She could tell the weres by scent, but she can’t recognize magic yet. Hasn’t seen enough of it, I don’t suppose, to know the taste of it, the feel of it. So the others, she thinks they were human. I wouldn’t know if she is right or wrong.”
I watched her sleeping face. Damn it. It was a help, but it wasn’t—
“I have images in mind,” Es said softly. “They take them out. Run them, while men chase them. For…sport.” She spat the last word out like it was something vile.
Everything inside me went cold.
“So that’s it then. That’s what it is. They take kids and hunt them down.” I’d been right. It was all about a game. A sick, twisted game. Fury gripped me. I wanted to shriek with it. Instead, I tugged out Doyle’s picture.
I showed it to the mother.
“Did she see him?”
She stared at the picture.
Then she looked at me. “I don’t know. There is a boy, blond, handsome. But he’s…changing.”
I shot Damon a look over my shoulder. “This is a recent picture, right?”
“Yeah.” Then he shrugged. “But if he’s spiking hard, he could change fast.”
“Not that fast…”
He cocked a brow. “The spike can hit some pretty weird. Like two or three years of growth spurts shoved into two or three weeks. It’s why some of us have to eat around the clock—why that wolf kid might have been in such bad shape. His body didn’t have the physical reserves to heal him because the spike was using them all up.”
Okay.
Okay.
Blowing out a breath, I looked at the girl.
The mother had wanted me to talk to her—
“You were in hell once,” she said quietly. “You know what it’s like to fight your way out. And survive.”
Closing my eyes, I rested a hand on the girl’s foot. She flinched at the touch, but I didn’t move away. “Hey, Lesil. You need to wake up. I…uh…” Blood crawled up my neck and I had to fight not to cringe at the shame and anger twisting, vying for control inside of me. “You got away from them, but if you don’t wake up…they still win.”
Then I rose.
The mother was watching me with mild disapproval.
I shrugged. “Rage and fear kept me going for a long time. Sometimes it’s what you need to get you moving.” Glancing back at Lesil, I murmured, “She’s already choking on the fear. Maybe the rage can be a lifeline. Once she’s not drowning, we can give her another.”
Her lips pursed. “That’s not the witch’s way.”
“But neither of us are witches.”
Turning away, I strode to the wall. “I assume I just go out the way I came in?”
She didn’t answer.
I hoped it was a yes. I’d rather not walk right into a wall.
Chapter Sixteen
I made him drive.
He glared at me and started to argue.
I just threw the keys at him. He didn’t catch them so they hit his chest and then the ground. I shrugged and walked around to the other side of the car, flopping in the passenger’s seat. He had it shoved way back and I had to move it forward in order to not feel like I was sitting in the back seat.
Resting my head on the padded headrest, I started to talk.
I’d been ruminating out loud for a minute before he finally climbed in and shoved the seat back enough for his long legs.
“Anybody ever told you that you’re a pain in the ass?” he asked conversationally.
“All the time.” I rooted through the cloth bag Kori had shoved into my hands on the way out the door. She’d mentioned the little black pot would help with mosquitoes. My only hope was that it didn’t smell like piss or something even more vile.
To my delight, it smelled rather pleasant. Herbal, certainly, but nothing unpleasant.
“We should get a map of the park,” I said. “You have an idea of where all we covered yesterday?”
“Yes.” He stretched out an arm.
When he started toying with my hair, I tensed up.
It didn’t stop him.
Closing my eyes, I told myself to concentrate. That was what I needed to do. Concentrate.
“Good. So we mark where we covered and then find another section—”
“We need to backtrack, actually,” he said, rubbing his thumb down my neck.
I batted his hand away. “Backtrack?”
“Yes. You saw the hunters. I didn’t have to time to go over their back trail, but we need to. So that’s where we start. We’ll grab some food—and you’re taking more than granola bars, damn it.”