Wolfen (26 page)

And right before it, a pair of converts were chained by
their necks to the walls in opposite pens. Each had just enough chain to toe
the thresholds and almost touch claws if they reached out. Bones were littered
around them, evidence that Randy, the sick fuck, actually
kept
these
things, and
fed
them.

Bryce gritted his teeth hard. If he left Sinna to take them
out, Randy would get to her. If he left them to take out Randy, the scent of
blood would rile up the converts and make it harder to get to the exit.

Randy took the choice out of his hands. “There you are,” he
said, grinning from ten yards away, his scalpel in one hand and something small
and electronic in the other. The grin dropped quickly, and he sneered. “You
have been very bad. Do you know how excited the girls were to meet you? And you
stood them up!” He clucked his tongue, and shook his head. “Bad, dog. Bad!” He
pushed a button on his device. A high-pitched siren blared from built-in
speakers, making the converts scream.

Sinna flinched, plastering herself against Bryce’s side. If
that remote controlled the pens, then Randy could release the converts if he
decided to play nasty. One push of a button and they were in deep shit.

Time to go.
Bryce pushed all doubt away and turned
his back on Randy. There was his way out, right in front of him. And he was
taking it. “Nice and easy, okay? Just keep slowly moving forward. No fast
movements, no matter what you see or hear.”

Sinna nodded, but she was shivering in fear.

Randy laughed. “You think you can just walk out of here?
No
one
gets through my lions.
No one!
” The siren cut off, and a chorus
of screams split the air. Human. Terrified. Men and women, crying for help. The
two converts flared their claws, popped their jaws open to taste the air.
Saliva poured from their mouths as if they’d been conditioned to expect a meal
with those sounds.

Bryce curled his arm around to hold Sinna tight against his
back, and she moved with him, one foot after the other, her face pressed
between his shoulder blades.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like,” Randy roared over the
screams, “to live underground, in darkness—for
years!
They stuck me here
to watch the contractors, and then they brought in these things and left!
They
left!
”

The screams grew louder.

The two converts snarled at each other, lashing at the air
to ward the other off of the kill, eager to fight for dominance but forever
denied the opportunity.

Bryce’s step faltered, but he made himself keep going.

Randy giggled. “Funny, the friends you make when you’re
desperate. I hunt and feed them, and they keep me safe. It’s the smell of their
waste, you see? It keeps other monsters away. You just scatter that stuff
topside and,
voila!
Instant security fence.

“They used to be pretty good company, too. We even shared
meals sometimes. Used to be all it took was a couple rabbits, a coyote, that
sort of thing, and everything was fine. But now…” His voice rose in pitch and
volume. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them! They scream, and scream, and…” He
laughed; a maniacal sound on the wrong side of crazy. “If I don’t feed them
fresh meat,” he grated, “
they don’t stop!
”

As if to underscore his point, the converts screeched. Sinna
flinched, and Bryce froze in his tracks.

Randy screamed right back at them. “
Shut uuup!
”

Bryce gritted his teeth again, and forced his foot forward.
His skin throbbed. Even through the din from the speakers, he still felt that
rhythm; in the floor and in the walls. He’d bet his teeth the converts felt it,
too.

Behind him and at a distance, Randy turned downright
conversational. “A shame they can’t talk. But they listen quite well.”

The screams cut off as a single voice came through the
speakers—an agitated male speaking Japanese. He snapped orders and, like
confused dogs, the converts obeyed. A step back. A step forward. Sit. Crouch.
Stand up. They obeyed, though it was obvious they hated that they did; their
venom poisoned the air, made Bryce’s eyes sting and his nose prickle. And their
skin twitched to the rhythm of the
whump-whump-whump
.

He kept going. “Calm,” Bryce whispered, focusing all of his
senses on the utility shaft door. The rhythm was stronger there, reverberating
off of the metal like a giant, noiseless bell. He’d be crazy, too, if he had to
listen to it day and night. “Calm.” A few more strides, and they’d be within
reach. The converts had caught a whiff of Randy, cocking their heads, sniffing
for a meal, but they weren’t fighting for it. Not as long as the Japanese man
kept talking. With mouths drawn back from their fangs and tongues stuck out to
taste the air, they shook their heads, unfamiliar with the scent of Wolfen.
Didn’t mean they wouldn’t decide to have a taste.

“You’ll never make it,” Randy goaded. “My little barbarians
are
ravenous
things, and food hasn’t been dropping out of the sky
lately. You’re the first people I’ve seen in a week. I hope they leave me a taste.”

Sinna clutched tighter at Bryce, silently urging him to move
faster. But he couldn’t. Too fast and it wouldn’t matter what they smelled
like. The converts would lash out like any other predator.

Within reach now. One careful step after another.

“I see they want to toy with you first. Marvelous. I could
use some entertainment.”

A beast to his left, a beast to his right, and a monster at
his back. Bryce slowed even more. The two converts cawed to each other, and one
reached out, claws skimming down Bryce’s arm. He held steady, kept going. When
the other touched Sinna’s hair, she flinched, but didn’t make a sound.

“What are you doing?” Randy demanded. “Eat them!”

A series of questioning squawks bounced between the pair,
and they strained against their chains to take a closer whiff, but in three
more steps, Bryce and Sinna were out of their reach. “We’re through,” he said.

“Stop!” Randy screamed. “Eat them!”

Bryce glanced back only long enough to see the idiot running
forward, then spun the wheel to open the door and herded Sinna through it.

“
Stop!
”

Randy had taught his pet barbarians well; the moment he was
close enough, flailing and shouting it was dinnertime, the converts pounced,
clawing at him. Randy squealed in pain, but he managed to slip free, away from
them, and the beasts screamed, strained madly to get at him, chains holding
them back.

Bryce pulled the door closed and spun the wheel to lock it.
It wasn’t soundproof. They could still hear Randy wailing, moaning, cursing out
the converts.

The bastard would live. At least as long as those chains
held.

Not about to risk the converts breaking free, Bryce opened
the hidden compartment and turned a lever to release the ladder. “Climb,” he
barked at Sinna, giving her a boost up. He followed right behind, climbing over
her to reach the latch in the ceiling. Overgrown with years of disuse, it had
at least five hundred pounds of earth and foliage sitting on top of it. Bryce,
standing on the swinging ladder, had little leverage to budge it. He stepped up
higher and, bracing his shoulder against it, pushed with all his might, hoping
the latch would give before the ladder did.

Roots tore, earth broke apart. Water poured in, almost
washing them back down, but Bryce held strong and kept Sinna anchored. He shoved
her into the storm and crawled out right after her, then released the ladder to
drop it down into the hole. Even if Randy or his beasts managed to get through
the door, they’d never be able to climb up this way.

He collapsed onto the grass next to Sinna, breathing hard
and squinting into the rain. The worst of the storm had passed. Pretty soon the
clouds would move on and there’d be enough sun to dry them out and charge the
mule.

They were safe—for the moment. The road wasn’t far; if they
followed it down a half-mile, they’d find the mule. The bunker was sealed, and
the two of them were outside and safe. Freezing, but safe.

After all that, there was only one thing Bryce could say: “I
told you so.”

You must face your fears or they will forever own you.

That’s the biggest lie ever told. Fear is a lesson. It is
learned for a reason and can never be unlearned. To remove it would be to
remove that part of yourself which knows there is danger in the darkness, that
there are times when you ought to run instead of fight, and hide instead of
challenge your enemy.

Fear keeps you alive.

It is my constant companion. But I think, one day, I will
learn to wield it.

I am not an object. I will not be owned.

~

It rained for hours in an endless deluge that flooded the
parched ground and took away any hope of building a fire. After trekking back
to the mule, Sinna was so stiff with cold, she couldn’t work the latch to open
the door. The cabin was flooded with water; with all of the windows gone, there
was no shelter or warmth to be found inside.

Bryce’s hands shook when he started the engine. The driving
rain forced him to take it slower, but even at thirty miles per hour, the
resulting wind stripped them both of any remaining body heat. “Get in the back
seat,” he said. “Sheet of plastic in storage bin. Hand it to me.”

Sinna nodded and climbed back there. Pulling out the
twelve-by-twelve-inch square of clear plastic with numb fingers was a
challenge. When she gave it to him, Bryce stopped the truck and pulled out a
knife. He cut a wide strip off of the sheet, carved out three arches, and put
it over his face like glasses.

“Now hunker down there. Out of the wind.”

She did, curling up on the floor behind his seat, making
herself as small as possible. It wasn’t difficult to do. Getting out again
would be the hard part.

Bryce stomped on the gas pedal and sped up, driving much too
fast in this weather. Wind howled through the broken windows, and raindrops
became small, icy bullets aimed at any exposed flesh. She wanted to cry out in
pain; couldn’t imagine what Bryce had to be feeling, completely exposed in the
driver’s seat.

But there was method to his madness.

Between one mile and the next, like passing from one world into
another, the rain simply stopped. Sinna raised her head to look out the back
window. The farther they got, the better she saw the storm as a clearly defined
area over the landscape.

Soon, the sun was above them again, and the ground was
drying out. There was still too little in the way of shelter and nothing to
burn for a fire, so Bryce kept going. He drove on for miles without a word or a
sound, as if the cold couldn’t touch him, but when Sinna shifted position
behind the other seat to see him, his lips were blue, his hands very pale on
the steering wheel, and his shoulders kept twitching in carefully contained
shivers.

“We need to stop,” she said.

His jaw muscles worked with effort. “Not yet.”

“Bryce, you’re freezing to death.”

He scoffed, mouth pulling into an ugly sneer. “Not even
close. Trust me.” So certain. As if he knew from experience.

“How long can you keep going?”

“Long as I have to.” He’d dropped the makeshift glasses a
while back, but their outline was still there; he was pale where they’d sat,
but beneath that, his skin had been stung bright red.

“Bryce, stop,” she said. “Please.”

He stubbornly shook his head. “No shelter.”

“So we’ll make our own.”

His jaw muscles jumped and his arms twitched, but his hands
hadn’t moved an inch from the steering wheel. She worried they were cramped
there.

“Don’t test me. You won’t win. Stop the truck.”

He ignored her.

Sinna climbed to the front. “I am not going to let you kill
yourself, you stubborn ass.” At their speed, she didn’t dare mess with his steering,
but at least she could share what little body heat she’d managed to retain.

Her hands were cold.

When she laid them over one of his, it felt like touching
ice.

She shivered but kept them there, warming his fingers enough
for him to unclench, and when he did, Sinna gently pulled his hand away. The
mule slowed to a stop, and she climbed onto his lap. “Put your arm around me.”

He did, lightly at first, but enough that she could feel the
tremors racking through his body. She hugged him closer, pressing into him,
weathering the wind so he wouldn’t have to. Bryce’s arm tightened, and then he
was squeezing her so hard, shaking even harder, as if he hadn’t realized how
cold he truly was before she showed him.

“Need to…get out of wet c-clothes.”

Sinna nodded, but couldn’t bring herself to let go. She was
so damned cold.

Bryce pried her away and set her aside. He got out of the
truck to strip, wrung out his clothes, then reached back inside for hers.

Sinna struggled with her boot laces. When they finally came
undone, she quickly took everything off and handed it over. He gave her back a
wrinkled wad of material. Almost dry, but not enough. Then he ducked into the
back and cut out huge chunks of upholstery off of the bench. Without enough
duct tape left to secure it over the back and side windows, Bryce used his
smaller knives to pin it in place. He did the same with half of the windows on
the other side, then pushed the front seats as far forward as they could go.
With their clothes hung over the back rests like curtains, it was as good a
shelter as they could manage.

Bryce wedged into the cramped space on the floor and pulled
Sinna on top of him. There, they huddled in a tight clutch of misery until the
sun set and took the last of its promise of warmth away.

With darkness came weariness; the massive surge of
adrenaline had long since drained out of Sinna, and hypothermia had stripped
away her ability to keep her eyes open. She wasn’t cold anymore, and wasn’t
sure what that meant, but she didn’t much care. Bryce’s steady heartbeat
thumped beneath her cheek, and with every breath, the rise and fall of his
chest rocked her. With one of his arms curled tight around her waist and the
other around her shoulders, fingers tangled in her hair, Sinna felt safe,
hidden away in secret.

Her eyelids drooped closed, then opened half-mast.

One more blink, and they stayed closed.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Bryce warned.

Sinna hummed a vague answer, already half a world away.

~

Next morning, a bright shaft of sunlight teased her awake.
Sinna turned her face away, needing just a few more minutes. She was warm and
so comfortable, she never wanted to move again. Besides, after all of that crap
yesterday, she deserved a little rest, didn’t she?

Her comfy bed inflated in a massive breath, then hardened in
a morning stretch. Arms around her tightened and a bristly chin brushed against
her temple. Then the whole of it turned sideways, pinned her between it and a
cold, hard surface, and curled around her like a vise.

Sinna shrugged prosaically and settled back into its warmth.
Just a few more minutes.

But her bed wasn’t done moving. Her headrest pulled away,
snapping a few strands of hair to get free, then it petted her curls, pulling
them straight, and letting them bounce back to tickle her face.

Sinna wriggled her nose, and frowned. Beds were not supposed
to wake people up. Especially not after a traumatic near-death experience. She
grumbled, and burrowed her face deeper into a warm crook shaped just for her.
Her unruly hair caught on stubbly bristles and brushed from her face all on its
own. Sinna sighed, contented for a few more seconds.

Breath huffed against her neck, while warm hands stroked
along her shoulder and back. “Sinna, it’s time to wake up.”

She groaned, and it somehow turned into a purr. “Fi’ mor’
minis.”

Lips smiled against her jaw. “We have to keep going.”

Damn it.
“I will bite you.” A useless protest, since
she was already awake.

Bryce chuckled and peeled away, taking her ever-so-comfy
warm bed with him.

Sinna growled and elbowed herself up to sit so she could rub
the sleep from her eyes. Clothes rained down on her before her brain fully
kicked in, and she stared at them for a moment until she figured out what they
were for.

Oh, right. Naked.

She ducked her head to sneak a covert glance outside, but
Bryce was already dressed, facing away to check out the landscape. Not that
she’d been spying or anything!

Face burning, she shook out her clothes and stuffed her
limbs into them.

Everything smelled like rain. Nature’s most enticing
perfume, as far as Sinna was concerned. She dressed, and climbed into the front
seat, but her boots were still wet. Wrinkling her nose, Sinna stepped out of
the truck barefoot and stretched her arms wide to hug the sun. “Look! It’s back!
We are saved!”

Bryce barely acknowledged her enthusiasm, too busy taking
down their shelter. The upholstery went into the storage under the back bench,
the knives into their harnesses. “Get back in. We have to go.” It was surly,
and as close to an order as he’d ever come.

Sinna flinched. “Aren’t we going to talk about…you know…”
The
naked thing?

Bryce grunted.

Sinna frowned at his non-answer. “Is something wrong?”

“Wasted enough time yesterday. Move it, we’re losing daylight.”
He never even looked at her, just went around to check the truck bed. He might
as well have hit her.

“Right,” she said softly. “Of course, I understand.” Wasted
time. Because of
her
. Because if she hadn’t been there, hadn’t insisted
they care about another human being, Bryce would have kept going. He probably
would have driven a hundred more miles before the storm forced him to stop—if
it forced him to stop at all.

It’s not us against them. It’s us against everything
else.

She hadn’t believed him, and it had almost cost them their
lives.

It made Bryce none too happy. Gone was the easy camaraderie
of a few days ago when Sinna had felt like she fit in with the brothers, like
she was truly one of their own. Now, a deep sense of shame at her own foolishness
had created an ache in her chest that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she
rubbed at it.

Idiot.
It was a wonder Bryce didn’t leave her here on
the side of the road. He could teach her archery and knife fighting, and spend
hours drilling her on the proper use of firearms, but none of that would change
who she was. When push came to shove, Sinna would always—
always
—assume
someone was a friend until they proved her wrong, even at her own peril. It had
always been only a matter of time before the brothers realized she was too much
of a liability to keep around.

Finished with the preparations, Bryce turned on his heels to
get going, but pulled up short when Sinna failed to move out of the way fast
enough. For the first time that morning, he met her gaze.

Sinna ducked her head and moved out of his way.

“Sin—”

“We’re wasting daylight,” she reminded him.

With the mule charged as much as it could be, they set off.

Bryce was silent, intent on the path before them.

After two dozen miles, Sinna couldn’t take the silence
anymore. He didn’t want to talk? Too bad. They had things they needed to
discuss. “That place back there,” she said, braving a glance at his profile.
“Was it really another den?” From the right, his face was flawless; strong and
proud, grizzled with a beard that made him look even more dangerous than she
knew him to be. Without his scars, he’d have been just as much a heartthrob as
Aiden, but there was something grave about him, a darkness, as if he always
walked in shadow, even when standing in the sun.

“Yes,” he grated without glancing her way. A monosyllabic
answer to communicate the end to that discussion.

Sinna persisted. “How many are there?”

Bryce’s mouth twisted. “Who the hell knows?”

“How could they have built them without someone taking
notice?” Randy’s den had been huge. No way all of that building could have
happened in secret. Someone must have seen.

Bryce said nothing.

“Do you remember what it was like?”

He glanced at her, then reached over to take her hand. His
thumb traced the thin scar on her forearm. “Like you would imagine: every
twisted sci-fi movie ever made.”

When he released her, Sinna frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“Good.”

This time, Sinna didn’t push for more. “Yeah, just being
there yesterday was bad enough. You’d think if they were smart enough to create
us, they’d have the technology to make quieter generators.”

“The sound in the walls, you mean?”

“If you can call it a sound.”

“That wasn’t a generator.”

Sinna frowned. “Then what was it?”

Bryce shrugged. It’d probably take industrial-sized pliers
to pull more words out of him.

Sinna drew her feet up onto her seat, hugged her knees, and
let the subject drop. After a while, the tension eased, and she started to
enjoy the peace and quiet.

The road south wasn’t all that terrible. Sign boards, where
they could find them, were weathered and broken, but one or two were legible
enough to indicate they were going the right way. In between, faded billboards
advertised exciting new gadgets and competitive cash back rates on credit
cards. The lighted soda sign was a rusted red background dotted with shattered
light bulbs.

They gave cities a wide berth, but in the end, hunger forced
them closer. There was no avoiding it if they wanted to stay on solid pavement.
But the closer they got to the larger towns, the more obstructed the road
became, forcing them down to a snail’s pace, weaving around potholes and sunken
cement that stretched for half-mile intervals, abandoned cars and wrecked
container trucks.

At first, they stopped at every stalled car to pilfer for
supplies. They found a few bottles of water in one, and drained them on the
spot. Another had a blanket in the back seat, and a couple of cheap plastic
rain ponchos in the trunk. Bryce used those to cover the rear windows.