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I stepped out of the truck, leaning my back against the door. The storm swirled around me. No one approached from behind us. I held up the rearview mirror above me at an angle, twisting it until I could see in front of the truck.
I could make out the tow truck on its side in the diner. The back tire was still spinning. The boom had snapped off, and the car they’d been towing had slid away from the diner. The driver’s door was still closed, which meant that Chris and Tanner were probably still inside. I tried to feel them, tried to reach along the threads, but it was as if they were muted, and I couldn’t find them, couldn’t hold on to them.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I turned the mirror.
The crew cab had fallen into the crack in the middle of the street and lay, nose first, at a sharp angle. The rear of the vehicle pointed up toward the gray sky. I couldn’t see the man with the rifle.
I looked back in the truck. Rico was staring at me with wide eyes. He had a gash on his cheek, and blood was trickling down his jaw. “To me. You stay right by my—”
A bright lance of pain roared through my head. It was as if long, spindly fingers had reached inside my skull and were gripping my brain, squeezing tightly, digging in. I gritted my teeth as a wave of nausea rolled through me, vertigo causing my stomach to swoop. The wards. Someone was fucking raping my goddamn wards.
I heard Rico saying my name, telling me to get up, I had to get up, please, Gordo, please, and somewhere in the furthest reaches of my mind, I heard gordo gordo gordo, and I knew that voice. I knew the wolf behind it. He was furious, and he was coming for me. I tried to tell him no, no, no, to stay away, to stay back, but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t find the thread that connected us, lost in a haze of the storm that raged in and out of my head.
Then, from behind us, a voice in the snow.
At first I couldn’t make it out. What it was saying. It sounded bigger than a normal human voice should have. Amplified, somehow. I was on my knees in the snow, bare hands cold and wet on the ground in front of me. I tried to lift my head, but it was so heavy.
“What is that?” Rico asked, voice cracking. “Gordo, what is that?”
I breathed and breathed and—
“—and this town has been marked by God as an unholy place, in need of a cleansing. Your sins are many, but you are human. You are fallible. It is to be expected. The blessed waters have receded from the earth beneath your feet. And do you know any better? Do you understand the depths of what hides in the forest? It is unfortunate, truly. You walk the streets of this town, cowering behind the abominations that have infiltrated your very lives. Their shadows stretch long, blocking out the light of the Lord. You tell yourselves that your eyes are playing tricks on you, that you don’t believe in the twisted depravity. But you know. Each and every one of you knows.”
I lifted my head.
There, walking down the middle of the road toward Green Creek, was a figure. At first it was nothing but a black smudge against the white of the storm, fat flakes swirling around it. But with every step the figure took, it came more into focus.
It was a woman.
She was speaking, her voice booming and echoing around us.
Behind her was a line of vehicles like the one that had crashed into the tow truck, the tires crunching in the snow, snowplow blades on the front. Some had light bars across the top, rows of LED bulbs shining bright.
And ther
e, on either side of her, was something I did not expect.
Two shifted wolves.
The one on the right was red and white, its coat thick and long. Its teeth were bared in a silent snarl, a thick line of drool hanging from its mouth.
The one on the left was gray and white and black, like a timber wolf. But it was bigger than any wolf I’d seen before, its back almost to the woman’s shoulders, its massive paws looking bigger than the spread of my hands.
Both of them had chains wrapped around their necks, silver links that looked as if they had been embedded into their skin.
The woman was holding the ends of the chains.
Like they were leashes.
The eyes of the unknown wolves flared.
Violet.
Omegas.
The woman spoke again. Her voice carried through the storm, blaring from the vehicle directly behind her. “The cities of the plain knew sin. They knew vice. They were Admah. Zeboiim. Bela. Sodom. Gomorrah. All in the land of Canaan. And God sent three angels to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. The Lord revealed unto Abraham the egregious sin that was Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham, the prophet, begged the angels to spare those in the cities of the plain if fifty righteous people could be found. And the Lord agreed. But Abraham knew what the people were. He knew what they were made of. And he returned to the Lord again and again, asking that the number be lowered. From fifty to forty-five. Forty-five to forty. To thirty. To twenty. To ten. To find ten people. Out of thousands, who could be righteous. And God agreed. He said yes. Find just ten righteous people and the cities would be spared.”
