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She laughed. “I don’t fear death, Gordo. I will be rewarded after for all that I’ve done. A plague has fallen upon the beasts, and I will stop it before it spreads further. Calling the Omegas here was something I didn’t expect, but in the end, you have done the work for me. You have brought them all to this place, and I will smite every single
one of them. I stand before an Alpha of the Omegas and the boy who would be king. Their deaths will signal the beginning of the end of the wolves, and I—”
Pappas came then. He was quick. I hadn’t even heard him approach. He growled from on top of the Lighthouse, eyes violet and bright in the dark. He leapt from the roof directly toward her. He had the high ground, and I knew this was it. It was finally going to be over—
Except Elijah was an old hunter. Years and years of experience. She had killed dozens—maybe even hundreds—of wolves. She knew them. She knew how they moved. How they hunted.
Divide and conquer.
I had time to wonder if this had been her plan all along. This moment.
She spun on her feet, the skin of the dead wolf hanging off her back flaring around her, kicking up snow as she dropped to her heels. Pappas missed her by inches, crashing into the ground in front of her, sliding in the snow.
He had barely begun to push himself to his feet when Elijah raised her gun and pulled the trigger.
The crack of gunfire echoed in the forest around us. Philip Pappas’s head snapped to the side, an arc of blood in the air as he fell.
He was dead even before he hit the ground.
The wolves started to advance on her.
“Don’t,” she said coldly, but instead of pointing her gun at us, she raised her other hand. In it was a small black rectangular box, her thumb pressed against the top.
“Dead man’s switch,” she said. “Anything happens to me, seven pounds of C-4 explosive will send six hundred silver ball bearings at speeds greater than three hundred miles per hour. Nothing—not humans, not wolves—will survive the blast.”
Ox and Joe shifted almost immediately.
The Omegas whimpered around them.
Ox said, “You will not hurt them. The humans have done nothing wrong. You want the pack? Fine. You have us. But you can’t hurt innocent people. Your fight is not with them. It’s with us.”
Elijah’s eyes narrowed. “Innocent? What does a wolf know of innocence? They have sided with animals. They—”
“We didn’t give them a choice,” Joe said. “We held them captive. All they want is to be free. You’re right. They’re lost. They need to have someone to show them the way.”
She glared at him. “You lie.”
“You spoke of the failings of a father,” Ox said, taking a step toward her. “I know exactly what you meant. I, too, had a father who lost faith. In himself. In my mother. In me.”
Elijah took a step back. “Stop.”
“He told me that I would be nothing. That I was going to get shit all of my life.”
“You don’t know anything—”
“And I believed him. For the longest time, I believed him. Until I found myself a place in this world. We’re not that different. You had your clan. I have my pack. You’re not a wolf, but I know you have felt the bonds between your people. It’s—”
She shook her head furiously. “No. No, no, no—”
“And I’m sorry that it has come to this,” Ox said, taking another step. The raven was agitated. I didn’t know what it was going to do. “But you gave me no choice. I would do anything to keep my family safe. You forced my hand. All we wanted was to be left alone.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. She brought the gun up and pointed it at Ox’s head.
“Ox,” Joe warned.
Mark bristled at my side.
“I know you’re scared,” Ox said quietly. “And I know you think you have no other choice, but you do. Would your God really ask you to do this? Would he really want you to hurt people who have done nothing?”
