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“Buddies?” I say.
She groans as if she can’t imagine aworsechoice.
“Buddies,” she grumbles.
?
The moon is out when we climb out of the tunnels, the silver orb tinted pink by the Angel’s “celestial curtain.” They say the curtain protects against the forces of evil, but I think we all know better; if it was designed to do good, it wouldn’t make the whole outside world look like hell. The reddish coloring of the Angels’ atmospheric shield paints the crumbling suburbs in a disturbing shade of crimson, like the whole world is stained in blood.
Sunshine doesn’t seem remotely upset with the weird coloring, yet another sign that there’s something wrong with the girl. Anyone who’s never been outside Dallas would be disturbed by all this, but she keeps her eyes straight ahead, using the light of the moon to find her way through the debris-strewn streets. We take the neighborhood at a solid clip, easing some of my tension over being here again.
I don’t have good memories of places like this. The last time I was here was…well, it got bloody, to say the least. So I shove my hands in my pockets and keep walking, ignoring the boarded up windows and discarded children’s toys in the front yards.
“You’re from outside, aren’t you?” I say, staying close to Sunshine. “What are you even doing here?”
“I told you, I’m trying to get help for my grandparents,” she says, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. “When are you going to stop interrogating me?”
“I’m not—“ I pause, shaking my head with a groan. Just about time to give up; no matter how good she smells, the headache isn’t worth it. “Fine, I’ll leave you alone.”
A shush sounds from ahead of us, and I stop dead in my tracks when I catch sight of Houston whipping around, his finger to his lips.
Then I hear it.
Something bad.
I should have been paying more attention, but I didn’t catch it while I was so distracted with Sunshine’s scent. My fingers curl as I listen, tuning out the frightened breaths of the other people in our group, my heart rate slowing as I focus.
Claws on cement.
I open my eyes and snap my gaze to Sunshine.
“Come with me,” I say.
I grab her hand, but she jerks it away and stumbles backward like I’ve just shocked her.
“I’m not coming with you,” she starts, raising her voice a little.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Lycans leap out of the darkness, a whole pack of them descending on us to herd the group like sheep. The others scream and begin to huddle together, but I take Sunshine’s wrist and yank her toward an old back yard, our feet crunching on the dry lawn. To her credit, she keeps pace with me, but she doesn’t drop any of her belongings. I don’t know if the sense of urgency has hit her yet.
“You need to drop the violin,” I say. “We’ll never get away without it.”
“No way,” she hisses. “I might need this when I get to Austin.”
“Sunshine, it hasn’t been the live music capital of the world for a long,longtime,” I snap. “I doubt you’re gonna need a fiddle.”
“I’m not stupid!” she says. “It’s for barter—”
My senses flare with warning, and I’m only just able to grab her and toss her out of the way, putting myself in the path of the large Lycan instead. I pull the knife from my belt and stab upwards as the beast leaps over us, rolling when it yelps and rounds on us, its teeth bared. I can see the human eyes in its sockets, and it startles me a little to see the clear sentience in a beast of fur, spines, and fangs, its fur glimmering with a strange, oily sheen.
This is the thing they tried to turn me into.
The thing I’ve never fully become.
I lower myself like an animal, unleashing a growl I’ve been keeping held in for a very long time. The wolf pads in a circle around me, but I put myself between the creature and Sunshine, the girl breathing hard at my back.Don’t run, I urge her, like I have some kind of psychic link to her.
Turns out she can’t hear me.
