“Get inside, you idiots!” a voice, a girl’s voice, screamed.
Quinn swiveled the light, a rush of motion, something pelting toward him.
Other things moving, like a sea of gray in the gloom.
The beam bounced from a bounding dog onto the terrified face of a ragged, filthy girl.
“Run! Run!” she screamed.
Sam grabbed the door handle and twisted it. But before he could throw it open the girl plowed into Sam and bowled him over so that he sprawled onto the wooden floor and gathered a rug as he slid. A dog landed on his chest and bounced off.
Quinn shouted in pain and shock. He had lost the light. It was still shining across a planked floor and he scrambled after it. In the beam Sam saw Astrid’s legs, Edilio falling.
There came a chorus of angry canine yipping and the girl who had run Sam down was fighting to stand up and a dog was barking and snarling and there were other snarls too as swift bodies came in a rush.
“The door! Get the door!” the girl screamed.
Something was on her, something quick and furious, snarling.
Sam lurched to his feet, grabbed the door, and tried to slam it closed, but a furry body was in the way. There was a canine protest, a snarl, and sudden pain in his leg. An iron jaw closed around his knee, bone-crushingly strong.
Sam fell against the door and it closed. He slipped and landed on his butt against the door and the animal, the wild, snarling thing, had its muzzle in his face. Teeth snapped an inch from his eyes.
He shoved his hands outward and encountered rough fur over writhing muscle.
There was a terrible, sharp pain in his shoulder, and he knew the beast’s jaws had closed on his flesh, and now the animal was shaking him, tearing at his flesh, ripping it, digging deeper.
Sam cried out in fear and beat with nerveless fists against the beast. It was futile. The beast shifted its jaws with lightning speed from shoulder to Sam’s neck. Blood sprayed down his chest.
Sam raised his hands, palms out, but the onslaught was too ferocious. His jugular was pumping his brain dry. His hands were no longer his. His entire body now seemed far away. He spiraled down and down into darkness.
A soft, heavy thud.
And the iron jaw loosed its hold.
Another heavy thud.
Sam’s eyes rolled up in his head, but before he passed out, he caught a glimpse of the wild, ragged girl standing over him. The girl raised her hands, both together, over her head. All was in slow motion for Sam, and there were sparks in his eyes as the girl brought down something heavy and rectangular and yellow on the coyote’s head.
THIRTY-TWO
97 HOURS, 43 MINUTES
LANA LIT ONE of Hermit Jim’s lanterns and surveyed the scene. The cabin was just as she had left it. Only now there were two dead coyotes, three scared kids, a creepy, staring four-year-old, and one nearly dead boy on the floor.
She kicked Nip with her toe. No reflex. He was dead, his brain smashed by a solid gold bar. She’d pounded him again and again until her arms were tired.
The other coyote she didn’t know well enough to name. But he had died the same way, too intent on his prey to realize his peril.
Patrick lay in a corner, abashed, confused, not knowing how to behave. One of the kids, a surfer-looking dude, seemed to mirror that confusion.
“Good boy,” Lana said, and Patrick thumped his tail weakly on the floor.
“Who are you?” Lana asked the surfer kid.
“Quinn. My name is Quinn.”
“How about you?” the pretty blond girl asked.
Lana was inclined to dislike her at first sight: she looked like the kind of too-perfect girl who would blow off someone like Lana. On the other hand, she was shielding the strange little boy, cradling him in her arms, so maybe she wasn’t all bad.
A kid with a round face and dark crew cut knelt over the wounded kid. “Guys, he’s hurt bad.”
The blonde scrambled to him. She tore the wounded boy’s shirt open. A river of blood ran down his chest.
“Oh, God, no,” the blonde cried.
Lana pushed her aside and laid a hand against the pumping wound. “He’ll live,” Lana said. “I’ll fix him.”
“What do you mean, you’ll fix him?” the blonde demanded. “We need stitches, we need a doctor. Look at how he’s bleeding.”
Lana said, “What’s your name?”
“Astrid, what does it matter? He’s…” She stopped talking then and leaned in close to see. “The bloodflow is slowing.”
“Yeah. I noticed that, too,” Lana said dryly. “Relax. He’ll be fine. In fact…” She tilted her head to get a better look at him. “In fact, I’ll bet when he’s not covered in blood, he’s cute. Your boyfriend?”
“That’s not what it’s about,” Astrid snapped. Then, in a low voice, like she didn’t want the others to hear, she said, “Kind of.”
“Well, I know how crazy this sounds, but he’ll be fine in a few minutes.” She pulled her hand away to reveal that the jagged wound was already closed. She covered the wound again. “Don’t ask me how.”
“No way,” the crew-cut kid breathed.
Outside, the coyote pack yipped madly and thudded against the door. But the latch held firm. Lana wedged the back of a chair under the handle and calculated her next move.
The door would not hold forever. But the pack would be aimless, unsure of what to do until Pack Leader came back from his private hunt.
“His name’s Sam,” Astrid said. “That’s Edilio, this is my brother, Little Pete, and I’m Astrid. And I think you just saved our lives.”