He held up a hand when he thought we’d come far enough. I stood quiet, waiting for him to explain why I had to be silent. And then he stepped into my space, pushed me flat against a tree, and put his mouth on mine. He didn’t do it like Fade. His lips moved more and he pressed into me. I didn’t know how I felt about it, so I shoved him back.

“I thought you wanted me to.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“You taught me to read. And we spent all that time together training. I thought you knew it was an excuse to be close to you.”

I thought of all the times he’d stood behind me, his head near mine, hands on mine as he positioned my body, and I understood. But for me, it had been practice. I had missed any other meaning in it. When I thought of him, I admired his speed with the blades and the power of his scars. I didn’t know what else there might be. I’d never even considered it. He was my companion, like Tegan, but not like Fade. Nobody would ever be like Fade. That much, I knew.

“Why me? Why not Tegan?”

“I think Fade wants her,” he said with a shrug.

The words cut into me. Was that the reason he sought her out so often? Not just protecting her from Stalker. Maybe it was more.

He went on, “And even if he doesn’t, she’s just a Breeder. She doesn’t have anything else to offer. You, you’re like me.”

I didn’t know if that was true, or whether I wanted it to be. “You mean a Hunter?”

“Yes. You’re strong.”

My marks said I was anyway. Some I’d received on my naming day, and others I’d received in battle, as a true Huntress would. Someday I might even have people to protect again, if this journey ever ended.

I reached up, tentative, and touched my fingertips to his scars. Almost since I first saw him, I’d been curious. From the texture of his skin, they hadn’t used a hot blade to seal them. They had tasked him to heal them on his own. In its way, this was a kind of strength too.

“You don’t mind?”

His eyes closed. “I never let anybody do that before.”

“Why not?”

“It would look like weakness.”

That was a very Hunter thing to say. I understood that from the inside out, even if we’d grown up in different worlds. If you wanted people to take you seriously, you couldn’t let them think you were soft. You did whatever it took to prove you weren’t.

When I dropped my hand, he caught it and used it to pull me closer. Warmth curled through me when he lifted me up and ran his lips down my jaw to my neck. The feeling shook me, so I put my hands on his shoulders. I intended to shove or kick, something to remind him he couldn’t handle me this way. Instead, I found myself gazing down into his pale eyes. They didn’t look cold to me anymore; instead they shone like the sun on snow. For an instant, I saw Fade in his place, smiling up at me. And the sensation split until I couldn’t decide what I felt.

“We should—”

“Check the traps,” he finished.

Stalker set me on my feet, and I led the way, swirling with confusion. The snares only had one rabbit, but it was enough. So I collected the rest of them and he stowed them in his bag. Tegan and Fade met us in the appointed place with a couple more.

“How’d you do?” Fade asked.

And my cheeks burned as if he could see what we’d been doing. But for all I knew, maybe he had been doing the same with Tegan. Maybe the flush in her cheeks didn’t come from cold. They could’ve been pressed together in the shadow of the trees, whispering secrets. The idea didn’t make me like her less, but I did feel sad and heavy, as if I’d lost something without ever knowing what it was.

Nightmare

Two weeks after we left the little building, we found something worse, worse than the big ruins by far.

The smell hit me first. I lifted my head, scenting, and then the river turned. A faded gray length of poured rock angled into the ruins. Compared with the others, these were small, but raddled with damage. Many had rotted away or crumbled to rubble.

And the place reeked of Freaks. It was the first time since heading north that we’d seen any signs of life. I’d started to wonder whether we were the only ones left. Scary thought. But this frightened me more.

Because it was nearly dark—time when we started looking for a place to rest—I could see them, shambling in the distance. That was their territory; I sensed it in my bones. I wasn’t sure where we might be safe, but I was positive we shouldn’t pass. “Let’s not go through there.”

Fade turned. “You smell it too?”

“We all do,” Tegan muttered. “It’s disgusting.”

Stalker gazed into the distance, one hand shading his eyes. “If we cut east, we can go around it.”

“That’ll take us off course,” Fade said. “But I think we’d better.”

I didn’t say so, but it wasn’t like we had a course. Another path, overgrown with grass, led east. It had been made of that poured rock too, but time and rain had worn it down, so it was mostly broken, more dirt than anything else. It led away from the river, but maybe we could get back to it once we skirted the danger. Unless those ruins had a small human population, the Freaks must be preying on one another. That would make them more desperate and more feral than the ones we’d fought.

Or they could be hunting … like we did. The comparison worried me. I didn’t want to find them like us in any fashion.

“I can’t believe they’re here too,” I said.

“They’re everywhere.” Fade’s voice was grim, his face cast in sharp relief by the rising moon. It silvered the world, making it soft and cool.

A grim thought—everywhere we went, we would be hiding from them, running, or fighting. Maybe we should’ve stayed at the little house by the river. At least there hadn’t been any Freaks in the area, and we’d had food. But we’d all wanted to try to find the place Fade’s sire talked about, where things were better. I was beginning to think it was hopeless.

Coming over the next rise, I froze. There were ten Freaks, and at first they seemed as surprised as we were. Still hideous, still terrible, but they looked healthier than the ones we’d left behind. The Freak hunting party raced toward us; they dropped their kills—animals, as I’d guessed—and snarled in vicious anticipation of bigger, sweeter meat. I whipped out my daggers.

“Get behind us,” I called to Tegan, but she had my club and she took a position beside me with fierce determination.

“I’ve been practicing with Fade,” she said.

There was no place for her to hide here anyway. It hurt a bit when Fade and I didn’t go back-to-back like we used to, but I had other things to worry about. Stalker fell in on my other side, blades in place on his hands. The Freaks surrounded us, no doubt expecting an easy win. They couldn’t be used to prey that fought back.

These weren’t as hungry as others we’d encountered, so they attacked with their claws first, teeth second. I used my elbows to block like Stalker had taught me while going for the quick slashes against their torsos. I didn’t have his speed, but I managed to avoid most of the hits and protect my chest. We each needed to take down two, and then split the difference.

Beside me, Tegan swung wide and hard; I gave her plenty of room. She drove them off while I caught them in the recoil. The world narrowed to the stab and punch, kick and thrust. Blood spattered. I swiped it from my eyes and kept fighting. I had no time to look at anyone else, now. These Freaks weren’t going down as fast as the others.

Kill them, Silk whispered in my head. Kill them all.

My Huntress nature emerged, sharp and clean, like a new knife rising from the hissing steam. These were smart. I saw in their eyes, as they tried to learn my tactics and lunged to test my reflexes. My daggers flashed in the moonlight, blood on silver, and my heart sang with each spin, each press of the attack. I hardly felt the wounds I took. I didn’t know how bad they were. I lost sight of everything until the last Freak fell. Fade killed it with a clean slash of its throat. Beneath the stars, on the grass, it showed dark as the night sky. The gurgling, choking breaths slowed, then stilled.

My breath came in hungry gulps. “Everyone all right?”

“Few cuts,” Stalker said. “Nothing serious.”

Fade smeared some blood off his palms and onto his shirt. “I’m fine.”

I turned to Tegan just as she crumpled. Fade caught her as she hit the ground. She dangled in his arms, pale and wan. Her eyes looked big and scared.

“Where are you hurt?” he demanded.

“Her leg,” I said softly. The fabric of her pants had torn, revealing a long gash on her upper thigh.

With my dagger, I cut the bottom of her pants into strips and Fade tied off the wound. It helped with the bleeding, but she didn’t look good. That won’t heal on its own, I thought. The claws had rent her flesh deep.

The pain of having the slash tended put her out, or maybe it was the sight of her own blood. I’d seen people react that way before. Whatever the reason, she went limp in Fade’s arms.

“Let’s get out of here,” Stalker said.

I paused and glanced at Fade. “Can you carry her?”

A sense of having been here before came over me. I remembered asking him that about the blind brat—and look at how that turned out. His face went tight. “I can. We need to find a place to rest and see if we can do something for her.”

No arguments there. Since I had the best night vision, I set the pace and scouted ahead for more Freak patrols. The farther we got from their ruins, the more I hoped their numbers would be sparse. I couldn’t count on us finding a safe spot to rest soon, though. I had to assume they were all around us. My one comfort—that I’d smell them before I saw them, even with my good sight.

We walked through the night with Fade and Stalker taking turns carrying Tegan. She woke up eventually and asked us to let her walk. I just shook my head and kept moving. I hadn’t been this exhausted in a long time. Living aboveground had made me soft in some ways. As if from a distant dream, I remembered our run to Nassau and how only willpower kept me going. I called on it now to keep moving—and I wasn’t even helping with Tegan.

I felt like I had to offer. “If you want me to take a turn with her—”

“We need your eyes,” Fade said. “At least until it gets light.”

“Do you think we’re far enough to stop?” I sniffed the air experimentally and it smelled clean, only the crisp scent I associated with trees and plants, mingled with a hint of musk from some animal that had marked the bark, and a trace of rotting leaves. I also got the tang of blood from Tegan’s wound, so anything hungry in the area would scent her too. Bad situation. The Huntress in me suggested we should leave her behind, too much dead weight. I silenced that voice with an angry clench of my teeth. It wasn’t a choice I could make; maybe I did have part of a Breeder’s heart, and that possibility didn’t shame me anymore.

Stalker answered, “Best to keep going until daybreak, at least.”