The Rains (Untitled #1)(85)

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ve got friends here.”

“What do you mean?”

I put my fingers in my mouth and gave a sharp whistle.

Nothing.

I stared through the branches, waiting.

“Chance?” Alex looked at me like I was crazy. “What are you doing?”

But already I heard them charging through the foliage, churning up dirt. Alex didn’t have time to get scared before the pack of ridgebacks exploded through the trees, surrounding us, nipping at our hands and butting into us, fighting for attention. Cassius jumped up on me, setting his paws on my chest, licking my face. Smiling, I settled him down.

The others swarmed Alex, who laughed, delighted.

“Come on, boys,” I said. “We need a fanged escort through the woods.” I clapped my hands once. “On guard.”

They folded around us, burying us in the pack as we stumbled toward town. Alex looped an arm over my neck so I could help her limp along. Bypassing the town square, we charted a course that kept us in the trees for as long as possible. If it weren’t for the dogs, we would’ve been in trouble hobbling through the dark woods, but they were amazing. At one point we heard shallow panting from the foliage to our left. Deja, Princess, and Tanner charged off. When Alex and I peered through the branches, we saw our former history teacher on her knees, being yanked to and fro like a rag doll.

These dogs were bred to hunt lions.

The thing that had been Mrs. Olsen didn’t stand a chance.

The dogs came back to us, their snouts bloodied, and we heard nothing more from beyond the branches.

We kept on peacefully for a time, making progress, Alex guarding her hurt leg. Halfway to town the dogs heard something we didn’t, and the whole pack shot off through the underbrush. There were snarling and ripping sounds, and a brief time later they emerged, ears perked, tails wagging. We never even saw the Hosts. The ridgies surrounded us again, their brown eyes flashing alertly, and picked up right where they’d left off.

But that only highlighted how vulnerable we felt when we reached the edge of the woods, halting before a row of unfenced backyards that signaled the start of the neighborhood around school. Though there were no visible Hosts, the sight of all that open ground before us made my stomach lurch.

Firming my grip around Alex, I stepped onto the Woodrows’ back lawn, veering past the barbecue by the side of the house. Then I noticed that the dogs were no longer with us. Hesitating back in the tree line, they whined. Some pack instinct must have told them to stick to the forest.

When we turned, we saw only their eyes glinting in the dark spaces between the trunks. Set by set, they pulled back, vanishing. One pair of eyes remained a little longer, floating there. I knew they were Cassius’s. Then those, too, drew back and were gone.

Suddenly the night seemed much lonelier.

Alex and I moved silently alongside the Woodrows’ house and up their long driveway. A few blocks ahead, the big shadowy block of the school loomed, barely visible in the first rays of dawn.

Home. Or at least as close a thing to it as we had left.

The streets looked empty, but even so we made our way carefully from hiding place to hiding place. Alex stumbled, slipping from my grip, holding her injured leg and wincing. She leaned against a pickup truck.

Nervously, I watched a seam of light nudge the horizon, the glow bringing the street into clearer view.

“C’mon, Alex. Just one more block.”

“Sorry. Gimme a hand.” Biting her lip, she grabbed around my neck and let me hoist her to her feet.

Looking past me, she gasped.

I glanced up.

Barely visible in the predawn glow, a wave of movement swept around the corner between us and the school.





ENTRY 39

I had no time to think.

Lifting Alex off her feet, I dumped her in the back of the pickup, then hoisted myself up and slid in next to her.

We lay curled into each other so our foreheads touched.

Her whisper was so quiet I could barely hear her. “What if they saw us already?”

“It’s still mostly dark.”

Dozens of feet rasped across pavement toward us.

“But what if they did?” she said.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Closer. Closer. Then I sensed shadows flicker past us on either side. The group of Hosts had split around the truck. If any one of them paused or looked to the side, they would see us there, holding our breath and hiding in the bed of the truck.

But they didn’t.

Being single-minded had its advantages.

But also its disadvantages.

Alex dipped her face into the hollow of my neck, and I held her, breathing the smell of her hair. The wave of Hosts kept coming and coming, split by the prow of the truck.

Finally the stream thinned, and a brief time later we heard nothing at all.

A spill of light came from the east, making the treetops glow.

“We should go,” Alex said.

“We need to wait, give them time to get a few blocks away,” I said. “We can’t lead them into the school.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I could feel her breath against my throat. Somehow our arms had wound up around each other.

“When I was four,” Alex said, “I got lost at Disney World. There were people everywhere. But I could only see their knees. And then, through the crowd, I saw my mom’s skirt. But I couldn’t get to her. People kept walking between us, and I’d lose her and lose her again. There were people all around, but I was so lost.” Her voice caught. “It was like that at the cannery. When they had us in cages, when they strapped me to that assembly line, I was surrounded by kids but completely alone. I might as well have been the only person left in the world.” She lifted her face to mine. “And then there was you.”