It makes a light slapping noise against the old linoleum floor beneath her feet. She keeps her eyes trained forward, listening to the distant clanks and bangs that likely confirm the pack is fighting themselves. Carmen could almost smile at the absurdity, at the demise those monstrous idiots are letting take root thanks to their own egotistical need for power.
She makes it down the length of the same corridor she’d just been escaping across minutes ago, a flammable trail of accelerant marking her path. And then she hears it: the crash of that door.
Fuck, she thinks.
Turning back around, she locks eyes with the girl. In the dim light of the wall sconce above her head, she can see thedeep red of her hair, the scratches along her pale cheek. Her eyes are so big, so rounded with fear, it stirs something deep within Carmen’s belly: a need to protect her, to save her. To take this opportunity to do what she couldn’t do before. She drops the canister on the ground, the bottom cracking from impact, spilling more liquid out onto the floor. And then she’s running, pulling the lighter back out of her pocket.
“RUN!” she shouts to the girl, just as the sound of claws scraping against the ground fills the space behind her.
The girl turns, giving her bruised and bloodied back to Carmen. She launches herself into a sprint toward the front of the building, to the door that leads out into the woods. Carmen sucks down a deep breath, the thrill of the chase settling into her bones as the wolves behind her get closer and closer. As soon as that girl makes it out into the safety of the open night air, Carmen will drop a flame onto the ground and light these fuckers up like fireworks.
The girl makes it around a corner, the front entrance now in view, and Carmen’s heart leaps. She just might pull this off. Pain slices across her back and she grunts. She turns the blade she still carries around in her palm—it’s her favorite knife, the first one Warren gave her after he and Lacie took her in—and shoves it backward through the air, swinging her arm wildly until she makes impact with something.
A wolf yelps. Carmen doesn’t risk looking back, eyes trained on the girl ahead, watching her legs pump as she sprints toward that door. She’s so close . . .soclose . . .
She’s hit against the side of her head with enough force to send her flying into the wall, her head and shoulder slamming right through the drywall. Bone cracks, and Carmen cries out from the searing pain of it.
Forcing herself to stay upright, she peers over her shoulder to find a wolf so large it stands nearly as tall as her, even rooted onall four feet. Its fur is a coarse, mottled gray with a white patch spreading out from the front of its chest. Two yellow eyes narrow on her as it lets out a low, angry snarl.
Another group of wolves are stalking toward them from a few feet behind. Carmen launches forward, burying her knife deep into the wolf’s chest. Warm blood spurts down her hand and wrist, painting the white fur around her grip a deep, dark red. She pulls back, releasing her grip on the hilt, and yanks her back off her shoulder to pull the last grenade from within. She lights the wick with a flick of the lighter, the flicker of flame shining over her wet, bloody hand as it erupts along the cotton material.
Carmen doesn’t hesitate. She throws the bottle at the oncoming pack, their immediate yelps and screams a song in her heart as the bottle explodes. She tears herself away from the wall and moves, hoping like hell the girl is already well outside of this building. She has no doubt the small explosion was enough to reach the accelerant on the floor, enough to send licking flames all the way back to that leaking canister of fluid—a much bigger bomb than the bottles.
Carmen hustles forward until she can see the girl through the still-open door, washed in the light of the moon as she stands out beneath the thick cover of trees. She looks so ethereal with her red hair and pale skin, anxiously watching for Carmen, shouting something across the distance that Carmen can’t quite hear.
Then two things simultaneously happen so fast, Carmen can hardly take either of them in.
First, the girl cries out a loud, guttural scream, just as her back arches unnaturally, and hair starts sprouting from her face.
And second, a werewolf sneaks up behind Carmen, utterly silent. He sinks his claws into her ribs and pulls her down to the ground.
CHAPTER 16
Sharp pain bursts along Carmen’s right side as the wolf’s long, sharp nails dig deep into her flesh. Just like the first time she was scratched in the thigh two years ago, the wound immediately burns white hot, as if the beast’s claws contain some form of acid. Carmen doesn’t even realize she's screaming until her throat gives out, the buzzing in her head ebbing from the force of it.
Forcing her eyes open, she looks back toward the girl—but she’s hardly a girl anymore.
She’s . . . awerewolf?
Carmen almost can’t believe it. That she’d thought tosavethis girl, to help her escape from this place, when all she was doing was setting another monster free. She watches as her spine violently arches again, her vertebrae popping beneath her tattered dress, one by one, like knuckles being cracked. Thick red hair sprouts across more of her skin in a wave, coarse and dark, pushing up through her pores. The veins along her forearms thicken and pulse as her fingers contort—nails stretching into curved claws, splitting the skin as they grow.
The wolf lets go of Carmen, distracting her from the girl’s transition. She scrambles to her feet in an attempt to get away,wincing from the pain in her ribs. But then those nails are sinking into her again, this time around her right arm. The wolf pulls her up into the air like a rag doll before slamming her body back down to the ground.
Carmen screams again.
A loud growl rips through the night from a distance. Carmen looks up to find the girl gone. In her place stands something taller, heavier, breathing steam out into the cold night air. Every inch of the beast is coiled in fury, and Carmen knows it’s too late, that she has no chance of escaping now.
Three wolves move slowly past where Carmen is being held down, stalking toward the female in the distance whose gaze is still locked on Carmen. The pain rattling through Carmen’s body is enough to make her dizzy—it’s hard to keep her eyes open, hard to keep them focused on the scene in front of her. But even in the face of death, she refuses to break, refuses to bend.
She’ll look it right in the face and smile.
The trio of werewolves reach the one wolf, carefully sniffing her, assessing her . . .
And then another loud growl slices between them before they become a blur of motion. The wolf pinning her down releases her, running toward the chaos. Carmen can hear yelps and squeals over the thuds of bodies slamming together and sounds of cracking limbs. She wonders if it’s the girl, if she’s being ripped apart. Wonders why they had her chained in the first place, what sort of terrible politics would have a pack hurting one of their own.
Her heart aches at the thought, despite feeling utterly deceived at the girl being one of them.
Carmen tries once more to rise from the ground, hoping to use the distraction of the fight as an opportunity to escape. A heavy wave of pain rattles through her as her arm slips againstthe earth, a pool of wet blood making it difficult to find purchase. She’s losing a lot of it . . . too much . . .
