Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,80

it too?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“What is that?” She rubs sleep from her eyes. “Has anybody heard from Gun Shift?”

I come farther out into the hall. “Nothing yet.”

“Some kind of animal. I think,” Reese says, and then she breaks off, nods toward the mezzanine overlooking the main hall. “Let’s take a look.”

We walk together, Cat and Reese ahead, me trailing behind with Lindsay. Lindsay’s watching me, I can feel it—she must know something’s wrong, with Reese sleeping all the way down the hall, but luckily, she doesn’t say anything. I don’t think I could stand it.

Across the mezzanine, and down the stairs. Ali’s on guard at the door.

“Hey,” she says when she sees us coming, her face relieved. “What’s that sound?”

“We were gonna go take a look,” Reese says. “It’s coming from outside, over that direction.” She points to the south corridor, toward Headmistress’s corner office. “You want to come?”

“No,” Ali says quickly. “I’ll go up to the roof, check with Gun Shift.” She hurries up the stairs, leaving us alone in the main hall.

We head for the double doors, and Cat and Lindsay ease back, waiting for Reese to open them, deferring to her in that way all the girls do, equal parts fear and awe. But she can’t, not with her shoulder like that.

“I’ve got it,” I say. With two hands I heave one of the doors open. I glance at Reese, hoping for anything. Just a smile. Just a look. But she ducks through, her head turned away. Cat and Lindsay follow, and I check to make sure the door will stay unlocked before I slip out after them.

We collect on the porch, doing up our jackets as the cold steals into our bodies. The air is heavy, with a charge to it like a storm’s about to break. It’s sweet and sharp, and I breathe it in, look out to a clear sky and whorls of stars. For a moment we’re all still, and I hear one of us sigh softly. And then it breaks. The sound again, a juddering groan. It’s coming from over by the fence.

I squint into the night and head a ways down the walk, the other girls behind. We should be able to see it by now. By the sound of it this animal’s big. It should be hard to miss, even through the trees.

A wide, flat stretch of frost, the flagstone walk slicing through. The fence holding strong, and above the trees, above everything, the first hint of sunrise. But there’s something else, too, something dark and moving by the gate, and I can’t quite pull it out from everything else. I blink, look away and back again, and Cat gasps, and Lindsay says “Holy hell,” and suddenly the lines are clear.

Black, glossy fur. Huge, as tall as me on all fours, with hulking shoulders and a low-slung head. A bear. What I saw on my first trip out on Boat Shift, what I heard in the woods as we left Welch’s body behind. Only now it’s on this side of the fence.

It moans again, and we stumble into one another, hold as still as we can, the winter air ripping ragged breaths from our lungs.

“What the hell is taking Gun Shift so long?” Cat whispers. “How did it get through the fence?”

“There,” Lindsay says, pointing into the dark. “That’s how.”

Dread burning in my gut, but I know it already. And sure enough. Behind the bear, swallowed up by the dark: the gate, swung all the way open.

I should have paid more attention. I should have checked. But I came back in from Boat Shift, and I just pulled it closed. Welch, and the canister, and the wake of the night before, but that shouldn’t have mattered. How could I have put us at risk like that? How could I have been so stupid?

I did this. I brought the end of everything. I’m sorry, I think, I’m so sorry.

The bear is closer now, on all fours with its nose to the ground as it lumbers toward the house. Every so often it huffs loudly and bites the air, the pop of its jaw sounding dully across the lawn. I can see its ears twitching, can see patches of skin ripped bare and raw all down its spine.

A yell from the roof and then a gunshot. It skims in over our heads, hits the stone of the front walk, and the bear rears back. I yelp in surprise. Someone’s hand