taken part in ending Liam’s siege. Although the Mongrels under her command had been thinned out due to treachery within her ranks or combat with the encroaching werewolves, she wasn’t about to step aside so any invader could have their way with her territory.
“Yes,” she snarled through a snout that seemed just a bit too long for her feline facial structure. “You should run.”
The couple within the car pressed themselves against the opposite window and nearly jumped from their sweat-stained coats when another Mongrel appeared outside the passenger window. Ben’s appearance was even more disturbing than Kayla’s. Being a digger who could practically swim underground, he was accustomed to remaining out of sight. Gill flaps along his neck stretched out and immediately snapped shut after drawing in too much freezing air instead of the soil they were meant to process. Blood and ice stuck to the beak that dominated his face and his black eyes remained calm beneath their vertical lids as they studied the people within the vehicle. His fingers slipped beneath the door’s handle and were strong enough to force it open despite the ice that had sealed it shut. “There is another car further up the road,” he said. “White four-door just past a minivan facing the wrong way.”
Dazed by the words that came from the Mongrel’s beak, the woman stammered, “We can’t just . . . steal a car.”
“Get away from us!” the man snapped as he tried his best to squirm in the cramped confines to put himself between her and the Mongrel.
Ben merely stepped back, allowing the man to play his role as protector without reacting to the threatening tone in his voice or the way he grabbed a long flashlight and wielded it like a club. “It’s not stealing,” he told them both. “The owners of that car were killed by the same creatures we just chased away. My advice is to take that car and get to somewhere safer. Also,” he added while dropping to all fours and scraping away the top layers of snowy earth using long, curved claws, “don’t look too hard at the mess in the ditch.”
When the man turned to where Kayla had been standing, he found only the bloody remains of two Half Breeds. The third had already bounded down the Interstate chasing after a lean figure that slid gracefully into another lane.
“I think we should go,” the woman said.
Taking his eyes from the sight of the chase toward the row of lonely abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, the man swallowed hard and zipped up his coat. “Right. Do you have our suitcase?”
“Just move!”
He followed her order and bolted from the car. Along the way, he thought about the fire that had all but consumed Topeka after the werewolves had sprung up in the autumn. Only during the drive to KC had he asked his fiancé why they might have been spared. The conversation had lasted until they pulled over to fill the gas tank and their stomachs at a place that had a Subway sandwich shop and Pizza Hut tacked onto it. Every seat was filled with people of all ages, genders and nationalities. Each stunned face was focused intently on their meals. The terror implied within their features was all too familiar to the man from Topeka. He’d been wearing it ever since he’d abandoned his hometown.
It hadn’t been an easy decision. When the first werewolves showed up, everyone he knew wanted to fight them. A call to arms swept throughout the entire country at about that same time, encouraging everyone to buy a gun and defend their homes from the animals that meant to do them harm. Explanations would wait for later. Now was the time to fight.
That lasted for a few weeks.
When the angry voices died down, it wasn’t because of victory or fatigue. The people who’d bought their guns and started firing at the wild animals in their yards had been torn to shreds. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t spectacular. Even the few who’d rigged explosives with some degree of success barely managed to do any damage. After that, the wolves had swept in to kill them all.
The police were just more men with guns.
The military was taking a stand, but not in Topeka.
Soon, like most other cities, Topeka burned. Whether the fires had been started by accident or as a last-ditch effort to kill the werewolves didn’t matter. The flames rose and the people who tried to