Wolfen (53 page)

Helena likes to talk. From the moment her eyes open in
the morning, to the moment they close at night, the woman flaps her gums and
will not shut up. It’s almost like having Aiden back, except he at least makes
conversation about interesting stuff. Helena just talks, mostly about herself.

It’s enough to drive anyone crazy. By the end of the
first day, Bryce is bristling something awful, and I have a killer headache.
But neither of us says anything. A response of any kind only encourages more
talk. We eat dinner and bed down, with Bryce taking first watch. I don’t sleep
very well. I keep dreaming that I’m in free fall and jerking myself awake. On
the third time, I wake enough to hear hushed voices from across the campfire.
Bryce and Helena are talking—a real conversation—and from the handful of words
I manage to decipher, I know it’s nothing pleasant. My heart aches for Bryce; I
know he hates discussing the past, but he’s doing it anyway, because Helena
needs to know. Aiden isn’t here to school her the way he had me, so it’s all up
to Bryce. I want to go to them, offer what little comfort I can, but somehow
the scene looks so intimate, I feel like an intruder for looking on. I curl up
tight beneath my blanket, close my eyes, and will myself back to sleep.

When we set out the next day, I brace for more relentless
noise. But as soon as we hit the road, Helena grows quiet. I don’t think she’s
ever been this far outside of Hopetown before. It must not be what she
expected.

Armed with a map, we are taking a more direct route back
to Haven. The scenery is different, but it all looks the same. The wasted
cities, sprawling drylands, broken roads, and dead silence are what I’m used
to. It’s familiar ground to me, though I know the desolate silence outside the
mule’s cabin is dangerously deceptive.

Helena pays attention, watches the landscape for threats,
and when debris and damaged roadways slow us down, she curses and crawls out
the back window, taking over Bryce’s watch spot as if it was made for her.

We drive almost nonstop. With plenty of food and water,
we have no need to hunt or gather, and now that we have a plan of sorts, a real
shot at getting Aiden back, Bryce is tireless, pushing the mule to the limit.
Close to noon on the third day, we reach familiar ground, and Bryce stops the
mule at the foot of a small hill. He just sits there, clutching the steering
wheel in a white-knuckled grip for so long it makes me fidget.

Helena is just as tense. “We’re here,” she guesses, but
doesn’t move.

Something’s wrong.

When Bryce gets out and tells us to stay inside, neither
Helena nor I have any inclination to obey. We get on our bellies and crawl up
the hill after him. It’s hot and dry, the sun beating down relentlessly,
turning the ground into a frying pan with sharp, brittle blades of grass. The
dust we kick up covers me from head to toe. I breathe it in and hold back a
cough. My eyes water, but I can’t stop now, can’t hold the others back.

And then we’re at the top, looking down at Haven, nestled
in a valley four miles across the wide open space.

I have never seen so many Grays in one place before in my
life.

~

Haven was gone.

The walls still stood, but the shacks inside had been
toppled, piles of metal and debris lying throughout the enclosure as if someone
had gone on a rampage and leveled the place. The scent of a recent fire still
hung in the air, stinging Sinna’s nose.

On either side of her, Bryce and Helena were transfixed by
the sight. The valley clearing, deliberately leveled on all sides to better see
an enemy approaching, was crawling with converts. They stumbled around, but
there was something very deliberate about the way they moved. Circling. As if
they were guarding their prize. At times they’d slam into one other and a fight
would break out, drawing a number of them into the fray, but they never
devolved into chaos. Something always stopped them, and they went back to what
they’d been doing.

“There must be hundreds,” Helena mumbled.

Bryce’s entire body quaked, radiating aggression like a
massive heat wave.

Sinna laid a careful hand onto his forearm. “Bryce…”

His arm twitched, and he sucked in a sharp breath. When he
exhaled, it was on a growl so low, Sinna barely heard it, but its rumble
translated into the ground and caused a tremor she felt to the marrow of her
bones. She snatched her hand back.

“This can’t be the place,” Helena said. “There’s…nothing
there.”

Nothing, and no one.

Sinna gulped. “They could have gotten out,” she said,
grasping at straws. “They had escape tunnels, trained guards. They would have
been long gone by the time…” The breeze struck her flat in the face and called
her a liar. Downwind of Haven, the reek of burning hair and bone turned her
stomach.

“Gate,” Bryce said, his voice unrecognizable.

Sinna looked at the undisturbed gates of Haven—the portal,
and the entire perimeter was still intact. There was no discernible damage to
the walls, and no sign of an attack. The colony, it seemed, had been destroyed
from the inside. Sinna shook her head. “It doesn’t mean anything. Aiden would
have found a way out. There’s no way he wouldn’t have.” He was a survivor.
“He’s safe, I know it.”

“And Desiree?” Helena’s voice quavered, but not with
anguish. She was shaking with fury.

Sinna didn’t know what to say. “Maybe Klaus got her out,”
she tried, but didn’t believe it herself.

Helena’s face scrunched up and shifted. Unlike Bryce, her
transformation was more subtle, almost delicate; her eyes changed color, lips
drawing back to reveal small, sharp fangs.

Bryce reached over Sinna, grasping Helena’s shoulder.

The moment he touched her, Helena snapped at him.

He yanked back, curling an arm around Sinna on the retreat,
and he rolled over, depositing her on the other side safely away from Helena.
Then he faced the girl, snarling, “Pull it back.”

Helena hissed, but her real target was down in that valley,
and she launched at them, driven by anger and mindless violence.

Bryce snatched her ankle, dragged her back down the hill,
moving fast to keep her off balance.

Sinna scurried after them, ducking out of sight of the
compound. They were fighting like dogs—biting and clawing, kicking up a dust
cloud as tall as she was. Bryce easily overpowered Helena, but Sinna wasn’t
worried about him winning. She worried he would tear the girl limb from limb.
Keep
it together. Keep it together!

By the time she reached them, Bryce had Helena pinned to the
ground by the throat. His claws and fangs were out, but nowhere near like in
Hopetown. He was holding on—somehow. Underneath, Helena fought like hell to
dislodge him. Bryce’s choke hold cut off her screams, but didn’t stop her from
ripping into him in other ways; she’d shredded the skin on his arms, blood
dripping before the wounds healed over. Helena kicked out erratically, without
focus enough to form a strategy and do real damage.

Bryce snarled and snapped his fangs in her face a fraction
of an inch from her nose. And he stayed there, staring her down until she
settled. A long time passed before Helena finally came down and the effort left
her gasping, arms flung out to her sides as though she couldn’t lift them
anymore.

“We go around,” Bryce declared, and it was like he’d ripped
out his own heart with the words. He didn’t say it, but Sinna knew. Those
tunnel cells had been reinforced. Converts might not have gotten in. If Aiden
was still down there, odds were good he was still alive. His brother. Alive,
and trapped down there. And Bryce couldn’t go free him with two females in
tow—Sinna wasn’t strong enough, and Helena was completely out of control, worse
than Bryce.

“Not a chance,” Helena rasped, then she groaned like an old
woman, rising to her feet. She had to lean against the mule to stay upright.
“Those motherfuckers killed my sister. You go on and take Barbie around, but
I’m going that way.” She pointed dead ahead. “I’m gonna wipe them off the face
of this Earth.”

“Don’t do this,” he warned.

“Don’t have a choice,” Helena replied. “You said your brother
was down there. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same damn thing if…”

“If what?” he challenged.

“If it weren’t for me,” Sinna said, and Bryce, still facing
Helena, went rigid. “She’s right. If I wasn’t here, you’d already be down
there, and you know it.”

Bryce turned on her. “Stop.”

“Why? I’m only saying what we’re all thinking. You want to
go around? Which way? And how far? Remember why we turned south in the first
place? And what are you going to tell your pack when you come home without
Aiden? That you traded his life for mine?”

“Sinna…”

“There’s three of us,” Helena said, “and a whole lot of
firepower. We play this right, we can take down a shitload of them before we
run out of steam.”

“And then what?” Bryce growled.

“Dunno about you, but like my idol, Bon Jovi, says, if I’m
goin’ down, might as well be in a blaze of motherfucking glory.”

“You’re an idiot,” Sinna retorted.

“Hey! Jon Bon Jovi is a legend.”

Sinna ignored her, drawing Bryce’s attention back. “We can use
the tunnels,” she said. “If we make enough ruckus, it’ll draw them out. We go
straight in, they won’t expect it. And we’ll get out through the tunnels.”

“No,” Bryce said. “We’re going around. If Aiden were here—”

“He’s
not
here,” Sinna snapped. “He could still be
down there in that cell, waiting for us. That’s what we came here for, right?
That was the whole point of this little trip—to get Aiden out.”

Bryce’s jaw clenched so tightly, she could almost hear his
teeth grinding together, and his hands balled into fists, seeping blood between
the fingers. Wind swept his hair back, baring his scars to the sun. He looked
murderous, and so torn, it broke her heart.

Then the wind changed, and his chin dipped, hiding his face
from her. His shoulders sagged in defeat.

A shriek echoed down in the valley, sending chills up
Sinna’s spine.

Helena sighed and pushed off from the mule, pulling her
armor out of the weapons stores. “Well, looks like the discussion’s over.”

Fifty Wolfen walk into a convert bar. Everybody drops
dead.

Wishful thinking on my part, but what the hell. Everyone
needs aspirations, right? We haul ass back south, me at the head of the fleet.
Every last mule from the stable is chugga-chugga-chugging along behind me like
a damn funeral procession, and inside them, every Wolfen present is cracking
asinine jokes.

For once, I don’t have the stomach to join in the
horseplay.

I keep seeing Haven overrun with converts. People
screaming as they’re torn apart for a fast meal. Klaus bailing out, using his
own people as a convenient distraction to make a clean escape, and I can’t stop
myself thinking,
Will that be me?

The fifty Wolfen so ready to lay their lives on the line
for the greater good are trusting me implicitly. Their alpha’s kept them alive
and safe this long, risked his own life countless times to make sure they had
all they needed. He wouldn’t lead them to slaughter now. He knows what he’s
doing.

Yeah. That’s exactly the problem: I know.

I know the places we pass. There’s the site of Arik’s
last feeble stand. The corpses are gone, dragged away and picked apart by
wildlife, but the jeep we drove to this point still stands, tires melted to the
road, metal top hot enough to fry bacon. I know the place where we go off road,
and the little nothing-of-a-hill we go over. No need to check out the car
parked beneath the trees; it’s dead as a doornail, the rusted skeleton remains
of a civilization long dead and devoured.

I know what to expect beyond that tree line, too—a
swarming, ravening sea of converts aboveground and below, ones conditioned not
to avoid Wolfen, but to seek them out like a rare delicacy.

I know once the fighting starts, it’ll be so thick, no
one will see me slip away.

And I know there’s a chance, however small, that once
they figure out I’m gone, the troops will lose their heads and give the other
side an advantage the converts might be smart enough to exploit.

Tessa, my copilot, complains I’m too quiet. She requests
I sing something. I have nothing to offer her—no ready jokes, no jaunty tunes
to lighten the mood.

I tell myself I’ll stay long enough to make sure the tide
is in our favor, to see them through the worst of it. I’ll take my time
fighting my way through to the other side, take down as many of the fuckers as
I can along the way, but I will not stop. Once I’m through, I won’t look back.
I can’t. Bryce is my brother, my blood. He’s stood by me from the moment an
orderly led him to the playroom that first day; saved my life so many times I
lost count. He’s bled for me—for all of us. He’s killed for us, almost died for
us, and like every other dog in this little rebel army, instead of being hailed
as a hero, he’s feared by the pack. Too strong. Too unpredictable. A factor
one; the only one still alive and unconverted. They accept him among them
because of me, but never let a pup play too close. Never take their eyes off of
him when a fight breaks out. Never forget what he’s done for them, and how
easily he could do it again—
to
them.

He knows all of this, too. Yet he’s never let them down.
Not once.

Montana is safe. They’re set for whatever comes next.

My brother and his mate are not. So guess who I’m going
to be fighting for.

Past the hill, we slow to a quiet crawl. The wind’s
against us. Don’t know how well the scent blocker will last. I can already feel
a charge in the air; an oppressive weight that won’t be relieved by a cool
breeze.

In a couple more miles, when we’ve got a handful of trees
around us for cover, I order a full stop and dismount. Beyond that line of
trees, the landscape opens up, and Haven is right there. The mules make great
battering rams, but once they plow into the swarm, anyone inside one will end
up trapped like canned tuna. It’ll be infantry only from this point on.

Spencer is our lookout. While everyone piles out and
starts stretching their legs and readying weapons, he climbs the highest tree
he can find.

Less than two minutes later, he’s dropping back down and
stumbling over to me. He doesn’t say a word, just drags me over to the tree,
points up, and hands me a scope. His face is flushed, nostrils flared; he’s
breathing hard as if he can barely contain himself, aching to plunge into
battle—hungry for it. But his gaze is steady, hard, as he stares me down, a
wordless command to hurry the fuck up.

We’re attracting an audience, standing there. Tessa comes
over, frowning. Several others raise their heads in question.

I take the scope and climb. Spencer’s a wiry bastard; I
can’t climb as high as he did, but it’s enough to catch a glimpse of the
clearing around Haven. It’s even worse than I expected. There are too many of
them, and they look established already. The compound is surrounded. No way
they won’t catch onto us the moment we leave the trees.

Spencer chirps from the next tree over to get my
attention. He makes a peace sign and points to his eyes. He traces a hill in
the air, makes a fist and pulls it down.

I bring the scope back to my eyes and pan up, past Haven
to the hill on the other side. I trace its contours slowly, looking for
whatever made Spencer flip. Movement catches my eye, and I adjust the range to
focus on the grass at the top of a crest.

“Son of a bitch!”

~

Spencer beaned him with a pine cone, but it wasn’t like the
horde could hear them.

Aiden climbed down, mind racing. The others stared at him,
waiting for orders, news of the battlefield—something.

Spencer dropped beside him. “This is good, right?”

“What’s going on?” Tessa asked.

“We can do this,” Spencer said, bouncing on his toes. “Holy
shit, are you kidding me? We can totally do this!”

“Okay someone talk to me.”

Aiden paced two short steps to the tree and back again. It
wasn’t enough room. “This changes everything.”

“Hell yeah, it does!” Spencer punched the air. “Might as well
sit back and let the B-man handle this. Boys and girls, we’re goin’ home!”

A hum of conversation turned into a free-for-all with
everyone talking over each other, demanding answers, asking about the plan.
Spencer wouldn’t shut his mouth, speaking for Aiden as if he had a clue what
the fuck he was talking about. He was convincing the others of something stupid
before Aiden could get his thoughts together.

Tessa, bless her heart, put an end to it. “Everyone
shut
up!
”

Kind, soft-spoken Tessa hollering at the top of her lungs?
Everyone clammed up to stare.

“Go on, Aiden.”

Shit. Now what?
Okay, buddy. Think it through.
“Bryce
is across the valley.”

“Yeah, we know,” Morgan said. “He went south instead of
north. We ain’t a search party, man. We’ve got us some converts to kill.”

“No, he’s just across the valley. Maybe seven miles south
right now. I saw him.”

Another wave of verbal noise.

Aiden held up his hands. “Shut up. This isn’t a good thing.
I saw him, but he didn’t see me. And he’s got two females with him. One of them
I know for a fact can’t make it across on her own, the other’s human. So
whatever you think he can do down there, he won’t.”

“What, are you kidding me?” Spencer piped in. “This is the
B-man we’re talking about. You know what he can do.”

“I’m starting to think you
don’t,
” Aiden countered.
“None of you.” They had no idea what Bryce’s rampage had done to him back then.
He’d stopped talking after it happened—you’d think that would give them a clue.
“Shit hits the fan down there, he won’t be fighting to kill, he’ll be fighting
to protect. He’ll use himself as a shield, and if that means getting himself
torn to shreds so the females have five more seconds’ head start to escape,
that’s what he’s going to do.” It’s what any of them would do. “He’s going to
get himself killed if we don’t do something. And without him, the females won’t
last a second.”

“We need to send up a signal,” Tessa said. “Let him know
we’re here.”

“Love to,” Morgan replied, eyebrow raised. “Can’t. Converts might
see it. Bring the whole lot of them our way. We need the element of surprise.”

“But—”

“He’s right,” Aiden agreed. “We have to strike while they’re
not expecting it, otherwise we’re all fucked. Our attack’s gonna have to be
enough.” Shitty way to say howdy. “We can use the mules. Two ought to do it.”
Yeah, now he was thinking! “I’ll need a volunteer behind the wheel, and we’ll
have two on the top guns, one more on the truck for leverage. The rest of you
on foot, behind us.”

Tessa stepped up. “I’m in.”

“The hell you are,” Spencer said. “I’ll take the rig.”

“Let’s not argue here,” Morgan crowed. “We all know I’m the
best driver of all you lot. I’ll be the second.”

“Choose your engine, Morgan,” Aiden said. “We’ll hit ‘em
full speed, and I don’t want you in that cabin when we do. Set the pedal, and
get the hell out of there. Top guns will cover us. It’ll be close quarters, so
once you hit the ground, save your bullets. Take their heads if you can. If
not, the more damage you can do, the better. And don’t count on them turning on
each other. These things are beyond anything we’ve come across so far.”

While he talked, the dogs sorted out their weapons. Half of
them carried katana swords like Bryce; light and sharp as hell, easy to wield
and capable of doing a lot of damage. A couple preferred machetes and other
assorted blades, but a good number carried only short throwing knives,
preferring to use claws and fangs.

Morgan broke out the windows on his mule, then talked things
through with his team. Aiden did the same with his own. Spencer and Trey were
on the top guns, Kiera on the truck. She winked at him, twirling a stiletto
between her fingers. Big, the female was not, but she made up for it with speed
and a vicious streak that made people who crossed her break out in a cold sweat
in the middle of the night. She also had wicked-sharp little blades attached to
the ends of her many braids like a cat-o’-nine-tails, spurs on her heels, and
armguards with shark scale hooks. There wasn’t a part of that girl that wasn’t
a weapon.

“You all know what to do?”

Kiera grinned, flashing a sharp white fang. “Yeah, boy, we
bring da thundah!
Haroo! Haroo!
”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “How many times I gotta tell you?
You’re not a Spartan.”

“Damn right I’m not. I would’ve whooped all their asses.”

“Big talk for such a little girl,” Trey taunted. He caught
several braids and tugged. “You need a haircut. It’d be a shame if all these
doodads got caught somewhere.”

Kiera snarled and pulled her hair free, slicing his palm
open with the blades. “You were sayin’?”

“Damn,” Trey said with a sharp grin. “I do love me a
dangerous woman.”

Aiden laughed. “This one might be too dangerous for you.”

A shriek rent the air in the valley.

Aiden swore. “Ride! Ride! Ride!”

The mules burst from the tree line with an ungodly ruckus as
they sped across the clearing, a small army of Wolfen in their wake. Aiden
glanced sideways. Morgan was several yards to his right. He floored it. At
least fifty converts spilled south toward the hill, but the rest stayed where they
were. Until they saw the Wolfen coming and let out high-pitched squeals so
loud, windows would have shattered, had there been any left. Aiden roared in
pain, but didn’t dare take his hands from the wheel.

In the back, Spencer screamed his reply and opened fire,
mowing down the front line as it rushed them. A dozen down. Two. Three. Still,
more kept coming, leaping over their fallen to get at the enemy.

“Get ready!” Aiden shouted. No telling if anyone heard him.
He jammed the pedal down until it stuck to the floor and shouldered the door
open at eighty miles an hour over rough terrain, with bullets flying and
cannibals rushing at him like a tidal wave.

Too many.

The plan would have to change.

Aiden looked back at his crew. Kiera held on for dear life,
crouched at the very end of the truck bed. Spencer and Trey were on the guns,
covering for each other; the spray of bullets never stopped while the other
reloaded. They left a trail of shells in their wake. The barrels would be
overheating soon.

Breathe. Not yet.

The guns didn’t overheat. They ran out of ammo. Spencer
swore and pulled a handgun. Trey didn’t have one.

Closing…

Closing…

Not yet.

Somewhere in the middle of the drove, a convert roared, and the
entire lot of them started to leap into the air like grasshoppers; moving
targets Spencer couldn’t get at, not as fast as they were going.

Hold steady.
“Off!” he shouted. “Get off!”

They didn’t hear him.

A convert landed on the mule’s roof, gunning for Spencer.

Trey took it down, tossing the headless corpse aside.

“Get off the truck!”

Nothing.

A second convert jumped onto the hood, but slid off before
he could get to Aiden.

One more right on its heels, aimed higher and propelled off
the dash, knocking Spencer down onto the truck bed.

Kiera screamed the full force of her wrath, sounding an
alarm.

Aiden fishtailed to dislodge them all. “Come on, guys,” he
muttered, having given up on verbal signals. “Get off the fucking truck.”

Almost… Almost…

Trey figured it out first. He met eyes with Aiden in the
rearview mirror, and gave a nod. “Luck, brother.” Then he grabbed Kiera and
tossed her from the truck. Spencer fought him, but Trey tripped them both off
of the platform, and the mule raised a few inches.