Page 40 of Vice
My brain changes gear with all the finesse and power of an F16 fighter jet. I turn and run back the way I came, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning, my heart on fire.
“NATALIA!”
“Over here!”
She’s easy to find. She must have been doing a fairly good job of keeping up with me, because she isn’t that far behind. I find her crouched low with a serrated dagger in her hand. Her expression is grim and serious, her gaze locked on something in front of her. I don’t see it for a second. My eyes need a moment to adjust to the camouflage of the forest, but soon I can pick apart all of the greens and blacks and browns, and the wolf appears, hunkered down, teeth bared, eyes glinting wickedly. He’s pure black, so wild looking and beautiful, despite his obvious desire to tear Natalia’s face off. She holds out her hand, gesturing for me to stop, to stay where I am.
“He won’t strike if there are two of us,” she whispers. “Just wait. Don’t move.”
I’ve had no experience with wolves before, and I’m betting the woman in front of me has had plenty. I do as she says, waiting to see what the wolf will do, though my hands are twitching by my sides. It feels wrong. It feels like I should be doing something to protect her.
“Steady, boy,” she murmurs under her breath. “Steady now.”
The wolf remains totally still; the only part of him that moves is his muzzle, which trembles as he growls. It’s a menacing sound. He means fucking business, and I have no doubt he’ll launch himself at Natalia if she so much as flinches.
She doesn’t, though. She is even and calm as the wolf watches her with his sharp yellow eyes.
A series of excited yips echoes through the trees around us, and a cold sweat breaks out on my brow. “He’s not alone, Natalia. I think it’s time to go.”
She nods very slowly, turning the handle of her serrated knife over in her hand. “If I back down now, he’ll know he’s won,” she says. “I’ve got to see this through.”
Fuck Harrison. If he hadn’t taken my gun, this situation would be a whole lot different. I might not have even needed to kill the wolf; a shot in the air might have been enough to scare him off. As it stands, the animal is likely to die, and for some reason that seems like an injustice.
The wolf pounces forward, just a foot, testing the water. Natalia doesn’t back down, though. She remains frozen, knife held out in front of her, ready, and her hand is stable. The woman isn’t even shaking. She’s fucking remarkable. “Get ready to run,” she tells me. “I was wrong. This one already thinks he’s won.”
“We don’t need to ru—” Sudden, fast movement takes me off guard. I haven’t been watching. I haven’t noticed the wolf to my right, sneaking through the undergrowth toward me. I barely register the blur of color as it springs up out of the shadows, flying toward me, teeth bared and snapping, going for my throat. I don’t get my arm up in time. I’m halfway there, bracing, getting ready to break the thing in half, when a flash of silver cuts through the air, and the wolf cries out, yelping. He hits me in the side with the force of a seventy-pound bowling ball, but he’s not trying to tear at me with his teeth now. He’s bleeding, lying on his side, and Natalia’s knife is sticking out of the side of his ribs.
Then everything is chaos.
The black wolf attacks, hurtling toward Natalia, who is now unarmed. Did she…did she just take down a wolf with her knife? Mid-air? I have no time to process. I’m racing toward Natalia, but the black wolf is there first. He fastens his teeth around her forearm, clamping down, drawing blood. She screams, and the sound of her pain sends a frisson of electricity through the darkening forest. A series of howls and yelps follows—the wolves are getting excited. And now, they can undoubtedly smell blood.
I fall on the black wolf, grabbing hold of its head.
“Cade! Get it off me!”
I try to cut off its air supply, to choke it out for want of a better word, but I can tell from the rigid, taut way its body is bowed that it won’t give in that easy. It just won’t. There is no backing down in this animal’s world. There is only success or failure, and when failure means starvation, it makes creatures like this determined. I have to kill it. I have to. My balisong is still in my hand, but stabbing him isn’t the most efficient way of ending this right now. I grab hold of his head, taking hold of his muzzle and his lower jaw, and I twist sharply. A sickening crunching sound fills the air, and I feel the damage I’ve done. The wolf’s neck snaps in my hands, and that’s it. He’s dead. It’s over.
Only it isn’t, because then there are another two wolves creeping forward out of the forest, and then another two, and then another three. More and more of them appear, materializing out of the darkness, and every single one of them looks ready to kill.
Natalia holds her arm to her chest, cradling it. She’s covered in blood, and her face is a strange, ashy color. “They won’t stop now,” she whispers. “We have to get out of here.”
I help her to her feet, moving slowly, trying not to startle the approaching pack. “We can’t outrun them,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “This is their world. They can see in the dark. And they’re way better at running through the forest than we are.”
“Then what do we do?” There is always a way out of every sticky situation. Always. I can’t see the way out of this one right now, though, and it’s beginning to freak me out. I may be able to fend off a bunch of the wolves and save myself, but can I save Natalia at the same time? Can I make sure that both of us come out of this unscathed? For the first time, I wish I had been selfish enough to ask Jamie to be here. If he were at my side, this would be a fucking cakewalk. He could have handled the majority of these fuckers while I made sure Natalia was all right. Wishful thinking, though. I told him not to come. I told him to stay in New Mexico with the club, and it’s too late to be changing my mind now.
Moving slowly, I bend down, retrieving Natalia’s serrated blade from the dead wolf on the ground to my left, and I toss it to her. “Go for their necks. Their eyes,” I tell her. “Stay calm and we’ll walk away from this.”
She swallows, nodding, and I can see that she’s scared.
The wolves creep forward, darting ahead one at a time, testing us, trying to find the best spot to attack. There are nine of them now. Nine wolves against the two of us. The way they move is silent and menacing, and death hangs in the air.
“Cade,” Natalia says. The terror is plain in her voice. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m sorry. You were supposed to leave. You were supposed to get out.”
“It’s okay. It’s going to be all right.” I can’t even convince myself of that, though. The wolves draw closer. Their teeth are clearly visible even though the light is failing, and I know how they will feel, ripping and tearing into our flesh. It will hurt. It will be agony, and it will be all my fault.
Closer, they come.
