Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy (40 page)

“Wolf.” Alex whirled away from Penny; from the man in black
and his red storm; from Peter, who was neither wholly human nor
Changed. “Come on, we have to—”

She stopped when she saw the tears. Face white as chalk, Wolf
was sitting up, but she saw the way he grabbed that left ankle, and
knew. “No. No no no.” She floundered through slush to grab his arm.
He was shivering with rage and pain. “Listen to me,” she said. “It
may not be as bad as you think. Come on, Wolf, you can do this. I’ll
help you. Once we get clear, I’ll wrap or splint it. I’ve got plenty of
supplies. But you have to get up, you have to—”

Wolf shook his head. They were close enough that when his scent
became Chris’s—not only cool mist but bittersweet—the shift and
the meaning were unmistakable.

“Don’t do this.” Her eyes suddenly burned with furious tears.
“Wolf, they’ll kill you. They’ll take Penny. But if we can fight . . .”
This time, when he shook his head, he also reached a tentative
hand. For a split second, Alex almost pulled away, but then Wolf had
cupped her wet cheek and there was no going back. The touch was
seismic, not desire or want or even need now but something inexpressibly sad. His touch was the morning a week after her parents
died, when her aunt stroked her hair:
I would give anything to bring
them back for you.
In that instant, Alex had understood what it was to
have a piece of you gutter, an inner fire go cold.
This, she had not expected. Wolf had touched her before, almost
as a master comforts a pet. Yet every thinking being dreams. The one
thing she’d never considered was that despite their transformation,
some Changed-or maybe only the very few like Wolf-might truly
understand what it was they’d lost. Some might even be just as desperate to get it back.
“What are you doing, Wolf, what are you
doing
?” she whispered,
as his hand roamed, his fingers tracing an eyebrow, feathering over
her forehead, pausing over her mouth. Over the roar of the fire, she
heard the men coming; felt the fist of the red storm trying to batter
its way into her brain; knew Peter had led those men here—
did they
see me? did Peter recognize me?
—and that they would be up the hill in
no time flat.
But she let all that ride. That could wait. Instead, she gave Wolf
the luxury of a few seconds to remember who Simon was and what
that boy had been.
Then, she ran.
What Ellie hadn’t considered was the weight, or that there were now
two people and two dogs crowded into a jagged, icy ellipse thinner in
some spots than others, and slick, too.
All of a sudden, the ice floe tilted, dipping far enough for a watery
tongue to tease her left knee. She swayed, visions of sliding right off
their ice island and into the lake—of the ice closing above her head
and her drowning—swarming to the front of her horrified mind.
Behind, she heard Eli gasp, and then the scrabbling scritch of dogs’
nails over ice. A gasping
aaahhhh
ballooned from her mouth as her
center of gravity shifted, and their jagged ice island—a twelve-foot
shard of unstable slush ice, thick in the middle, razor-thin at the margins—canted and rocked.
“Don’t move, don’t move,” Eli chanted. He was crouched low, his
legs visibly quivering with the strain of holding himself stable. “Give
it a chance to settle down.”
“Oh boy,” Ellie said, not moving a muscle. “I don’t know if this
was a really good idea.”
“Now you tell me.” But the banter was gone from his voice, and
she could hear the slight quake. The stringer chain around her middle
tightened as Eli fetched up another coil. “Okay, Ellie, we’re still tipping. You have to slide toward the center on your butt, okay? Don’t
even try to turn, and do it
really
slow. Think like a daddy longlegs.”
“I hate spiders,” she breathed. Crabbing as slowly as she could,
she moved first one arm and then the opposite leg—a delicate, mincing one-two—then switched, always keeping three points of contact.
Their raft bobbed and tilted, the ice listing first left and then right.
“You’re doing great.” Eli’s voice was breathless. “Almost here
. . . okay, stop. Stop moving. I’m right behind you. See?” He eased a
hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah. Thanks.” As she tried tucking her feet under so she could
stand, the raft suddenly pitched right.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Eli’s fingers hooked her collar. The chain
clattered as he cinched up. “Ellie, listen, you can’t move—”
“So fast,” she wheezed. “I know. Sorry.” This might be the very
last
dumb idea she’d have in her whole stupid life. Rolling away from
the people-eaters as slowly as she could, she got herself on hands and
knees. Still crouching, Eli wrapped his hands around her forearms,
and together, they pulled themselves upright as the raft pitched and
yawed an inch to the left then to the right.
“If we stay in the center, we ought to be okay.” Eli hadn’t released
his grip. They were so close together she could see his lips shiver as he
tried on a lopsided grin. “Now what?”
“We wait for help. You got off those shots. Hannah had to hear.”
She injected a confidence she didn’t feel. Those shots drifting from
the direction of the farm had been their first indication that anything was wrong, and that had been a while ago. Someone should’ve
remembered them by now. Unless they couldn’t.
No, Ellie, stop it.
They’re okay; Hannah and Jayden and Chris are fine.
The alternative
was too awful to think about. “They’ll chase them away, or kill
them. Then all we have to do is either wait for the water to refreeze
or . . . you know, Jayden will get a rope and toss it and pull us back.
We’ll be fine.”
As long as we don’t drift very far.
Water could take a
very long time to refreeze, if ever, or might not refreeze into a bridge
thick enough to hold them.
Oh, stop worrying, Ellie; Jayden will think
of something. He’s smart.
A rope, that’s what he’d do: weight down a
rope, toss it to them, then get a horse to pull them close until they
could step onto better ice. Just like a floating raft in this lake her dad
once took her to . . . Palm Brooks, that was it. Same principle.
“I hope so.” Eli hadn’t stopped hugging her. Sure, it was safer this
way, but she didn’t mind his arms around her one bit. “God,” he said,
“they’re creeping me out.”
She could see why. The people-eaters were still advancing in a
wedge, the girl with the lime-green scarf drifting along at the rear.
With the sun behind them, their spidery black shadows stretched like
grasping fingers. At the sight, even the dogs had gone virtually silent,
just the barest rumbles rolling from their mouths.
What do the people-eaters think they’re going to do? Jump it?
“What if they jump?” Eli said. “It’s like . . . only a couple, two,
three feet.”
It completely freaked her out that she’d been thinking the same
thing. The gap of water between their raft and the more solid ice
was
growing just a little wider, but not fast enough; not by the leaps and
bounds and feet they needed, but in a slow, lazy drift of inches.
“We got to make sure they don’t,” Ellie said.
“How? I can shoot two, but that’s it,” Eli said. “That’s all the bullets I have left.”
Leaving eight, and that was only
if
Eli actually hit anyone. “We
should save the bullets,” she said, not knowing why or for whom . . .
unless she planned on asking Eli to shoot her. She didn’t think she
was that brave. Besides, what would happen to Mina if she was dead?
“Then how?”
“The auger. Extend the handle, and it’ll be plenty long. If you hold
my legs, I can stretch and use it to push us away.”
“Oh boy, I hate this,” Eli said, but he was starting to ease down
to a crouch. Ellie followed him move for move, her heart kicking
at her teeth every time the raft bobbled. When she was flat on her
tummy and turned around, he worked out the handle and passed her
the auger. “You know what this reminds me of ?” he said. “
National
Treasure
. You know, where Nicolas Cage and everybody else is trapped
on this big square thing?”
“I never saw it.” She worked her way toward the edge. One of the
dogs must’ve moved, because she heard a frantic scrambling sound at
the same time the raft dipped and water leaked onto the ice in front
of her face.
Oh boy, I hate this, too.
She felt the water under their block
of ice heave as the raft bobbed. A nasty vision floated through her
mind: of the block tilting so far that she slid, face-first, into the water.
She’d pull Eli along with her. Then, one of two things would happen:
either the raft flipped like a pancake, trapping all of them, or only
she’d be hooked, unable to turn around and grab an edge. Most lakes,
no matter how still, had a current. The one here was stronger than
most because of the spring to their right. So she’d drift left, under the
raft, and drown with her back jammed up against the ice.
She wanted to wait for that water to retreat, but those peopleeaters were still coming. So she wormed forward, then passed the
auger through her hands and stretched, trying to hold the heavy
blades steady. Squirming a few more inches, she sucked in between
her teeth as the raft tipped another inch. Water was beginning to
creep toward her arms. Maybe she should’ve let Eli do this; he was
taller, only she wasn’t strong enough to hold him if he slipped . . .
Shadows leaked over her hands. Her eyes clicked up, and her
pulse stuttered. Nine of the people-eaters were nearly there. In the
lead, that boy with the machete leered and hacked the air with a
blade coppery with Bella’s blood. Not far behind the main pack,
that girl followed, the snake of her lime-green scarf trailing. This
time around Ellie didn’t think the girl looked so scared. In fact, that
kid looked like she was really, really
dying
to get closer.
They’ll cut us up.
Paralyzed, she stared at her death storming over
the ice.
It’ll hurt . . .

Hurry
.”
“Okay.” She snapped back. “I’m going.”
“I
mean
it.”
“I know
.
” Her biceps were shuddering from the effort. As strong

as she had grown, hanging on to almost nine pounds of steel at the
very end of a slim aluminum pole was nearly too much. Tucking her
elbows, she braced the auger against her chest. “Do they get off ?”

“The guys in the movie.” The people-eaters were very close now,
their finger-shadows brushing her hair and arms in crawly spiders.
“Oh yeah.” She felt the chain bite again as Eli redoubled his grip.
“The good guys always make it. We’ll do it, too. We’re Jayden’s K
iller
Es
, remember? Good guys? So . . .”
She waited a beat, the steady thump of the people-eaters’ march
over the ice keeping pace with the race of her pulse. “Eli?” When he
didn’t respond, she risked a look. “E—”
His expression was one she knew. Her Grandpa Jack had worn
the same mix of sorrow and shock and rage the day the Army people
came to tell them that her daddy was dead.
“Eli,” she said, heart going so fast her chest was about to explode.
“What is it?”
“Lena,” Eli whispered, aghast. Then, louder:
“Lena?”
What happened next happened fast.

Bolting over the snow, Alex barreled into the trees. That burst of
strength during the gunfight and then their escape was tailing off,
the tang of adrenaline going stale on her tongue. She was huffing,
her lungs laboring both from the cold and a smoky haze steaming
through the trees in a thickening fog. Snatching a look back, she got
a fix on the burning house. The roof was ablaze, a gigantic fiery
tongue licking the sky.
A little further left, southeast, until I’m even with
where the chimney used to be.

Finding what she was looking for again—that was the problem.
She’d come from a different angle the first time around. Back here,
the snow was all torn up, not only from the frequent passage of
game but her own meanderings.
Yeah, but all these tracks might be good.
Stopping a quick second, she eyed the path she’d taken so far.
They’ll
have a hard time figuring out which way I went—

“Oh hell,” she breathed. Against the snow, her prints were stark
potholes etched in gray-black smears.
Must’ve been that last fireball, all
that ash.
All anyone had to do was follow the yellow brick road right
to that old oak—

A distant, shrill shriek.
Penny.
Those men must be up the hill.
Please, Peter, don’t let them hurt Wolf.
She tensed, waiting for the shot
that didn’t come and didn’t come. Which didn’t mean a thing. She
thought about those weird Changed, that red storm. What if they
tried the same on Wolf ? And Peter, something was very wrong with
Peter; she could smell it . . .

You can’t worry about that. Come on, think of something, a plan B
.
Except she didn’t have one, and with those sooty tracks, she was leading them right to her. When they caught up, she wouldn’t be able
to fight for long. She was tiring fast. Snow sucked and grabbed her
calves. Her thighs were lead, and she was battling not only snow and
gnarled overgrowth that snatched at her pants and parka but days
without proper food.

Keep going, don’t stop.
Plowing through a whippy tangle of branches,
she heard the crackle and pop, felt them pluck and tear at her hair.
To her right, she saw a snare flash past.
Crossing a trapline.
One look,
and that would clinch it, too.
They’ll know the Changed didn’t set them.
Might even give the man in black ideas. He would be curious:
why
hadn’t the Changed eaten her yet? That would make him all the more
interested in Wolf: a Changed boy who protects a pregnant girl and
keeps another, not Changed, for . . . a pet?
No, a friend.
Maybe, in
Wolf ’s mind, she was even more.

A faint aroma of human skin, horse sweat, and toe fungus drifted
in with the smoke. Men, on their way. How many? Couldn’t tell. The
Changed boy was big trouble, too, but her nose hadn’t found him yet.