Page 28 of Winter’s Teeth

I followed it blindly with my hands out to catch myself in case I tripped on a root or more animal bones, and it grew stronger with every step, meaning I had to be going in the right direction even if I couldn’t see the path ahead.

Light flickered in the distance, orange and angry. I followed it like a beacon, my nose corroborating the path I’d found. Most assuredly, I was headed straight for danger.

When the campfires became clear shapes and shadowed figures materialized, shifting through the trees in the distance, I dropped to my knees in the icy mud to listen. This far out though, it was just indiscernible mutters and deep voices. My limbs were lead as I willed them to move again. I nearly cried out when my ankle popped in objection.

Biting fiercely into my lower lip, I swallowed my groaning pains, shuffling inch by inch toward the voices. One slow, uneven step at a time. Tree to tree, I slipped through the shadows and caught my breath at every trunk I paused behind.

Right at the edge of the fire’s light, I peered slowly around with wide eyes.

Arthur stuck out to me first as the biggest one there with burly arms crossed over his chest. He frowned, staring into the fire, with a few other men in flannel and canvas coats chatting nearby. They chuckled, like they were swapping stories at a bonfire and hadn’t just kidnapped someone.

I leaned into the tree, heaving three more slow breaths as the bite of the rough bark centered me. After the count of three, I peeked out again, this time trying the other side of the trunk.

What I saw stopped my heart.

On his knees, head hanging low, Fox sat tied to a tree like a prisoner.

All around him were other boys. Tied, beaten, and forced into positions of submission on the ground.

Mindlessly, I started moving toward him, but one step forward snapped a twig beneath my boot with a sharp crack.

Fox’s head jerked up. Through the dark clearing, our eyes locked, and my heart lurched into my throat.

Chapter 13

I stared into Fox’s dark eyes for what seemed like several minutes.

Muscles fluttered all over his face, his expression shifting like fickle weather on an ever-changing sea.

I could tell he was confused, shocked, and furious that I was endangering myself again. I could also tell he was scared, his pupils so dilated they were wholly black except for the gleam of flickering firelight in the corners.

“Did you hear something?”

Fox dropped his head again, and I whirled behind the tree as my heart skittered and my breath faltered.

When I chanced to look out again, Arthur had wandered over to the tied-up victims, nudging one of them in the knee with his boot. “Maybe it’ll be for you,” he said, a chuckle limning his words.

The boy that lifted his head registered immediately in my memory as the one who gave me a bread roll before dinner, with eyeliner and all black clothes, completely innocent looking.

He glared up at Arthur, but at least he wasn’t bruised and bloodied like Fox. “This is so stupid, Arthur,” he complained, words strained and fringed with fear.

“If you think our way of life is stupid, then leave, Corbin.”

Corbin’s lips thinned. Apparently, that wasn’t a good suggestion, but I didn’t know why. I would have run off ages ago if I was related to a dick like Arthur.

Arthur had claimed he was having a family get-together. Subsequently, they all had to be related. Brothers or cousins or other. A great number of them did look similar—the same dark eyes and broad builds.

The ones not tied up stalked around the perimeter, totally weaponless. It gave me hope this wasn’t too malicious of an event, but it was still rather sick to kidnap family members like this on such a cold night.

Poor Corbin and Fox to be related to them... I knew a thing or two about being related to people you couldn’t stand.

“Come on, Arthur. Just let us go!” another brave soul shouted from the hemlock he was tied to. He strained against his bonds, leaning out and away from the rough bark, dark swaths of hair flopping over his forehead.

“Nah,” Arthur muttered. “You all earned this. You all thought you could turn your backs on our ways—on our family—so now you’ll pay the price. And if you think this is bad...” He blew out an incredulous breath, one part amused and one part irate.

“Yeah, but you already punished us for that,” Corbin squeaked, his voice breaking with the tail end of puberty. “Fox almost died when you threw him in Penn’s Creek.”

A hand flew wordlessly to my mouth as pieces I’d been grasping at in the dark snapped together to give me half of the picture.