Wilder Girls(65)

“No,” Ali says quickly. “I’ll go up to the roof, check with Gun Shift.” She hurries up the stairs, leaving us alone in the main hall.

We head for the double doors, and Cat and Lindsay ease back, waiting for Reese to open them, deferring to her in that way all the girls do, equal parts fear and awe. But she can’t, not with her shoulder like that.

   “I’ve got it,” I say. With two hands I heave one of the doors open. I glance at Reese, hoping for anything. Just a smile. Just a look. But she ducks through, her head turned away. Cat and Lindsay follow, and I check to make sure the door will stay unlocked before I slip out after them.

We collect on the porch, doing up our jackets as the cold steals into our bodies. The air is heavy, with a charge to it like a storm’s about to break. It’s sweet and sharp, and I breathe it in, look out to a clear sky and whorls of stars. For a moment we’re all still, and I hear one of us sigh softly. And then it breaks. The sound again, a juddering groan. It’s coming from over by the fence.

I squint into the night and head a ways down the walk, the other girls behind. We should be able to see it by now. By the sound of it this animal’s big. It should be hard to miss, even through the trees.

A wide, flat stretch of frost, the flagstone walk slicing through. The fence holding strong, and above the trees, above everything, the first hint of sunrise. But there’s something else, too, something dark and moving by the gate, and I can’t quite pull it out from everything else. I blink, look away and back again, and Cat gasps, and Lindsay says “Holy hell,” and suddenly the lines are clear.

Black, glossy fur. Huge, as tall as me on all fours, with hulking shoulders and a low-slung head. A bear. What I saw on my first trip out on Boat Shift, what I heard in the woods as we left Welch’s body behind. Only now it’s on this side of the fence.

   It moans again, and we stumble into one another, hold as still as we can, the winter air ripping ragged breaths from our lungs.

“What the hell is taking Gun Shift so long?” Cat whispers. “How did it get through the fence?”

“There,” Lindsay says, pointing into the dark. “That’s how.”

Dread burning in my gut, but I know it already. And sure enough. Behind the bear, swallowed up by the dark: the gate, swung all the way open.

I should have paid more attention. I should have checked. But I came back in from Boat Shift, and I just pulled it closed. Welch, and the canister, and the wake of the night before, but that shouldn’t have mattered. How could I have put us at risk like that? How could I have been so stupid?

I did this. I brought the end of everything. I’m sorry, I think, I’m so sorry.

The bear is closer now, on all fours with its nose to the ground as it lumbers toward the house. Every so often it huffs loudly and bites the air, the pop of its jaw sounding dully across the lawn. I can see its ears twitching, can see patches of skin ripped bare and raw all down its spine.

A yell from the roof and then a gunshot. It skims in over our heads, hits the stone of the front walk, and the bear rears back. I yelp in surprise. Someone’s hand clamps down over my mouth, but it’s too late.

   The bear’s head swings up and around to look right at me. I let out a muffled scream. One half of its face is bare to the bone.

Make noise, Mr. Harker told us. Fight. But this is the Tox, and I don’t think those rules are true anymore.

“The shot didn’t scare him off,” Reese says. “But Gun Shift could still hit him.”

Next to me Lindsay is trembling. Pressed in against the other girls, my body feels like a live wire. Tension running so strong you could snap me in half, my heart racing.

“Give them one more chance,” I whisper.

Another shot, and the bear roars. I think maybe they hit it, but it’s still coming toward us.

“We’re going to move backward,” Reese continues, her voice even and low. “Slowly, on three.”

I grab Cat’s hand as Reese starts to count. We’re all of us linked, and I feel somebody shiver as the bear snorts and shifts its weight. It’s not far to the house, but if we run, it’s sure to catch at least one of us.

Our first step takes us back enough that I can’t smell the hot stink of its breath. It watches us, and I’m trying not to blink, trying not to break eye contact, but my blind eye is aching, the strain and the dark and I’m so, so tired.

“And again,” Reese says. Together, another step. Shivering nerves, clenched fists.

For a second everything is quiet, and I feel my shoulders relax. And then a growl, rumbling up out of the ground, so loud it shakes me to my core.

   “Okay,” Reese says. “It’s time to run.”

Cat breaks first, pushes away from us and takes off. I crash onto my hands and knees, dirt rough against my palms, cold scrape tearing skin. Shadow thickening, and when I look up it’s coming, bone glistening, mouth open and wet. A calm settles over me. All I have is my knife tucked in my belt, not good for much in a fight like this, but I can buy the others time. I’m the one who let it in. I’ll die keeping it out.

But Reese hooks her silver hand under my arm and hauls me to my feet, eyes wild, a flush high on her cheeks.

“Move.”

Feet pounding, air whipping against my face, blood pumping, and I can hear it—the bear, steps shaking the earth as it sprints after us. The crack of a gun, but it misses in the dark, and I can’t look back, can’t look back. Cat waiting at the door, Lindsay just ahead of me. Past her, and into the open. Every breath harder and harder, the cold closing my lungs.