This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(94)

Dalton gives an alarmed “Casey?” and his boots thump as he runs toward me. In the bushes, I can see a form big enough to be dangerous, and I back against a tree, my gun raised.

A woman steps out. She’s filthy with snarled hair and ragged clothes, and I think of Nicole. A woman, lost in these woods or taken captive, escaping and hearing voices and making her way toward us.

Then I see the knife. A rusted one with a broken blade and a makeshift handle. When I see that, I realize I’m looking at a hostile.

I have not seen one since I arrived in Rockton. I have heard some stories from Dalton and read others in the archives, but I am still not prepared. This woman could have just crawled from a pit after a decade of captivity. Matted hair. Dirt-crusted skin and clothing. When she draws back her lips, I see chipped and yellowed teeth. But she has not crawled from a pit. She has not been held captive. She has chosen to do this to herself.

And yet . . .

And yet I am not certain she has chosen. Deep in my brain, tucked away into the morass of “things I will pursue later,” I have a theory. A wild theory that I used to joke sounded like I’d been spending too much time with Brent. I will never make that joke again, but the truth of it remains—that I have a theory about the hostiles that I am ashamed to admit to anyone but Dalton because it smacks of paranoia.

A theory for which I have zero proof, and that only makes it worse, makes me fear it is truly madness arising from hate and prejudice, a place no detective can afford to draw from.

My theory is that the hostiles are not Rockton residents who left and “went native” in the most extreme way. That such a thing is not possible, not on such a scale, because that is not what happens to humans when they voluntarily leave civilization. Jacob is not like this. The residents of the First Settlement are not like this. To become this, I believe you need additional circumstances. Mental illness. Drug addiction. Medical interference.

My theory is that the council is responsible for what I see here. I don’t know why they’d do that. I have hypotheses, but I won’t let them do more than flit through my brain or I may begin to believe I truly am losing my mind in this wild place.

I see this woman. I see what she has done to herself. And it’s not just dirt and lack of care. Those only disguise what Dalton’s stories have told me to look for. The dirt isn’t from lack of bathing. It has been plastered on like war paint. Under it, I see ritualized scar patterns. And the teeth that appear chipped have actually been filed.

I see a woman who should not exist outside of some futuristic novel, a world decimated by war, ravaged by loss, people “reverting” to primitive forms in a desperate attempt to survive, to frighten their enemies.

Which would make perfect sense . . . if people up here had enemies. If there was not enough open land and fresh water and wild game that the only force we need fight is the fickle and all-powerful god of this world: Mother Nature.

I stare at this woman . . . and she stares back.

I point my gun; she brandishes her knife.

Dalton is running toward us. Running and paying no attention to anything except me and this woman. Movement flashes in the trees, the bushes rippling.

“Eric!” I shout. “Stop!”

He sees something at the last second. He spins, gun rising, but his back is unprotected and there is another movement behind him. Then something white flying toward him. I yell “Eric!” and he dodges, and what looks like a sliver of white flies past his head.

It’s a dart. A bone dart.

He’s turning, and then there’s a figure, in flight, leaping from a tree.

Dalton lashes out with his gun. A thwack, and the man goes down, howling. Another figure lunges from the forest. Jacob races around the bend, and Storm barrels past. And I fire. I lift my gun over my head and fire.





52





When I fire overhead, everyone stops. Even Storm.

The man who was charging at Dalton sees the dog, and he raises something in his hand, and Jacob drops on Storm, covering her.

“Stop!” I say.

I don’t know if it will do any good. I believe they are capable of understanding the word; I do not believe they are capable of caring about it. I’m not even sure the guns matter, if the shot didn’t just startle them.

Then I hear a voice, and the words are so garbled, it doesn’t sound like English.

“Get on the ground,” one of the men says again, slower, clearer, as the man Dalton knocked down rises.

Two others step up beside Dalton. Two men armed with clubs. One raises his and barks what I am certain is not a word, but the meaning is clear.

“Do as he says, Eric,” Jacob says. “Please just do as he says.” He glances over his shoulder and says, “You, too,” and that must be for Kenny, sneaking up.

Dalton holsters his gun, and I wait for someone to tell him to hand it over instead, but no one does.

Dalton kneels and puts his hands on his head. His expression is blank, but I see the rage in his eyes. This is the second time today we have been ambushed, and that feels like failure, as if we are characters in a bumbling-cop movie. But the truth is that this is the Yukon wilderness, and we are always one step away from ambush, by human or beast. The forest swathes her threats in bush and shadow, and we can walk all day and see no more than hares . . . or we can be forced to lower our weapons twice.