Page 111 of The Girl in the Forest

“We can trust Julien,” I said, bending my head, keeping my voice low. “And if Set is his sire, I think we should trust her. Barend is the one to worry about.”

“What an asshole. I’ve never wanted to kill a vampire as much as I wanted to kill him.”

Her vehemence surprised me, but only a little. There were depths to Laura she rarely revealed, but layers of pain and anger glittered in her eyes when she looked at me.

“This is bigger than we think,” she said. “Barend admitted to having you and Brin, but I’m betting he has more girls. He’s fighting a vampire queen who hates vampires—one or two failles won’t be enough for him.”

I sipped the water Laura gave me, gripping the plastic bottle in my hand. Laura glanced at the cloaking shadows filling the tunnel leading back to High Citadel.

“Noa… did you hear that?”

I shook my head at her.

“I thought something fell,” she said, as if she was talking to herself.

Even with my overheated skin, my body had stiffened. I rubbed at my arms. Cybelle had wandered down the tunnel, and as she’d said… the lights flickered on overhead.

Brin was picking at the label on her bottled water. Julien was sitting on the ground now, with his head propped on a large rock. His eyes were closed. The two male vampires were talking while Levi looked like he’d fallen asleep, his head cushioned on his bent good arm.

I hated disturbing them. But I didn’t want to dismiss Laura’s concerns. “Did you hear a thump?”

“Deeper—like there was weight behind what fell.”

I turned to look where she looked. My body bent forward. My faille senses were fried and sluggish, but an arctic breeze drifted across the floor. It could have been air settling, but pressure throbbed in my head.

I shoved the water bottle back into my backpack. Cybelle was walking back with more speed in her step.

“You feel it, too?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Everyone up. We need to move.” She glanced at Njal. He stood, then jogged back the way we’d come, disappearing in the tunnel gloom while lights flickered on and off, marking his progress.

Levi was pushing himself upright, readjusting the sling supporting his arm. Julien blinked, rising to his feet. I was hefting the backpack straps over my shoulders when the lights reversed and Njal came racing toward us.

“Go, go, go.” He was shouting, waving his arms.

I spun. Laura scrambled for Levi, dragging him to his feet. I herded Brin after them. Julien stumbled, and I wanted to reach back for him, but Kazamir had a hand on Julien’s arm.

The air currents were changing. The arctic air against my skin held a sharp edge that meant something awful had opened in the tunnel. Something more than the downdraft from the grates. Besides, we hadn’t passed a grate in some time—long enough to know that a simple downdraft would not reach this far.

Behind us, Njal’s expression was enough to propel the dead. For a vampire, it was startling. “Go, go, go,” he kept screaming.

But instinct warned me to find out why, why, why. Not run away blindly. My hand slapped against the rock wall, and it was enough to slow my momentum. I turned and stared at the shadows looming in the distance.

Every sense in my body jolted. I back peddled, my feet juddering, crashing into the tunnel wall, stumbling without balance. Lights were flashing on, a rapid sequence racing toward us while a howl bounced from the stone walls, eerie and hungry.

“Wolves,” Laura shouted at me.

“Hybrids!” Julien’s lips were taut as he gripped my arm, pushing me ahead of him. “Gods-damned fucking hybrids!”

Laura had her hands in the middle of Levi’s back while he turned, anger hard on his face. Brin gripped her backpack like she carried school books, except that her knuckles were white and her expression stark. I looked for Kazamir; he was yanking open a metal door set in the rock wall, dragging out weapons—a short sword, which he tossed to Cybelle. Another that he slid into a sheath on his back. Daggers, stuffed into slots I’d never noticed in his black clothes, black for more than one reason.

I readied my bow, nocked an arrow, bobbling the arrow shaft because my hands were shaking. Julien kept me moving, but I still glanced over my shoulder and saw nothing but the lunging shadows closing in on Njal, his legs pumping so fast they blurred—then he screamed.

His body jerked as his arms flew forward. His legs flew back, and it was his open, screaming mouth I stared at, his whitened eyes as a pack of black wolves emerged from the shadows and ripped, tore… pulled him into the depths.

“Noa! Run!” Cybelle had come back for me. Her weight was like a dragging anchor, only pulling me forward. She was staring at the spot where Njal disappeared.

I shook her off. Dropped the bow and raked my hands across the closest stone, syphoning, syphoning. The heat was jagged, clogged. I wasn’t sure if I had enough, but I threw what I could toward the ceiling above where Njal disappeared. Threw it with anger and vengeance as rocks disintegrated.

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