Page 84 of Veil of Night & Flames

After that, it collapses, and the clip ends.

“A wounded mare?”

“Not sure.

“Where is it now?” I ask, yanking on my jeans and scanning the floor for my bra.

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

He’s already pulling on his hip holster with his silver knife, both mostly camouflaged by his untucked shirt. “Ready?”

I give up on the bra and yank a tee over my head. “Hell, yeah.”

No way am I staying behind. If it’s a person, I want to know who. And if it’s something else...well, I want to know that as well.

A minute later, we’re outside and walking fast toward campus. It’s Sunday, and except for a few joggers, we’re the only people around.

Soon enough, we’re at the Widow Maker. I suck in a breath, shocked by how much the dead zone has grown overnight. The brown circle has eaten another foot of grass and has reached the walkway. A dead bird lies on the concrete at the edge. The cameras are still on their poles.

But the figure we saw on the video feed is nowhere to be found.

“Hedges,” I say.

He nods, and we move toward the row of hedges about twenty feet out.

At first, I see nothing and wonder if the figure on the video managed to get itself up and scamper away.

Then I see the dirt-covered sole of a boot. I signal to Chase, then stand very still as he moves forward, kneels, then reaches into the hedge and pushes a branch aside.

I can only see his back from where I am, but I can tell that he’s gone very, very still. “Chase?” The word is barely a whisper.

“Come here.” His voice is firm but flat.

I hesitate, my stomach in knots, then move to his side.

And there, in the gap between the hedges, half-curled on his side in the dirt and looking beat up and half-dead, is a man I last saw in a Nightmare Realm desert before Kali’s wolves dragged him away. His eyes are closed, but his chest is rising. Barely.

“Whistler,” Chase says, his voice low and solemn.

Whistler doesn’t open his eyes. But his mouth moves and the words are clear—“Took. You. Long. Enough.”

Chase is on the phone with Mr. Griffin in seconds, and I listen as he outlines the situation, his voice breaking with the news.

“Get him here,” Mr. Griffin says, with a calm, controlled tone that suggests he’s having to work to hold himself together. “Come as fast as you can. I’ll start pulling supplies.”

Chase ends the call without a goodbye, then gently lifts Whistler as if the man weighed nothing.

I imagine he doesn’t. Not that Whistler was brawny—from what I’ve learned, the natives from the Unseen tend toward small. But he was compact and muscular.

Now, he looks like a meal, not a man.

I shudder, remembering those wolves. I have no idea how he survived, but damn, I want to.

I have to really work to keep up with Chase, and I’m breathing hard as I keep my eyes on my mangled friend. His face is gaunt and gray-yellow. As we hurry along, a crude bandage falls off his hand, revealing two missing fingers. At least I think it’s two. I don’t remember how many fingers he had, and his other hand is hidden by Chase’s body. What I can see is that the remaining fingers healed badly. Like they’d been broken, and someone set them wrong.

But he’s alive. Broken and battered, but alive. And that’s a thing I never expected.

At the bookstore, Chase hurries down to the training area, now set up like a MASH unit.