Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,23
her off, a soft rumble from behind us. A growl, and the snap of a branch. I turn.
It’s a bobcat, gray fur, body long and crouched low. Pointed ears lying flat, teeth glinting as it snarls. Maybe ten yards out and coming closer in careful, stalking steps, the frost crunching underneath it.
Before the Tox they were small and skittish. You could scare them off with a gunshot. This one, though. I can see its muscles rippling under its fur, its massive shoulders nearly up to my waist.
“Get behind me,” Welch whispers. “Slowly.”
I can barely breathe, my eye locked on the bobcat, but I slip in behind Welch, feeling the ground with my boots before I take each step. The cat lets out another growl, drops its chest to the ground. It’s closer now, and I can see dark spots on its back, dried blood crusting where its skin has fallen away in patches. Sores bubbling along the inside of its front legs, bile staining the white fur on its neck.
A step forward, and another, its tail flicking from side to side. Welch pushes me back, and my foot snags on a root. I stumble with a curse. The cat hisses and darts forward. Lets out a grating scream.
Welch fires her gun into the air, the sound exploding into my head, and the bobcat springs back with another growl, circles us with its tail lashing.
“On my signal,” Welch says, “make for the house. I’ll catch up if I can.”
Turning, turning, the gun shaking in Welch’s hand, and I can’t tell anymore which way we came from, which way I should go. But it doesn’t matter. The beat of my pulse telling me run, run, run.
“Ready?” Welch says. The bobcat is still growling, snapping its jaws as she aims the pistol between its eyes.
No, I think. But it’s too late. A squeeze on the trigger, and a scream from the cat as a bullet rips along its side. Welch shoves me away. “Go!” she’s yelling. “Now!”
She’s muffled by the ringing in my ears, but my body hears it. I hoist my bag over my shoulder and break for it. Feet thundering against the earth, and I’m gasping into the cold air, throwing myself forward, pushing as hard as I can. Another gunshot behind me. I don’t look back.
The pines rush past as I weave through them. Fear like a veil, and everything looks like something else, like danger, like hurt. A path opens in front of me. I follow it, the hair on my arms prickling. I’m too exposed out here, too vulnerable, but I think this is one of Mr. Harker’s trails, on the south side of the island. At least I’m heading the right way.
My lungs burning, a cramp starting to set in my leg, my bag thumping painfully against my hip. Ahead I can see a stand of spruce trees, their branches ducking low to the ground. If I get inside, I’ll be hidden from anything following me, and I can wait for Welch.
I shoulder through the thicket of branches and find myself in a small, sheltered space, the air green and spiced, the whole world shredded by a crosshatch of needles. Beyond, the woods look still, nothing moving. No flash of red on Welch’s clothing. I search through my bag for my hat and balance it on one of the branches, so that Welch will see it if she passes by.
If she doesn’t come in a few minutes, I tell myself, I’ll keep moving. But the thought of going out there again turns my stomach. I never spent time out here alone before the Tox. I always had a class of girls with me, all of us on a nature walk for biology, or I had Reese and Byatt as we tramped through the forest to Reese’s house for dinner. And it wasn’t like this, then. The trees didn’t grow so close. There was more air to breathe.
I crouch down at the base of one of the spruces and push some of the dead needles into a pile to sit on, to keep me farther from the frosted ground. But there’s something here, hidden under the brush, something hard and hollow.
I scrape off the dead leaves, ignore the scattering beetles that cascade like glossy black beads. Something tangy and rotten tickles my nose the more dead foliage I move, until what’s hidden underneath is clear—a cooler, vivid blue plastic and folded handle, like someone’s left it