Nightfall (28 page)

Thank God Mason didn't notice. He'd have kicked Tru's ass for sure.

After the big guy passed into the station, Tru slammed the door and padlocked it with numb hands. Inside, it was unbelievably cold. Layering every scrap of clothing still hadn't been enough. More than once, he'd wished he had somebody to curl up with. Chris and Ange had snuggled together for at least one of the long, frigid nights. He didn't begrudge anyone a little happiness, but neither could he squash a flicker of envy.

Mason nudged one of the packs toward Harvard. “Got the seals. Go fix it. She's freezing.”

The scientist grabbed the packs and headed to the subbasement without a word.

“Where's Ange?” came Mason's next growl.

“Here,” she said. “I'll get the first-aid kit.”

“Upstairs. Warmer.” Mason seemed incapable of speaking in complete sentences, like something had snapped in his brain. He turned and speared Tru with a look. “You. Blanket.”

Any other time, he'd mouth off a little, but Tru could see it was not the time to test the big dude. He sprinted up the stairs. Even the milder early evening sun burned his eyes after so much time in the dark. He met Mason in the stairwell and handed over the blanket. The expression on Mason's face as he wrapped Jenna turned Tru's insides watery. Together, they climbed upstairs to the lounge, since heat was supposed to rise, though there hadn't been any for days.

Ange arrived with a flashlight and medical supplies. Mason didn't put Jenna down, just held her in his lap. Tru had seen a mother behave that way once. Her kid had run out into the road to chase a ball and got mashed by a car. She'd knelt on the pavement, rocking the body until the EMTs tore her away. Tru saw that damage written on Mason's face, and he didn't know what to do with it.

Jenna looked scary pale.

Tru put down the rifle. So much for impressing Mason with how well he'd done. God, when would he stop being such a tool?

It would be hard to patch Jenna up in the dark, he thought, and the light through the windows was failing. As if in answer, the fluorescents kicked on. Heat would soon follow.

He rubbed cold hands together. “Go Team Harvard.”

“Where's she injured?” Ange asked.

“Thigh.” Yep, Mason had gone downright monosyllabic.

The closest thing they had to a nurse peeled the blanket away from Jenna's skin. She sucked in a breath. “Mason ... that's a bite.”

Jaw set, his teeth showed in what couldn't be called a smile. “Yeah.”

Ange looked like she'd swallowed a razor blade, but she went about cleaning the wound with sure hands. Then she met his gaze, looking impossibly sad. “You know—”

“
No
. ”

She ducked her eyes. “Let me find something for her to wear. When Chris gets back, you can tell us what happened.”

“Yeah, man,” Tru said. “What'd you do to her?”

He'd meant it as a joke. But Mason turned blasted eyes on him, pulling him into one of those postmodernist paintings where every road led to hell. “I failed her.”

Tru stepped away, knocking the backs of his legs against a table. He sat down, feeling young and stupid.

Harvard came upstairs to hover. Ange brought both clean clothes and Penny, who hadn't ever gotten upset about the dark—didn't get upset about much of anything, from what Tru could tell. He wondered if they thought what he did, that her mind wasn't ever coming home.

Mason grabbed the clothes, seeming unable to trust anyone else to touch Jenna. It was like watching a man struggle to dress a sack of rice. Tru turned his face away.

Finally he laid her flat on the couch. Ange draped the blanket over her. “You want to tell us what happened?”

Mason shook his head. “You first.”

“I've been guarding the basement door,” Tru said. “It's been balls cold. And we've had a couple of near misses. I thought they'd break the hinges a few times, but it held when I leaned on it.”

The big dude spun toward Harvard. “You had a kid down there in the dark for three days? What kind of asshole are you?”

“I'm not a kid,” Tru gritted out.

But nobody was listening to him because the scientist launched himself at Mason and popped him in the nose.

 

Chris pressed his aching fist into his palm. His whole forearm trembled, and his knuckles felt like lit coals. He hadn't even rocked the bigger man's head back. But at least Mason grabbed his nose and cussed. Not bad for his first punch since the third grade. No, seventh.

“What the fuck was that for?” Mason demanded.

“I know you've been in the woods awhile, but could you use your indoor voice? You'll scare the kid.”

“I said, I'm
not
a kid.”

“No, you're an asshole,” he snapped. “That better?”

Tru grinned.

“I meant her.” Chris hooked a thumb to the corner where Penny sat. “And for the record, we've been trapped here for three days. Don't think you can stomp back in and expect us to jump. Now, facts. Please.”

Mason offered a restrained snarl. “Hit me again and I'll take your head off.”

“Can we please stop this shit?” Chris rubbed fingers through his hair until it ratted up with tangles. “I'm tired. We're all really, really tired. Grunting and making threats won't help Jenna.”

He'd been around animals long enough to know when one was wounded. Jenna's bite was obvious, but Mason positively bristled with pain.

Chris softened his voice. “For the record, asshole here volunteered for the basement.”

“And I was armed,” Tru muttered.

Mason slumped onto a metal frame chair next to Jenna. Maybe the punch had done some good. After weeks of failed attempts, Chris had finally managed to speak Mason's language.

“She was bitten in the woods on our way back. The fever started up almost right away, but she wanted to keep going, to get me back here with the gear.”

As Mason talked, Ange bandaged his thrashed knuckles. Chris liked that about her. More often than anyone else, no matter how she might feel, she kept the outpost running. Only about her daughter did she ever lose her calm.

“We got separated, and I was cornered by a small pack.” Mason's eyes went distant. “This ...
wolf...
showed up. She helped me fight them off.”

When Tru spoke, his tone matched the somber situation. “I saw it happen. She was a wolf... and then she was Jenna.”

“A skinwalker?” Ange asked.

Chris glanced at her in surprise. “What does that mean?”

“People like Edna, but who survived,” she said. “I didn't believe it. Before everything went to hell, I heard rumors that things were getting better back east. There have been stories from people pushing west ...”

“About this ... condition of Jenna's?” Mason asked, his gaze intent.

Ange ducked her head. “I don't know any more than I already said.”

He could tell she hated to disappoint Mason with her lack of knowledge. The big man sighed and ran a hand across his face.

Rather than resort to his fist again, Chris took charge with what remained of logic. “Let's think this through. What do we know?” He pointed out the windows, blackened now that the sun was gone. Not that the sun ever left. Not really. But people shouldn't change into wolves, so science wasn't a big help right then. “Those monsters out there. What do we we know about them?”

“They were bad people,” Mason said, his voice flat. “Convicts and criminals.”

Tru snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah. The jumpsuits. Remember, at the pit?”

“What else do we know?” Chris asked.

Mason cleared his throat. When Ange let go of him, he flexed against the dressing—and Chris felt a good deal of relief that she wasn't touching him anymore. He blinked. That night spent holding her in the dark must have affected him more strongly than he believed.

“In town, some people were half person, half ... other animal,” Mason said. “All dead.”

Chris pulled out a chair and sat. His feet wouldn't stop tapping the tile. “Other animals?”

“Cats, pigs. One looked insectoid, others reptilian.” Mason looked toward Jenna with miserable eyes. “They tried to change. Didn't make it.”

“I'm assuming these are regular folk, not criminals.” Chris couldn't sit still. He started pacing. His brain misfired. Too many variables. No controls. “She didn't shift right away, did she?”

“No,” Mason said. “Hours later.”

“Under what conditions?”

The tension across Mason's shoulders made him look like an animal about to spring. But his voice didn't give off that warning vibe anymore. “Stressed, I guess. We'd been separated. She must've been looking for me.”

“So maybe trauma catalyzes a successful shift,” Chris said, uneasy about making assertions without proof. “Pain has a remarkable effect on enzymes. It crystallizes in the brain and ...” He glanced around, seeing he'd lost his audience. “Not important. Point is—”

“Point is, Jenna could die.” Mason's dark eyes narrowed. “You can't tell me otherwise.”

Chris found Ange's pale face, peppered with freckles, and tried to smile at the way she looked at him, all quiet and proud. But the smile wouldn't come. “No, I can't.”

Mason stood, looking oddly humble. “What
can
you do?”

Well, that's a surprise.
He'd never heard so much as a genial request from Mason, let alone one that suggested confidence in Chris's abilities. “I can draw some blood. From Jenna, from a corpse, from all of us. See what I can learn under the microscope. There just has to be a scientific explanation for all of this. I just can't get behind, well,
magic
.”

Mason snorted, like he thought Chris was stupid for clinging to the idea that the world made sense.

“What do you need?” Ange asked.

“A dog corpse.” He held up his hands at the start of Mason's protest. “Headless is fine.”

“Appreciate it.” Oddly enough, the man's posture and roughened voice almost held the vibe of an apology. The world had become a darker place if landing a punch was what ensured a little civility.

“You better hurry,” Tru said, “before they drag the dead ones off. Like last time.”

Chris studied Jenna, where her blanket barely moved. “And what are you going to do with her?”

Mason's hand trembled when he touched her forehead. “I made her a promise. She didn't want to come back here if she could do any of you—us—harm. So I'll keep watch.”

As always, Angela's anxiety for Penny showed in her widened eyes. “You mean ... she could hurt us?”

“No,” Mason answered. “I won't let her. But I won't let her die alone either.”

After gearing up for the cold, a fire ax in his hands, Mason trudged into the snowy night. Although it was only about eight in the evening, the absolute darkness of winter made the hour seem much later. Tru positioned himself in the doorway with his rifle, and Welsh lit the snow with a Maglite in each hand.

“Hurry,” Tru said. “I won't be able to see them until they're right on us.”

“The doc wants blood and guts. That's what he gets.”

No problem. Thirty seconds, in and out.

And Mason felt the distinct urge to eviscerate something in the worst way. He found the misshapen beast he'd pegged three times with his nine-millimeter and chopped off the thing's head. Then he hacked up a good, meaty section of its middle. He shouldered the ax and gathered the grim samples. The cold had already stiffened the corpse.

He shoved the hunk of meat at Welsh. “Have fun.”

With the door secured, he retrieved Jenna from upstairs and settled her on his bunk in the dorm. Unconscious, she was much heavier.

He fisted his injured hand and felt the skin split beneath the bandages. No such thing as dead weight, not with Jenna. She would never be too heavy. Never a burden.

Kneeling at the bedside, he laid a hand over the dressing that covered the broken skin of her thigh. His mind drifted to the wound Edna had suffered and the way it ate at flesh and bone and hope. She'd died screaming, her body twisted from the inside out as it tried to birth some secret thing. Mitch had said that when the magic hit, people would try to turn into their totem animals—that everyone housed an animal soul. That affinity showed in their final forms.

Right then, Mason didn't give a fuck.

He'd done everything Mitch asked. He'd performed the rituals on the cabin for their protection, even the ones he'd thought pointless. But maybe that was all that had saved Jenna and himself from ending up like those poor bastards in Wabaugh.

Mason turned gritty eyes to where a bruise had formed on the inside of Jenna's elbow. Welsh had drawn a sample of her blood like she was a damn lab rat, but she hadn't flinched. Now her slack face was pale and still. Her chest barely moved. She seemed so far away that he doubted she'd whimper if he squeezed the fevered bite beneath his hand. At the moment, her wound was the most vital part of her.

He closed the blanket around her like a cocoon and swept loose tendrils of hair from her face. No fever now. Just cold. Holding out little hope, he leaned in and brushed a kiss against her mouth. His own Snow White—only Jenna didn't stir. Her lips didn't respond. He opened his thoughts, sending a desperate SOS. But even on that unseen highway where their minds once met, he traveled alone.

Mason slumped onto the floor, unable to look at her anymore. God, he ached.