Havoc (23 page)

Daytime and Nighttime both asserted themselves.
Do not let them go
, they told wolf me.
Do not leave more evidence of who you are than you already have.

I whined deep in my throat. But I listened.

Dodging broken glass and jagged robot parts, I bounded toward the door to the walkway. Tracie and Spencer were already there, Tracie still looking like something out of a nightmarish Berenstain Bears book in her prim dress.

Managing to catch up to them, I let out a sharp bark.
Keep moving.
They knew what it meant, darted into the walkway. And stopped when we found Dalton.

He stood in the center of the walkway, looking through the plate-glass window at the parking lot. It was no longer empty. A gray van had pulled through the front gate, and two men, dressed like the guards from the night before, jumped out. They both had rifles. They were followed by two brown-and-black dogs, all narrow and sleek with pointed jaws and sharp ears. Dobermans.

Growling, Dalton rammed his shoulder into the window. It cracked. He rammed again and again, the crack growing wider and wider.

I barked again at Spencer and Tracie.
Don't stop. Go to the roof. Escape from here. I'll get Dalton.

A lot of sentiments for one bark to convey. But somehow we knew even without words what our wolf selves meant. It was some combination of inflection, of scents I naturally emitted, of the flick of my ears, the narrowing of my eyes.

They obeyed, running past Dalton, Tracie on all fours and Spencer on two. They disappeared into the first building we'd come into.

I ran up to Dalton as he rammed one more time into the window. It was now a crystalline web, a windshield after a high-speed crash. I growled and nipped at his side. He growled louder, lunged at me, snapped at my snout.

One more barrel into the window. And it shattered. Shards of glass rained to the asphalt below. The noise alerted the guards, and the two dogs started barking wildly. The driver of the van, another guard, leaped out of the vehicle and ran to join his companions.

Before I could do anything, Dalton leaped through the open window. He landed with a heavy thud against the asphalt. His eyes were on the guards.

“What is that?” the driver of the van shouted. “What the hell is
that
?”

The other two didn't react, though they made no move forward, just watched wide-eyed as Dalton took one step toward them, then another. He stepped into the glare of the van's headlights, and he was fully illuminated to the three men. His ears were flat against his skull. His teeth were bared.

Dalton looked between the three men one by one. Then, as in the lower level of the labs, he arched his back and howled up into the sky. The sound echoed throughout the night.

The driver of the van turned and ran.

The howl had been defiant. Murderous. Werewolf Dalton lusted for blood and he needed it, would defy his alpha to obtain it.

I had to stop him.

I leaped through the window as well, narrowly missing the pile of shattered glass as I landed in the parking lot. I dropped Dalton's clothes and my pants to the ground, then stalked forward, growling.

Dalton's ears twitched. I knew he could hear me, could hear the warning I was so clearly giving. But he did not back down.

The driver leaped into the van and slammed the door shut. I heard the engine turn over.

One of the guards looked back over his shoulder. “Don't you leave us, man! Don't you go nowhere!” At his feet, his dog was backing away, its tail tucked between its legs.

I stalked ever closer to Dalton. Growls burst from my jaws, louder and louder.
Back down
, I was commanding.
Come with me. Now.

Everything happened at once.

The only guard who hadn't spoken leveled his gun, aiming it at Dalton's torso.

That guard's Doberman darted toward Dalton, yapping and barking, stupidly baring its teeth.

And I howled one last plea for Dalton to stop.

The guard fired, the boom of his rifle cracking between the buildings. Dalton ducked the bullet easily and lunged forward, going for the Doberman. His jaws wrapped around the Doberman's throat, and he reared back, shaking the poor creature back and forth, snapping its neck, killing it instantly.

The other Doberman yelped and fled back toward the van, followed by his guard, who made crosses over his chest as he dove into the vehicle. The remaining guard—the one who'd fired—dropped his gun, staring stupefied as Dalton wrenched the dead Doberman back and forth, back and forth.

Blood leaked from Dalton's teeth, dripped down his chin. The dog hung from his jaws, lifeless. Dalton's eyes narrowed on the man who'd tried to shoot him. With one last wrench of his head, he tore free the Doberman's throat and tossed its body at the guard.

The man leaped back, narrowly missing being hit square in the chest. He let out a devastated sound somewhere between a moan and a scream.

Dalton bunched his legs, preparing to leap at the man, to kill him just as he'd done the dog.

I leaped first.

I landed on Dalton's back with both feet, flattening him to the ground. He roared in protest. Straddling him, I roared right back.

The lone remaining guard stood there watching us, every limb shaking. Behind him, the van's wheels screeched as its driver forced it to turn much too fast, to get them away from the devil wolf creatures they probably weren't warned were the source of the alarm.

I met the man's eyes, growling. I flicked my jaw toward the van. He got the hint and turned and ran, screaming for the men in the van to wait for him.

Dalton growled beneath me and snapped at my heels.
Get off me!

I swatted his face with my clawed hand.
Stop. You've done enough.

He bucked beneath me, struggling to force me off as he barked his protests, his eyes manic and wild.
Let me go, you bitch! Let me feed!

No.

He carried on like that, for how long I didn't know. But he couldn't buck me free. I stayed focused, wouldn't let him best me. Wouldn't let him hurt anyone else.

As I did, I tried not to look at the dead dog. Tried not to smell its blood, its meat. Forced myself to bury the urges that made me want to bite into its flesh and—

No. I would never.

Eventually, Dalton's adrenaline died down. He lay mostly still beneath my bulk, his chest heaving. Blood still dripped from his jaws and coated his fur, but his eyes had calmed. He was still angry at me, I was sure of it. But he was calm.

I climbed off him slowly. Growled once more.
Come.

He made no noise of response. Did not flick his ears. Did not gesture with his eyes or snout. I stood and watched as he walked slowly back the way we'd come, to the pile of clothes on the ground. Stopping just before them, he looked back over his shoulder at his kill. I barked. He bent over and collected our clothing.

Exhaustion flooded my furry limbs. I walked behind him, forcing him through the tear in the fence and toward the trees. The night had been long. Eventful. Much too eventful. I wasn't sure if I even had the energy to run home, but the smell of the woods soothed me. There was earth here instead of asphalt. The scent of pine needles instead of the stench of melted plastic.

We were almost to the trees when a chill rushed through me, shoulders to tail.

The shadowmen.

My whole body stiffened. I watched them appear, one by one, the shadowy man-shaped figures that had been stalking me the entire week. Just like the night of the drag race, there were dozens of them. One second nothing, then one would appear. In front of me, blocking the woods. Behind me, guarding the way we'd come.

Any semblance of Dalton's rage faded then. He howled, not loud and defiant, but plaintive, frightened. Much like the Doberman that had escaped its confrontation with a werewolf, Dalton tucked his tail between his legs and came to stand close to me.

The shadows stood in their staggered pattern, some very close to me, some deeper in the trees. Not a single one moved. They just watched. Always watching.

Werewolf me could not move. Could not take another step. These things, whatever they were, had some sort of DNA memory with the wolf side of me that I could not escape. Fear flooded over me, drowning me. I whimpered.

And in the absence of the wolf's instincts to guide me, Nighttime took control. Commanded with a bark for me and Dalton.
Run!

I did just that, barreling forward past the nearest shadowmen. Dalton's claws clacked against the asphalt as he followed.
These guys are incorporeal
, Nighttime reasoned.
What can they do? Nothing! Not a thing!

To prove herself right, Nighttime guided werewolf me to bound through a shadowman directly between me and the trees. If that night in my room was any indication, I'd bound through it none the worse for wear. Perhaps with a slight chill.

Nighttime laughed defiantly in the back of my mind. I lowered my head and made to leap through the shadowman.

I thudded against a solid, icy body. Stunned, I fell back, and Dalton skidded to a stop in the dirt next to me.

The shadowman I'd tried to tackle wasn't incorporeal at all. It was very much physically there. Which was impossible, because it was just a wispy, smoky figure! I could see right through it! My hand had gone
through
it when I was human!

Tilting its head, the shadowman raised a hand toward my face, as though to stroke my jaw.

Nighttime Emily was no longer in control. The wolf took over. I howled at the sky in absolute terror, then I ran, my shoes slapping against my chest. I darted around the shadows as they reached out to touch me with their frozen fingers, wolf me not caring if Dalton was following me or not.

I made for the woods, hearing Dalton galloping at my heels. I ran, the world becoming a haze around me until I got to my backyard, where I collapsed in the grass next to the shed. Dalton was there too, sapped of energy, unable to get back to his own house.

Distantly, I sensed someone there, watching us. Another shadowman, probably. Always shadowmen. I whimpered and curled up into a fetal position.

Somehow, I fell asleep.

20

YOU ARE NOT A KILLER

I have vague memories of becoming human again in the middle of the night. Of ushering Dalton into the shed and both of us groggily putting our clothes back on. It felt like a dream at the time, but considering we both woke up the next morning dressed in wrinkled, slobbered-on clothes and hidden behind the shed's doors, it must have happened something like that.

The first thing I clearly remember after the night in BioZenith, though, was waking up to gray morning light and crisp, damp air on my skin. My eyes fluttered open, taking in the plywood walls around me, the tools hanging from nails above me, and I thought,
Wow, déjà vu
.

Only this time, I wasn't naked with splinters in my back. And this time, I wasn't alone.

Realizing that, I sat up with a start. The blurry figure of Dalton sat across from me, knees to chest, back against the wall. He was rocking back and forth, shivering from the chill. I pulled my glasses out of my pocket and placed them on my face, seeing him clearly. There were rips in his pants and his jacket, but they were still wearable.

His chin was coated with rust-red blood.

He blinked at me as I sat up, his stare haunted. He opened his mouth to say something, but only a dry croak came out.

“Sit still,” I whispered. “It's okay. Just sit still.”

Groaning, I got to my feet. My whole body ached, from sleeping on the hard, dusty floor all night, or the untimely forced change into a werewolf, or the fight with the cheerleaders. Or all three. New information threatened to overwhelm me—
Robots! Psychics! Solid shadowmen! Creatures in jars!
—but I made myself focus on one thing, and that was Dalton.

The shed's door groaned as I opened it. I squinted, the light burning my eyes. There was no one around. It felt really early—there was that damp feeling of early morning, and the silence of no cars, no kids awake, and no TVs blaring. It was day, but no one was up yet.

My shoes were still in the shed, so my bare feet squelched in the grass as I went to the side of the building. I uncoiled the hose there, cranked on the faucet. Cool water gurgled from the hose's end.

I brought the hose to the front of the shed and told Dalton to drink. He grabbed it from me and gulped down the water, and even though it was cold outside, he held the hose over his head and let the water cascade down his forehead. He pulled the hose away quickly, shaking his head to free the excess water.

The blood on his chin had not yet washed away.

“Here,” I said softly. I crouched next to him and took over the water. I made him jut his chin out toward me. But water wasn't enough. I stuck the end of my shirt over my hand and used it as a rag, scrubbing at his face until the only red on it was from the cloth rubbing his skin raw.

I put the hose away. When I came back, Dalton had retreated inside the shed and was back to sitting, rocking back and forth. I crawled inside myself and pulled the shed door closed.

For a moment, we both sat there in silence, not really looking at each other.

“I killed that dog,” Dalton said flatly.

I swallowed. “I know.”

His eyes still weren't focused on me. “I wanted to kill those men, too. I wanted it so bad, Emily. Just to go at them and slice them open and watch them bleed at my feet.”

“Dalton…”

His hazel eyes snapped to mine. “I don't understand,” he said. “All I can see now is that poor dog just lying there. And I did that to it; its blood was all over my face. I would never do that. I love dogs. What if it had been Max I did that to instead? What if I—”

I leaned forward on my knees and grabbed both his hands in mine. I whispered “Shhh” and let him rock there. All I could think about as I watched him there was the night Spencer and I killed Dr. Elliott. How after I lost the high of Spencer's calming pheromones, after being interrogated by the police about what we saw, all I could do was sit in my room and clutch Ein and stare at the wall. Seeing Dr. Elliott's face. Seeing his horrible wound. Smelling the coppery scent of his blood.