“Come on,” she said to the white-haired girl, still sprawled on the ground.
“But my dolly!” The little white-haired girl was bawling. From the ruby smear on her lower lip, she must’ve bitten her tongue, too. “My dolly, I lost my doll!”
“Forget the stupid doll! Mina!” Slinging the Savage’s carry strap on her shoulder, Ellie wheeled and tugged the little girl along in a stumbling run through spare snow. There was no clear path; she was bushwhacking through dense undergrowth that snagged and grabbed at her legs. The little girl was stumbling and gasping, “Wait, wait, wait,” but Ellie didn’t slow down, didn’t reply, just kept on
il sa j . bick going. Spiky branches whipped her cheeks and stung her forehead, snarled in her hair. Mina had pulled ahead by several paces, and Ellie followed her dog, thrashing through briary brush still crinkly with ice. She didn’t like that she was making so much noise. If they could get somewhere safe and hide . . . Behind were shouts and gunshots and braying horses, but the sounds were fast diminishing, as noise always died in dense forest. She would have to be careful not to lose the road entirely, because Tom and Chris would eventually come. If they could. If those explosions didn’t mean that they—
Stop it, Ellie, stop it. Putting up one arm to protect her eyes, Ellie put her head down and plowed through, forcing a way where none existed. Tom will come. So will Chris. Jayden is already here, and so is Greg. All you have to do is hide.
“Ah!” The little girl let out a pained cry. “Stop, stop! I’m stuck, I’m stuck!”
“Quiet!” Ellie hissed. Only people talk, you dummy; you want someone to hear? Impatient and scared out of her wits, Ellie saw that the twisted fingers of thorny brambles clutched the little girl’s hair at the crown in a dense tangle. “Okay, hang on,” Ellie muttered, unlimbering the Savage. “Just hold still.”
“Owowow!” the white-haired girl complained as Ellie fussed with the snarl. Squinting, the girl bared her teeth. “That hurts!”
“Well, it’s really tangled,” Ellie said, so beside herself with fear, she thought about just going already. Wincing against the sting of thorns, she fumbled over the ratty tangle. She glanced at her dog. Ears perked, mouth closed, nostrils flared—but no real alert. That was good. But this stupid tangle just wouldn’t come. Tugging her Leek from her pocket, she snicked the silver-gray serrated blade in place with her thumb.
The little girl’s eyes were saucers. “What are you doing?”
“I’m cutting it.”
“Why? No.”
Ellie opened her mouth to yell, then said, “I’m Ellie. What’s your name?”
“Debbie?” The girl’s chin was quivering again. “My daddy called me Dee.”
“Dee, I can’t get your hair untangled.” Another crackle of brush from somewhere behind, but the sound was fleeting and she was focused on Dee, besides. “I have to cut it, or we rip it. Ripping will hurt. Cutting won’t.”
“Nooo,” Dee said, blue eyes pooling again. “It’s my hair.”
Just do it. Slipping the Leek’s serrated edge under a gnarled clot of the girl’s hair, she sawed. “It’ll grow back.”
“But, but . . .” Dee kept squirming. “Can’t you just chop the branches?”
“No, I can’t.” She was going to stab this kid if she didn’t quit it. “Stop moving. Just this last little—” Ellie’s insides went as still as she’d wanted Dee to be as Mina went . . . huff.
Oh boy. Mina wasn’t looking the way they’d come either, but the way ahead, where they wanted to go. Behind her. At her back.
“What?” Dee said when Ellie froze. “What is—”
“Shh!” Nerves clanging, Ellie bent, got her Savage, and slowly straightened. When she shifted, a spiky pine bough broke with a crispy crinkle. Mina’s ears only twitched. Her dog didn’t break stance to look at her at all.
“Oh.” It was Dee, and Ellie recognized the tone from when the girl had warned them in the wagon: Hey. Hey. Everybody.
Ellie turned—and what wove through the trees turned her guts to shivery Jell-O.
There was only one, but gosh, that was enough. The girl had a dinged-up, rusty-looking aluminum bat, which meant she’d had practice.
And the girl also had something else quite distinctive. As soon as Ellie saw it, she understood, instantly, how all these people-eaters had found them to begin with.
In her terror, it was the one thing she’d actually thought about. How come the people-eaters were here, waiting for them? Finn was sweeping up from the south. That didn’t mean the way north was clear, but she and Jayden and Chris had come into Rule from roughly this direction a little more than twelve hours ago. Yeah, true: they’d come down a little west of here. But they’d run into no people-eaters. Mina hadn’t alerted once. So why were the people-eaters here now?
Everyone knew: people-eaters return to the familiar. Chris was familiar. So was Jayden. Chris’s idea was to use himself as bait to draw them away so Hannah and Isaac and the others would be safe, and then kill the people-eaters when they attacked. Only nothing and no one ever did.
Once they’d made it to Rule, everything had happened so fast, become such an emergency. Chris getting hurt bad and almost dying, and then Tom, and now Finn coming and the big rush to get out of the village . . . well, in the end, they just forgot. It slipped their minds.
And look, Chris’s plan had worked. Just at the wrong time. Because here was the girl, and Ellie knew only one people-eater with a lime-green scarf.
Lena.
116
“Stay behind me,” Ellie said, snicking the Leek shut and dropping it in a front pocket. Not bothering to see if Dee minded, she hefted the Savage. Growling her don’t even think about it rumble, Mina had put herself between them and Lena.
Lena stopped short, about thirty feet away. She wasn’t as holloweyed as before. Except for the scarf, her clothes were different. From the stains on that bat, Ellie thought Lena had picked up a couple snacks on the road the way Ellie’s daddy used to stop at a Kwik-Mart for Krispy Kremes and Slim Jims. Already lean, the girl looked wolfish, like all that walking and fresh air and time in the woods had coaxed the animal out of hiding. Or maybe Lena was finally gone, the beast eating up her insides until all that remained was the glove of her skin.
But she still has the scarf. Ellie had no idea why, but then her thoughts jumped to Dee and her doll, the whistle Alex had always worn until she gave it to Ellie. The whistle was a . . . souvenir? That wasn’t right. For her, the whistle was Alex. For Alex, the whistle was her dad. Maybe the scarf was what Lena had been before everything fell apart.
From behind Ellie, back toward the road, came a faint crack of gunfire. Another. Two more. She couldn’t say if the gunfire had ever ceased. Whoever was doing the shooting was in the wrong place to help them anyway. The idea flitted through Ellie’s brain that she could shout, or have Dee scream. If it was the good guys, they might find them in time.
Unless it’s not. Perhaps Finn had blown through Rule and steamed north to grab them. If so, shouting would only land her and Dee in an equally terrible fix.
“Leave us alone, Lena.” Don’t ask Ellie why; it just popped out. “You know her?” Dee’s voice was a mousy shrill.
“Sort of.” Lena’s head tilted like a dog’s, and then the older girl
took a step. “Don’t,” Ellie said, choking up on the Savage. Swinging first would be a bad idea. Lena was taller and her reach was longer. All Lena had to do was wait for her to miss. Then, one crack of that bat upside the head and Ellie’s skull would break like an egg. Mina would try to protect her, but she didn’t want Lena to kill her dog.
Lena took another step, then halted when Mina’s rumble intensified. “Please, Lena,” Ellie said, “go away, just go away, just—”
Lena came at them, so swift and silent, Ellie never had time to say anything, much less give a command. At the same moment, Mina broke, not waiting for Ellie to tell her what to do but racing to close the gap. Two feet from Lena, Mina readied herself for the leap, and that was when Ellie finally snapped to; saw the danger, because she’d read the angle of that bat; knew exactly what Lena was going to do, because, as Jayden once explained: If you’re ever attacked by a dog or coyote, remember that they never come straight on. Dogs and coyotes and wolves always jump.
“Mina, no!” Ellie screamed, way too late, way too slow, because Mina was so fast, so brave, and she was stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
Lena swung. Ellie heard the cut of the bat, a whickering whir; saw the dull twinkle of aluminum in the light of this new day. The bat caught Mina under her jaw, smashing with a wicked brute force that snapped the dog’s head back with a loud and sickening crack! Mina never cried out or made a sound. There was no leap of blood. The blow sent the dog sailing off-target to crash into a hummock of dirty snow and forest litter.
“Mina!” Ellie shrieked, and darted forward. Behind her, Dee was screaming again, a sound Ellie barely heard over the thunder in her head. Ahead, through a furious red haze, she saw Lena stride to her fallen dog, her Mina, and bring that bat high over her head like a sledgehammer. Ellie had a moment’s hope when she wondered if Mina might still be alive—or if Lena only wanted to make sure.
Then Ellie was beyond caring, barely thinking, only moving, charging with murder on her mind and her heart already breaking. Roaring, she brought the Savage around in a vicious slice just as Lena began to turn. Speeding through air, the rifle axed Lena’s middle, knocking the girl away from her dog, her dog! Ellie barely registered the blow, wasn’t really aware she connected until Lena stumbled onto her heels. Off-balance, Lena backpedaled a few steps before her feet skidded on a patch of slick snow. As she fell, Lena lost her grip on the bat, which turned a drunken cartwheel before thumping to the ground a few feet to Lena’s right. That put the aluminum bat on Ellie’s left, and she had one second, one second . . . and hesitated, unsure if she should try for the bat or not.