Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(32)

Those who failed to attend risked, if reported, twenty-four hours in the stocks erected outside the three-car detached garage that served as the prison.

Since Rove’s appointment, executions took place at precisely midnight. Not a minute before, not a minute after. “Escorts” selected by lottery led the prisoners from the garage to the public green and the scaffold. Each prisoner bore the brand of a pentagram on their forehead—a Rove flourish White had decreed into Purity Warrior policy. Their hair, roughly shorn, often showed bloody scalps. They were allowed no shoes, only a rough garment of burlap fashioned by slaves.

If the prisoner had wings, they were sliced off. Witches remained as they were since capture, gagged and blindfolded, lest they try to cast their evil eye or speak an incantation.

On this Sunday night, when images of shadows and shapes pushed into Fallon’s dreams, as crows circled over the scaffold and those already gathered, two of the six prisoners being held took the forced march.

The witch, raped, beaten, all of her fingers broken, struggled not to limp, not to trip. If she fell, they’d kick her, and they’d already broken her spirit with pain. She was ready to die.

Beside her, fighting to be brave, the shapeshifter, barely twelve, kept his head up. He’d run to draw the hunt away from his little pack. He’d saved his brother and the rest, so he kept reminding himself he wouldn’t die a coward.

He could ignore the jeers and taunts of the escort, of the people who ran along the street. He had to ignore the sad, hopeless eyes of the slaves or he might give in to the screaming inside his head.

He wasn’t ready to die. But he wouldn’t beg.

A stone grazed his cheek. The quick pain, the scent of blood had the animal inside him straining for freedom. He reined the cougar in. These filth would never see his spirit.

One of the escorts shouted, “Stoning’s forbidden! Knock that off unless you want an hour in the stocks.” Then he gave the boy a shove. “Keep moving, you demon bastard.”

Inside the boy, the cougar growled low. Its powerful forelegs pulled against the rope binding the boy’s hands behind his back.

Then he saw the scaffold, the pair of nooses, the crowd of people lit bright on the green. They’d kill him, he thought with a cold assessment his youth had helped him deny. At midnight, they’d hang him so he’d choke and kick while they cheered.

They’d kill him, so why shouldn’t he die fighting? Why shouldn’t he fight with all he was? And maybe take a couple of them with him.

He breathed in deep of the night air, let the cat stretch inside his bones, his muscles, his skin. They could kill him, he thought, but they wouldn’t break him.

As he opened himself to the change, welcomed it for what he believed was the last time, an arrow winged out of the dark.

The escort who’d shoved him let out a kind of grunt, then fell to the ground. Jeers turned into screams as more arrows flew and people scattered.

With arrows whistling, the cougar slipped its bounds, dropped to all fours. Its eyes glinted as it leaped into the panicked crowd. He saw a man—a boy?—pull the gag and blindfold from Jan—the witch—then pick her up when she swayed.

He ran with one purpose, one destination in mind. What had been his prison. He heard gunfire, more screaming, rushing feet. He scented blood, scented fear.

He wanted blood. He wanted fear.

But when he reached the prison, his prey lay on the ground bleeding, senseless. A girl stood over him, and then she turned, stared into his eyes. Shifted to stand between him and what he wanted most. The taste of that blood in his throat.

“He’s down, and he’s unarmed now. You might be able to get by me long enough to rip out his throat. But you’ll never be the same if you do. We have your brother safe, Garrett. We have Marshall and the others safe.”

He shuddered, dissolved into the boy. “Marshall? Everyone?”

“Marshall and everyone. All eight. Nine now, with you. You’re safe, too. And we need to get everyone we can away from here. Jonah!” she called toward the garage. “I’ve got the kid. The shifter.”

“Get him to the rendezvous. We’ve got four in here, and we need to transport them out.”

“Roger that. You need to—” She broke off when Garrett swiped out—cougar claws on a boy’s hand—and scored the guard’s right arm.

“They beat us and burned us and broke pieces of us. They marked us. And things … He raped me.” Garrett drew a shuddering breath. “Now I’ve marked him.”

“Okay.” She put a hand on his shoulder, drew him away. “We have to move fast, get as many people who’re being held out as we can. Can you run? It’s less than a quarter mile.”

“I can run.”

She broke into a sprint, making him prove it.

She had dark hair in a lot of curls that sort of burst out of a band. She ran fast, scanned everything as she moved. He thought her eyes were blue, but it was hard to be sure when the moon kept going in and out.

She wore a short sword and a quiver, a bow.

“Did you shoot the arrow?”

“Which one?”

“The one. The first one.”

“No. My brother did. He won the toss. I’m Tonia.” Grinning, she shot a hand in the air, circled a finger, forming three circles of light. Just ahead, Garrett saw the answering light. Then two men with rifles beside a truck.