Grayson stops and uses me for balance. “Mandi, what is it?”
His ears prick at the distant rumble, the thud of footsteps echoing my heartbeat. Then the inevitable.
A ragged, wet howl blisters through my eardrum, landing like the tip of an arrow, close enough to spell disaster.
Moon-mad wolves are all the same. It’s like the curse shreds through their vocal cords, warping and twisting until the sound is familiar but not.
Our eyes meet, lock, and share panic. “Oh, no.” My fingers go numb.
They’re along the fence, in the daytime. They’ve found us.
Grayson shakes his head. “We can’t. We have to go”
“But my pack?—”
He grabs my numb hand and drags me forward, hard, when I refuse to move. “They’re going to have to fend for themselves.”
The roar comes again, this time closer.
“It’s inside the fence, Grayson!”
Terror splits me in two and makes sure the pieces are not in communication. We’ve gotten to the wood’s edge, grass rolling down toward the communal park space. And beyond the fence, where the scrolling ironwork gate keeps the rest of the world out and the rest of us inside, patrol tightens ranks against our enemy.
Except now we’re trapped.
How did it get in? Through my hole in the fence?
The roar sounds again but from a different direction. There are at least two of them inside. Does it really matter how they found a way? They’re here.
Chaos erupts behind us. The patrol wolves shift midstride, stronger in their wolf form despite the dawn sun lifting high instead of the moon.
They take off and once again, the world slows. Each heartbeat stretches out for a day, a week, and Grayson and I turn in unison to the scene behind us.
Moon-mad beasts vault over a picket fence, some of them blasting the wood into chunks and grabbing at the patrolmen who meet them at the sidewalk.
The first scream is a herald. A tornado siren.
Some people run and others shift to join the fight, landing on all fours and meeting the prowling moon-mad beasts head on.
They topple together to the asphalt and the moon-mad creature tears out the other’s throat.
No.Not again.
This wasn’t supposed to happen here.
Blood arcs across the sidewalk and colors the grass with gore. An ache spreads from my eyes and spikes through my skull. Only Grayson holding me keeps me from shattering.
“We need to help them!” I pull against him hard enough for skin to go tight and slide against my bones.
“If we help them, we’re as good as dead. You know that as well as I do.”
His words make sense. Somewhere in my brain, I recognize the rightness of it.
But these are my people falling. My people dying. Howls and yells draw fighters out from their homes to protect their loved ones.
Soon enough, my father will be there.
More wolves come barreling down the street and throw themselves on the moon-mad creatures. One of them barely blinks before clawing at them, tearing through muscle and sinew.