than
comfort; the front seats were standard military issue, no seat belts, or any of
the high-end luxuries of the twenty-first century, for that matter. The
dashboard was a storage compartment on top of more batteries, and there were
only two gauges: one for battery usage, the other a speedometer added purely
for Aiden’s enjoyment. Their GPS consisted of old laminated state maps, and
their radio was whatever Aiden felt like belting out when the world got too
quiet.

The back seat was a little more comfortable, hinged to
adjust down into a bed. Neither he nor Aiden were small enough to comfortably
sleep on it, but it’d be perfect for Sinna. Underneath the seat were built-in
crates with supplies. Bryce scooped everything up off the floor and pulled the
crates out, while Sinna folded clothes and neatly stored them back in the bag.
They had four gallons of water and a dozen cans of food left. Bryce drummed his
fingers, doing some rapid recalculations of consumption. Any which way he
looked at it, they didn’t have enough to last the three of them until Montana.

“I didn’t find anything edible in the store,” Sinna said.

He looked up, and she blushed and dropped her gaze. It
wasn’t a gesture of submission by any means. The way she pulled back toward the
seat edge was more unease and insecurity. Bryce didn’t like that. Earlier, when
she’d been setting out food, she seemed to have grown more comfortable around
them. Now, whatever progress they’d made was gone, and he didn’t know how to
fix it. All he knew was, he didn’t want her flinching away from him like that.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly, the only thing he could
think of to salvage the fragile trust she’d displayed by talking to him
directly. “We’ll find something along the way.” They might be able to hunt or
fish. This wasn’t the route he and Aiden had taken coming west, so they might
not encounter the same conditions going this way. But at the moment, it didn’t
worry him too much.

Bryce pulled out an assortment of items from the small bag
Sinna had stocked. All sensible choices, as far as he could see. He stashed the
tools and utensils in one compartment, the rest in the other.

Aiden had doused the fire and was just about ready to go.
“How much weight have you two pack rats added on?” he asked.

“Fifteen point three five kilograms of essential items,”
Bryce told him, settling into the passenger seat.

Aiden got behind the wheel and slammed his door shut. “What
about nonessentials?”

Bryce shrugged a careless shoulder. “Roughly two hundred and
seventy pounds of spindly-stool-crushing ass.”

Sinna snorted and coughed, trying to disguise her laughter.
It didn’t work.

Aiden glared at him, and Bryce’s mouth twitched. He schooled
himself and sent Sinna a not-so-covert wink, making Aiden growl. Shaking his
head and muttering under his breath, Aiden got them back onto the road. He held
a grudge and his silence for about two miles—an impressive feat for someone
with a soul-deep aversion to silence. But seeing Bryce and Sinna weren’t about
to engage in intellectually stimulating discourse any time soon, Aiden finally
cracked and started talking to them again.

Bryce was used to his ramblings. He tuned them out to watch
the world pass by at a lazy forty miles per hour, settling into the calmest
state of mind he was capable of. It wasn’t meditative by any stretch of
imagination, but at least for a few moments he stopped thinking and just
coasted in languorous peace.