All Hallows' Moon (22 page)

Rylie’s hand clamped down on Dean Block’s wrist, and she pinned her against the wall without any effort. The older woman struggled. She could barely move in the iron grip of the wolf.

“I said I didn’t do it,” Rylie growled. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Got it?”

She didn’t realize how hard she had been holding onto the dean until she let go and the woman sprawled across the floor. Dean Block’s hand landed on the lamb and slipped. Her head bounced against the linoleum.

The shout of surprise went right to Rylie’s stomach. Her heart pounded. She felt dizzy.

There was blood everywhere. It smelled amazing.

Humans were even better than lamb.

“No,” Rylie whispered.

She fled the bathroom before Dean Block could collect herself. When she hit the quad, she kept running.

Rylie was going to get in trouble this time. A
lot
of trouble. Throwing the book had been one thing, but pushing the dean meant a call to the police. She couldn’t get taken into custody. She would transform and kill everyone.

She ran through town blindly, propelled by the wolf’s hunger. The smell of blood had driven her to the edge of starvation. She needed to eat something.
Anything
.

The sun was high in the sky, burning through her body even though the air was chilly. Running was hard on two legs. She wanted to drop to all fours and flee into the forest. The wolf longed for freezing rivers and pine trees, for cold stone and warm earth.

But most of all, she longed to sink her teeth into something hot and alive.

She ran past a house with a dog in the front yard. It leaped at her, barking wildly.

Rylie stopped dead on the sidewalk.

It was a little thing with short yellow fur. A Chihuahua, she thought, even though she didn’t know much about dogs. It bared its teeth and barked like it was ten times bigger.

She reached over the fence and grabbed it by the neck. Small jaws snapped at her as it thrashed like a tiny, furious demon.

No. This is wrong…

Her human side was growing fainter every second.

Giving it a hard shake made the dog yelp. She could snap its neck so easily and tear into its soft belly. She could—

“Hey! Get your hands off my dog!”

A fat woman burst through the front door of the house, pulling her pants up as she rushed down the sidewalk. The dog twisted and sunk its teeth into Rylie’s wrist. Shocked, she dropped it to the ground.

“What are you doing, you sick freak? Get away from my house!” The woman ripped a lawn decoration out of her yard and brandished the spiked end at her. “I’ll call the police!” She shoved the gate open, letting the Chihuahua dart into the yard again.

Rylie ducked beneath the swinging spike, and then she shoved.

The huge woman flew through the air. Her back crashed into the white picket fence. She screamed and screamed and
screamed
.

So hungry
.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone must have called for help.

The noise scared Rylie enough that she broke into a run again, and this time, Rylie didn’t let herself stop for anything.

The world was a blur of sound and scent and sirens. Cars blew past her. She ran between two houses and climbed a fence into a farm. Stalks of corn ripped at her as she blasted through the fields.

When she reached the end of her aunt’s property, she let herself collapse. Her skin was going to rip itself off her body.

She screamed and tore at her hair.

Hungry
.

Her stomach turned inside out. The wolf was consuming her. She could feel its teeth scraping against her ribs and its claws digging into her gut.

Something was moving in the field.

Goats.

Her gaze sharpened on them. The flock pressed themselves into a corner, bleating pathetically.

It was too much. She couldn’t control herself anymore.

Rylie lunged.

The flock scattered, but she was faster than they were, and her clawed hands fell upon a small goat near the back. She pinned it to the earth and buried her teeth in its throat.

Hot blood exploded across her tongue. It spurted with every beat of the goat’s slowing heart. Its helpless cries became strangled as little hooves kicked at the air. The musky fur tasted like dirt, but the meat was so juicy on her tongue.

Ripping her head away, she grabbed the head of the goat and twisted. It snapped. Then it didn’t make noise at all.

Rylie dug in. It was like the first breath of air after being drowned in the ocean. The relief of having food—
real
food—made her relax instantly. Every bite was more delicious than the last.

When she threw the goat aside, it didn’t look like an animal anymore.

And she was still hungry.

The wolf attacked the goats one after another. She ripped out their throats and feasted on their flesh. It was never enough. The more she devoured, the hungrier she became.

When she finished tearing into her fifth goat, Rylie let its carcass fall and sat back on her haunches. She licked her fingers, savoring the tastes lingering on her tongue.

The sun was dropping. The moon’s pull was rising.

But Rylie was already gone.

Footsteps.

“My son thinks you’re different,” said a woman’s voice. “If only he were here to see how wrong he is.”

The wolf spun too late.

Eleanor aimed a gun at her. She tried to remember human words so she could protest, but she didn’t get a chance.

The pistol fired with a thunderous crack.

Eighteen

The Choice

“Wake up. I’ve got a present for you.”

Sleep peeled away from Seth slowly. It was like trying to pull himself out of a pit of quicksand. But when he saw his mother’s face over his, with a knife in her hand, he came to his senses with a shock.

He tried to jerk away from her, but there was nowhere to go. She had tied his wrists and ankles behind his back. His limbs were completely numb.

Seth was in the same place he had spent the night—the storage space beneath their mobile home. He spent all day struggling to get free by rubbing the ropes against the edge of a wooden post, but he hadn’t gotten anywhere. Spiders had been crawling on him for hours.

Somehow, the worst part wasn’t being hogtied by Eleanor and shoved under the dark floor of a trailer. It wasn’t having a wolf spider spend half the night on his cheek, either. The worst part was imagining what his mom might do to Rylie while he was bound.

“Mom,” he growled. It came out sounding like an insult.

She rolled him over and sliced the ropes off his wrists. Sensation began returning with electric jolts, and he groaned, rubbing at his arms.

“Can you move?” she asked. He nodded. It was only a half-truth. When he tried to wiggle his toes, tingling pain shot through his whole body. But admitting he would be slow to move seemed like a terrible idea when his mother had a silver knife the length of his forearm. “Good. I have something to show you.”

She crept out of the crawlspace, and Seth followed. “I thought I was in trouble.”

“Oh, you are. But you’ve got a chance to make it better.”

Night had fallen again. Seth felt total disorientation. It had been night when his mom threw him beneath the trailer, but even though he lost track of the time, he was sure it must have been at least a day since their confrontation. It couldn’t be the same night, could it?

“What time is it?” he asked

“Just after sunset.”

He heard a thumping from the bedroom. “What is that?”

“Abel. He’s bad tonight,” she said.

“Is he going to change?”

“No, but he hurts like hell. The moon’s really beating him tonight.” Eleanor’s lip curled. “You have that
thing
to thank for it.” Seth moved for the door to check on him, but her fingers bit into his shoulder. “We can’t do anything for him. We’ve got something else to do tonight.”

She pulled him outside. The moon filled the sky. He realized with a shudder that Rylie must have changed. Had she gotten somewhere safe for the transformation?

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“You’ll see. Get in the car.”

They got into the Chevelle. It looked like half of their guns had been put in the backseat.

“I’m not going to hunt tonight,” he said as Eleanor drove into the night.

“You won’t have to.”

He wasn’t surprised when they pulled up to the Gresham ranch and parked behind the barn. Seth jumped out of the car, and he heard his mom’s footsteps behind him as he moved for the house.

A silver shape emerged in the darkness. It was hard to make out at first, but as he got closer, Seth realized it was a cage. The bars were made of silver-laced iron. They used it to trap werewolves.

And there was a huge, golden-furred form inside it.

“Rylie!” he shouted, but Eleanor moved in his way.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, clenching his shirt in her fist. “I gave birth to you, Seth. I raised you. Your daddy and I trained you to be a warrior for God against evil. Your affair with this… thing… is treason against your own blood.”

He couldn’t tear his eyes from Rylie. She thrashed against the bars. Every time she touched the iron, she jerked back again with a shrill cry. Her entire body seized. Eleanor had scattered wolfsbane across the ground, too, so there was nowhere safe for her to go.

Blood bubbled out of a bullet wound on her shoulder. Eleanor had already shot her.

Rylie would tear herself apart if she wasn’t poisoned first.

“You’re torturing her,” Seth said.

“I saved her for you.”

Cold shocked through him. “What?”

Eleanor handed one of the rifles to him. The metal was cold and heavy in his hands.

“This thing tried to kill her. She would kill you if she had the chance. You’re going to shoot her and prove you’re not as much of a waste as I think you are.”

Rylie gave a long, agonized howl.

Seth’s heart ached for her. Death would have been a mercy. Even if she survived, she would be in misery for weeks. The silver poisoning would be severe.

He stepped forward. Eleanor didn’t stop him.

The wolf whined as he pointed the muzzle of his rifle through the bars.

“Do it already, Seth,” she snapped. “I will if you won’t.”

He could save her from the pain.

Rylie grew weaker. She jumped at the bars one last time, rattling the entire cage, and then she collapsed. Her flesh sizzled. The pain must have been intense, but she didn’t twitch.

She was slipping away from him, dying as he watched.

He knelt. “Are you there?” he whispered, but she didn’t react. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth. She was drooling blood.

“Shoot her!”

No more. He couldn’t watch for another second.

“I’m sorry, Rylie.”

Seth fired.

The wolf shrieked…

…and the bullet smacked into the lock, shattering the metal. The latch swung open. The silence that followed was only broken by Rylie’s whimpering.

Eleanor immediately raised her gun, and he saw her finger tense on the trigger. He whirled to aim the rifle at her. “Don’t move,” he said.

“Put it down, you dumb little shit. I’ll kill her.”

“And I’ll kill you,” he said, voice shaking.

Seth was sure that Eleanor would pull the trigger, and then he would have to pull his trigger too. He had never taken the time to imagine such a situation. Did his skill match his mother’s? Was he strong enough, fast enough, to survive against her?

Could he really kill her?

Eleanor’s lips trembled with fury. “You wouldn’t.”