The Killing Season (19 page)

My body moved numbly when I stood, my knees stiff from the after-effects of fear. I made my way across the storeroom. Carefully, I set the board aside and opened the door. Like I’d guessed, I stepped into an alley behind the store. Hopefully Max had run into the post office, and I prayed the townspeople kept their doors locked until the hunters had cleared every inch of town, which would give me enough time to slip away.

I turned a corner of the alley and stepped out into the open. Instantly, I shrank back. The grocery store was more on the edge of town than I thought. Right in front of me was the open tundra full of frozen lakes and wetlands where we’d come from. I spotted the main trail just off the edge of Isatkoak Lagoon. Sprinting across the field between me and the trail wouldn’t be an issue, but if any aswangs were out there, hiding in the dark, I’d be an easy target. I glanced over my shoulder, but I already knew what I would do. I’d take an aswang over Max any day. Better to die that way than his way.

If I slipped down the row of buildings some, I would have a shorter sprint out through the open, so before I second guessed myself again, I moved. Staying low to avoid windows, I hurried along, passing alleys and back doors. I kept my eye on the main trail, looking up only to orient myself with the spot in the field I wanted to cross over.

In the wake of Sunny’s scream, the town had gone silent. Still. Even my shallow pants could be heard a mile away. My steps crunching over the loose snow rang like a bell.

When I made it directly across from the trail, I paused and stepped into a narrow alley to gather my breath. When I’d checked both directions down the row of buildings and scanned the edges of the frozen lakes and lagoons for inky black fur, I stepped out from the alley’s gap.

A hand came down over my mouth.

Another snaked around my waist and jerked me against a broad, hard chest that felt all too familiar.

“Oh, no you don’t. Not this time,” Max whispered in my ear. His breath smelled like minty toothpaste.

I thrashed, kicking and twisting, but in Max’s arms, all of Luke’s careful fight training went out of my head. I lost myself to a haze of choking terror that turned my brain to mush and my limbs numb. I couldn’t even scream. And he was so tall, towering over me and consuming me like an avalanche of snow, his strong arms clenching me too tightly to breathe.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this? To hold you again?” He rubbed the stubble of his beard along the side of my face, scratching my cheek and making my eyes water. I refused to cry. “You’ve been a bad girl, Ollie. You’ve done bad things. It’ll take a lot of work to make you a good girl again, but I’m willing to do it. I love you so much.”

I tried to bite his finger, but his grip on my mouth tightened until I knew I would have bruises across my face. His other hand slid under my jacket. “What’s this?” he asked, feeling the whip wrapped around my waist. The whip that, in my frenzied panic over Max, I had forgotten about. A stupid, stupid mistake. “Did you bring a toy for us to play with? I brought toys too.”

Oh, God. His breath on my face made me sick. I had to fight down the vomit pulsing up my throat. My mouth watered with hot saliva and my vision slanted as he pulled me deeper into the alley’s shadows and farther away from the main trail that would take me home, to Luke, to Sunny.

Thinking of Luke, I struggled more, kicking my legs against the building’s side and sending Max rocking off balance. He recovered quickly and pivoted to press my chest against the wall. He turned my face to keep his grip on my mouth and shoved my cheek onto the cold, icy wood of the building.

He would have to release a hand at some point, and I readied myself to launch into crazed fighting mode.

But he drew out the moment, his front pressed against my back. He pulled me in tighter, crushing the breath from my body in his big grip. He was like an oversized child with his favorite toy. Nuzzling back my hood, he buried his nose in my hair and breathed deeply. “I’ve missed you so much, Ollie,” he murmured against the back of my neck. “Why did you run from me?”

“Fuck you,” I mumbled against his hand.

He pulled back and frowned. “Why did you say that? Didn’t you miss me too?”

He jerked me back, holding the back of my coat, and slammed the side of my head against the building. Stars erupted across my vision, and my knees buckled. With a soft cry, he shook me like a doll, my head snapping back and forth, before smashing me back against the wall.

“Why, Ollie?” he said, voice furious.

When he let me go, I slumped to the ground. I groaned, my stomach heaving. The snowy ground before me opened up to the wide expanse of the field and the trail beyond. I crawled forward, inching beyond the alley ever so slightly. Maybe if I could just get out in the open a little, someone would see me. My arms buckled and my chin cracked off the packed snow. The taste of dirty pennies filled my mouth.

A shadow, cast by the alley’s one light, fell over me, stretching like a giant into the field. Max grabbed my ankles and hauled me back into the alley, my thick gloved fingers slipping easily over the snow as I tried to hold my position.

Max flipped me over. Looking up at him, I saw the pain in his eyes, the tight press of his lips. His wide eyes trailed over my face, and I saw the horror make his face turn pale when he saw my scars.

“What . . .” Disgust and shock made his voice thick. “Are those . . .” Max and his father liked pretty girls, not scarred ones. For the first time since I received the marks on my face, I was thankful for them.

Max’s father had taught him to hurt people, but unlike his father, Max Taber didn’t enjoy it or relish it. He thought of the pain he inflicted as his cross to bear, his mission to make people good. But he loved me, and I’d always been his special case.

He’d grown a small beard, patchy in parts from his youth. His nose was broad and flat to his face with a hard bend to the right where I’d bashed it in when he’d caught up to me once in Albuquerque. He’d chased me across the United States, and here we were, staring at each other, crashed together in this one moment of horrible fate.

“How did you find me?” I asked, hoping to stall him.

“I’ll always find you.” He stepped over me, bathing me in darkness. “Why are you up here? Who are these people? The man who told me you were in Alaska was a bad man, Ollie. You shouldn’t be with these people. Are they the ones who messed up your face?”

“Who?” I choked on my fear. “Who told you—”

“Ollie! Thad, there she is!”

Max whirled around. Behind him, Sunny stood at the entrance of the alley, pointing at us.

“Sunny, no!” I shouted, but my voice was a weak scratch.

Thad rounded the corner of the building, took one look at Max and me, and roughly shoved Sunny to the side so he filled the alley’s entrance. Max leaped over me. A shot fired, connecting with the wall above me and sending shards of wood blasting across my face. I rolled onto my side, gasping for a deep breath.

Thad’s footsteps thundered down the alley, and he too leaped over me, racing after Max, who’d dashed across the field and, when I glanced up, was halfway hidden in the empty black tundra. Thad fired off another shot, but I didn’t see if it connected or not.

Sunny crouched beside me and turned my face to her. “Are you okay? Geez, Ollie, we’ve been looking everywhere! Did he hurt you? Oh my gosh.” She withdrew her gloved hand from the side of my head. Blood covered the material. She looked back at my face again. “Oh, Ollie. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay,” I said. Sunny helped me sit up better. I glanced back toward the field, but Thad and Max had disappeared.

“I told Thad about Max. I had to make him help me look for you and he didn’t understand.” Sunny took off her glove and pressed it to the side of my head to staunch the blood flow while she checked for other injuries along my ribs and stomach. “Stupid men. I don’t know why they won’t just listen. Like, just take my word when I say we have to find you. Like, he
freaked out
on me when I said I made up the ’swang, but, come on, it’s not that big of a deal. And then he just stood there for
minutes
while I had to explain everything and then he didn’t understand and I had to keep explaining and all that time Max was here, hurting you, and if Thad wouldn’t have been so
stupid
. . .” She trailed off, her mouth quivering, eyes wide with tears when she looked down at me. “You were so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay,” I said. A massive headache spread from my left temple to the right and everywhere in between. “I’m okay.”

“He just wouldn’t listen.” Sunny’s voice trembled, and she started crying.

“I know.” I weakly patted her back. “I know.”

Still holding the glove against my head, she pulled me in for a tight hug. Her little body gathered mine into her hold, tucking my head beneath her chin like a momma bear protecting her cub. I couldn’t help it. I started crying, and, holding each other, we cried together.

By the time Thad returned, our tears were dry, my head wound had stopped bleeding, and we were holding each other for warmth instead of comfort. I’d been too scared to move, so Sunny and I had stayed crouched in the alley, waiting. Thad jogged across the field, gun loose in his hands, and drew to shaky stop in front of us.

“Is she okay?” he asked Sunny, like I couldn’t speak.

“I’m fine. He just hit my head a little.”

“Not a little,” Sunny clarified. “I think she needs staples.”

“I don’t need them. The bleeding stopped already. Did you get him?”

“No. The big bastard is fast. He could have gone in any direction out there, and I can’t see him because of all this damn darkness,” Thad panted, his cheeks bright red. He tore at his throat guard, releasing the clasp and allowing room for him to gather a big breath. In his struggle, his neck wet with sweat, he pulled away his bandage.

I was right to assume he wanted to cover the missing hunks out of his neck. Thick gouges rutted out the smooth column of his throat. White roping scars crawled up from his collarbones to the base of his jaw where the ’swang had torn through the skin along his throat. I understood his self-consciousness, why he always kept his throat covered. The sight was brutal.

“We’ll get you back to the base and I’ll gather up a group on snowmobiles. We’ll find him, okay, Ollie? He won’t come after you again.”

I nodded, distracted, an itch spreading up my spine like a warning. My eyes flicked back to his throat. To his scars.

His white scars.

Like he finally sensed the breeze against his skin, his hand went to his neck, wrapping long fingers around what was left of his throat.

White.

Not black like mine, like Luke’s, like every hunter attacked by a ’swang.

“Um,” Sunny started, staring at his scars too.

I reared up, my vision blazing with dizzy stars, but I managed to stay on my feet. I jerked the whip out from around my waist. Sunny stood behind me, her knives clinking together as she freed one. I kept her just off my right shoulder, far enough for her to let a knife go, but close enough for me to step in front of her if Thad attacked.

“Ollie, I can explain,” Thad said, abandoning covering his throat and holding out a hand toward me.

“What are you?” I growled, keeping the whip’s handle angled at my hip, ready to slash Thad in half if he took a step closer. Sure, I currently saw two of him, but I figured I would have enough time to strike twice and get both of them just to be safe. Sunny put a hand on my back to keep me from swaying too much.

“You know what I am. I’m the same as you.”

My heart skittered sideways in my chest. Someone like me. With the same dirty, bad secret. “How?” I whispered.

“Not here,” he said, eyes flicking around us. “Not like this.”

“That’s why you keep them covered,” Sunny accused, her little voice full of venom. “I never saw them darken in the university’s ward because you checked out early. You hid them all this time.”

Thad kept his eyes on me, on the threat. If he even glanced at her, my whip’s end was wrapping around his throat. I blinked. Both throats. I shook my head to clear my vision, but it didn’t work. “I came here for you,” he said quietly, keeping his voice low, like he had any hope of talking his way out of this. “To Barrow. I came to bring you home, Ollie.”

“She is home,” Sunny hissed. She sounded almost scary.

“No. She isn’t.” He knew better than to walk toward us, but I sensed he longed to in the way he leaned forward, balancing on the tips of his toes. “It’s not safe for someone like you.”

“Someone like
you
,” I said, jerking my chin toward his white scars.

Thad’s jaw clenched. “The real Thaddeus Booker died with his family when they were attacked by a rogue band of aswangs. We destroyed his body so I could infiltrate the university as Thad to be an inside source for Hex’s pack. He had to . . . mimic the wounds on me so Dean would buy the story when they found me.”

I jerked in surprise. My thoughts tumbled together. All this time, Thad had been giving away Fear University’s secrets to the enemy. He could have gotten Luke or Hatter killed. Somehow it was even worse that he’d let Hex nearly rip his throat out in order to betray us. “You’re the leak Killian has me looking for,” I accused.