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“You left,” he repeated, his voice taking on a strange lilt. It was almost like a song. “You left. You left. You left. You left. You. Left. You. Left. You—”
He tilted his head back and screamed.
I rushed forward even as Ox shouted for me to stop.
I scooped Tony up in my arms. He didn’t struggle, only continued to scream. It tore from his throat, and I didn’t know how someone so small could make such a terrible sound. His claws dug into me, and I grunted as they pierced my skin, blood welling, the sharp coppery tang shocking in the void. He stopped screaming immediately, sitting back in my arms, wrapping his legs around my waist. He stared down at my arms, where blood was spilling.
He grunted.
Ox said, “Robbie, put him down. Now.”
Tony bent over, almost in half, and I felt the wet slide of his tongue against my skin, lapping up the blood from the wounds that had already healed. He grunted and snorted as he sucked it down his throat, and I let out a cry of revulsion. I pulled my arms away, meaning to drop him, but he tightened his legs around me and looked up, eyes glowing, a bright smear of blood on his lips. His tongue flicked out, chasing it, coated red. He grunted again before he inhaled deeply, fangs snapping together, jaw clicking.
Kelly was behind me, shouting at Tony to let me go, to get the fuck off me. Tony reached up, digging his claws into my shoulder, glaring at Kelly and hissing.
Kelly took a stumbling step back. “What the fuck is wrong with him?”
“He’s feral,” Aileen said. “Oh my god, he’s feral—”
“Holy shit,” one of the wolves breathed. “Look.”
I turned, still trying to hold Tony back, following the wolf’s shaking hand as he pointed above us.
There, standing on top of the buildings, were children.
Many, many children.
The wolves and witches tried to scatter as one vaulted over the edge of the movie theater, claws extending from her hands and feet. She landed on a witch, the man who’d helped Aileen, Patrice, and Gordo shore up my mind. He screamed when she dug her claws into the flesh of his face. Rico pulled out his gun, but before he could raise it, magic began to gather around the witch. He screamed as the girl sliced through his face again and again, spinning around. There was a sharp crack as a flash of light burst from his hand. It struck Ox’s truck on the passenger side, causing the frame to crumple, the metal shrieking as the truck flipped over with a jarring crash, the windows blowing out, shards of glass flying out and refracting the morning sunlight.
The witch fell, but the little girl never stopped. Her hands rose and fell, rose and fell, feet kicking into the soft flesh of his stomach. She snapped her head up, her face dripping with blood as she snarled at two wolves who were rushing toward her.
The other children followed, jumping off the buildings, raining down around us with claws and fangs, their eyes all violet.
I jumped away from the sidewalk, Tony still holding on to me. Wolves around me shifted, clothing tearing as muscle and bone tore and broke. The timber wolf knocked Carter out of the way before a child could land on his back. The wolf yelped as the boy, who couldn’t have been more than six or seven, lowered his head, burying his teeth into Gavin’s neck. He bent forward, trying to knock the kid off him. I recognized the child. His name was Ben. His mother was a sweet and quiet Beta who lived in the compound. Ben fell off the wolf, landing on his back on the ground, blinking up toward the sky, body twitching.
Ox’s eyes blazed in shades of violet and red, and he roared, the sound shaking the ground beneath our feet. The Omegas with us whimpered.
The children did not.
They didn’t stop.
“Do I shoot them?” Rico shrieked. “Oh my god, do I shoot them?”
“They’re fucking kids,” Jessie snapped at him. She ducked, her crowbar trailing along the ground as another boy sailed over her, landed roughly on the ground, and rolled along the pavement. The boy was up and moving even before he came to a stop, bits of gravel stuck into his arms as he rushed Jessie again.
A great black wolf landed in front of her, eyes a mix of red and violet. He roared at the boy so loudly that one of the windows in the movie theater shook and cracked. The boy skidded on the road, feet tearing and leaving bloody streaks behind him. He jerked back, mouth hung open.
Aileen stepped forward, reaching into a pouch that hung on her hip. She pulled out a bluish powder and muttered into it. It flared like gunpowder, and she threw it at the boy, sparks dropping onto the ground with a hiss. The boy screamed as the powder struck him in the face, and he bent over, trying to wipe it away, tears streaming down his cheeks.
I shoved Tony off me and he landed on the road, my blood still dripping from his mouth. He glared up at me, feral and pissed off. He came for me again, loping on his hands and feet, but jerked back when a sharp crack of gunfire exploded around us and a divot appeared in the pavement in front of him.
“Don’t make me shoot you,
” Kelly said, finger tightening on the trigger again. “Please.”
Tony growled at him, muscles coiling in his legs as he prepared to jump, but he stiffened before I could step between him and Kelly. His back arched like he was having a seizure, the cords on his neck sticking out.
It was happening to all of the children. Every single one of them stood as Tony did, like they were being electrocuted. The wolves growled as we regrouped, unsure of what the hell was happening. I saw the witch who’d been hit first lying on the sidewalk, eyes open and unseeing. His chest didn’t rise.
