Oh, bite me. Carefully picking his way over stones and scrims of ice, Luke fanned the light over the sparse snow along the stream’s edge, looking for a safe spot where he wouldn’t wind up wet. As the beam flickered past a splotch of slush, he spotted something that only registered when his light had already skimmed past. Puzzled, he turned the beam back and saw two things: snow heaped around a rock where all the rest nearby were still covered, and a trio of animal prints. Probably an animal had disturbed the snow as it stepped past. From the prints, at first glance, he thought: wolf. Huge, too. That print was bigger than his hand, and fresh. As in, not long ago.

Considering that, all of a sudden, he was glad for the guard and his gun. Make this quick is right. The last thing he needed to run into was a hungry wolf. He had enough problems. Heart pounding, he swiveled right, dragging his light over a curving meander—and froze when two green coins flared alongside the silver oval of a face.

The green eyes belonged to a honking huge gray-white wolf.

But the face belonged to a girl.

107

Luke was so freaked, a scream fizzed into his throat that he just as quickly bottled behind clamped teeth. The impulse to turn and run was so strong the flashlight jittered from a sudden fit of the shakes.

The wolf didn’t move. But the girl did, raising a warning finger to her lips and then crooking her hand the way Morpheus had to Neo: not bring it on but come here.

For a split second, he thought, Oh, you got to be kidding. This was like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. Get near a strange kid who was just the right age to be a Chucky? Hell no. Then he considered that this girl was a) hiding and b) with an animal, and that except for Finn’s weirdo Chuckies, all the ones he knew were the kind who snacked first and asked questions later.

“Kid, what the . . .” The mustached guard’s voice was lost as the guy hacked, then hawked up something from deep in his chest. He spit and then croaked, “Damn coffin nails.” Louder: “What’s the holdup?”

“Uh . . .” Luke dragged up his voice from his toenails. The girl was shaking her head. “There’s a lot of ice. Be up in a couple seconds.”

The guard muttered something, and Luke thought the guy might come down after all. But then a flame leapt as the guard lit up a fresh smoke. Turning, he saw that the girl was now only a foot away, her wolf—or maybe a really big husky or something—at attention by her side.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“How many guards?” she murmured. Now that she was closer, he thought she must be around seventeen, eighteen, and decked out in a funky, fluttery camo-jacket, the hood cinched down tight, accentuating high cheekbones, a narrow nose, and strong jaw. The sharp dash of a widow’s peak was just visible high on her forehead, but he couldn’t tell what color her hair was. Her eyes, though, were an intense, deep emerald green, as bright as the wolf ’s. From her clothing and roughed hands—not to mention that Springfield she was packing and the sheathed knives strapped to either leg—he thought she’d been in the woods, on her own, for a long time. She looked like a wild wolf-girl.

“Four. One here, three back at the tents.” He paused. “Are you from Rule?”

She shook her head. “Weapons?”

“Uzis, and they all have pistols.”

A deep wrinkle formed between her eyebrows. “Can you handle a gun?” When he nodded, she said, “Get the guard to come down.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what she was going to do, then he considered how that was just dumb. Nodding, he stood and called, “Hey, I need some help down here? I . . . I . . .”

“What the hell,” the guard said, bored, no question in his tone at all. “What happened.”

Luke injected a note of misery. “I fell in,” he said, then plunged his hand into ice water and splashed around. “And my boot came off. I can’t find it and . . .”

“Aw, Jesus.” An exasperated sigh, followed by the clop of heavy feet. “Hang on.”

“Thanks.” Luke managed a pathetic note. He risked a quick peek with the light, but the girl and her humongous wolf or dog or whatever had vanished. Swiveling, he pegged his flashlight beam to the guard, who was working his way down in a crabbing sidestep. Too late, he remembered: Shit, I’m supposed to have lost my boot. “Hey,” he said, then dropped to his knees, angling his light until the beam splashed directly into the guard’s face. “Over here.”

“Jesus, kid.” Squinting, the guard put up both hands to shield his eyes. A fresh cigarette was screwed into his mouth. “Move the light, you’re gonna—”

Luke saw the girl, who must’ve scrambled higher until she was well above the guard, suddenly rear into view like an actor caught in the flare of a full spot. Her elbows were cocked, and then she was jabbing fast. The butt of her Springfield hit the guard’s skull with a loud thock. The old man grunted, a short huh; his cigarette shot away from his mouth, the orange eye streaking like a comet. The guard’s feet tangled, but he was already unconscious, completely limp, only his momentum tumbling him face-first to a skidding stop just short of the water.

Whoa. For a stunned second, Luke could only stare as the girl swiftly stripped the guard of his Uzi and passed over the handgun to him. Standing, she let out a loud cough at the same moment she cranked back the Uzi’s bolt, the metallic crick-crack lost in the noise. “I really don’t want to risk shots,” she whispered, then suddenly winced. A hand snuck to her temple, and she swayed as if from a sudden shove. “The sound will . . .” She broke off with a harsh grunt.

“Are you okay?” He reached an automatic hand but reconsidered when the wolf, obviously sensing the girl’s discomfort, whined and then nosed the girl’s thigh. She looked like someone had just clocked her, but her expression was eerie, something he’d seen before. Then he had it: she looked a little like Peter when Finn lobbed one of his brain-bomb things. Luke let his hand drift back to his side, suddenly unsure she wouldn’t go just as ape-shit. Maybe she was a Finn experiment who’d escaped.

“I’m fine.” A tight smile died midway to her mouth. Sprawled at their feet, the felled guard snored. Kneeling, she turned the old man’s head until his breathing quieted.

“Who are you? Where’d you come from?”

“Been following you the last two days,” she said. Her wolf was, he thought, some kind of half-breed, a cross between a wolf and a malamute or huge husky. “Had to wait until they moved out. Buck.” Turning, she patted her leg and the wolfdog eeled to her side. “All right,” she said, jerking her head toward the slope. “Get as many down here as you can.”

“How do I do that?”

Now, a true smile, as fleeting as a swift high cloud, touched her lips. “Panic.”

“Help, help!” And then while Cindi was still digesting that, Luke followed the cry with a screech that raised the hairs on her arms and neck.

“Oh!” Heart cramming into her mouth, she jumped up and cast a wild look in the direction from which Luke’s screams had come. “Luke?” she called. “Luke, what—”

“What’s going on?” Chad cried. He and Jasper had bolted to their feet. Weapons drawn, the three guards were hurrying over just as Luke clawed his way out of the grainy half-light. His eyes were shiny as headlamps.

“What is it, kid?” one of the guards demanded as Luke stumbled over. “Where’s—”

“By the stream. I think he . . . he had a heart attack or something. He just kind of grabbed his chest and—” Luke’s face crumpled. “I don’t know CPR!”

“Aw, shit. He ain’t breathing? Shit. All right, come on, come on, quit bawling and show us, kid.” Slinging his weapon onto his shoulder, the guard gave Luke a push. “We’re going to have to carry him,” he said to the others as they hurried off, all talking at once: “Where the hell is the flashlight?” “What do you mean, you dropped it, kid?” “Jesus, I told him to knock off those damn smokes after he run out of pills for his ticker—”

Cindi waited until the guards had disappeared into the trees, then looked at Chad and Jasper. “Luke knows CPR,” she said, quietly. “Tom taught us, remember?”

“He didn’t teach me,” Jasper said.

“You’re too little.” Cindi saw that Chad now had the still hissing coffeepot in one hand. “Something’s going down. Cindi, Jasper,” Chad said, “grab a couple rocks from around the fire. Don’t burn yourselves.”

“They have guns,” Cindi protested as she grabbed a sharp-edged stone as big as her hand.

“Maybe not for long,” Chad said, interposing his body and squaring off so Cindi and Jasper were behind him. “Anything really bad happens, you just run.”

From the trees came muffled cries, a sharp “What—” Then a deep, throaty growl and the bap of a handgun that made Cindi jump.

“Oh shit.” Chad was breathing hard. “I can’t tell if . . .”

If those are animals or Chuckies. Cindi pulled in a squeaky inhale that she stifled with a hand. More sounds now: the clatter of rocks, a strange yipping cry, a crack.

“Jeez, that was an Uzi. Maybe you guys better get out of here,” Chad said.

“We stay together.” Cindi’s heart was fluttering like the wings of a trapped parakeet. “I’m not leaving you to get eaten.”

“Can’t be Chuckies or animals. Luke’s still alive . . . Hey!” Jasper pointed to where the guards and Luke had disappeared. “Look!”

What first emerged from the trees was a gigantic gray-white wolf, as big as a Warg in that battle from the second Lord of the Rings movie, only not as ugly and with no snarling, sword-wielding Orc either. Still, Cindi gasped, took a step back. No way I can run fast enough.

“Oh man, that thing’s huge,” Chad said, his voice shaky. “Where—”