Page 92 of Winter’s Teeth

Gavin didn’t deserve the quick death I gave him.

I shivered as I climbed into the back of Shira’s car, scared of myself more than the animal howls echoing in the hills behind us. I killed a monster, but there was something darker in me that felt no hesitation about it.

Everly clung to my arm as she slid in beside me, hissing by my ear, “That was you? The gunshot.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. In the rearview mirror, Corbin’s face pivoted up with a jerk, his face dim in the dark, but the whites of his eyes gleamed brightly in the refracting light of Shira’s high beams.

I really hope you don’t hate me for this.

Everly’s head bobbed curtly. She offered only one word in response to my violent retribution. “Good.”

Lights flashed behind us. I jerked my neck, the muscles spasming. “Who—”

“It’s your friends,” Shira said, adjusting her mirror with a squint of her eyes in the bright headlights. “I texted them that we got you three. They’ll follow us to the safe house.”

“No,” I started.

Heads swiveled to mine, but I didn’t have my thoughts collected enough to voice them yet. Dark claws held me down, and every distrustful glance made me want to throw Everly over my back with a possessive growl before taking off into the night like a lone wolf. People I needed to trust made me grip the gun in my pocket a little tighter, the metal still warm from the last shot.

After a hesitant gulp, I said shakily, “I don’t want them to follow. Tell them to get out now while they can. Go home. Go to school. Wait to hear from us.”

“They won’t like that,” Shira drawled as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

“Rae, are you sure?” Corbin followed up.

“Positive. Don’t tell them where the safe house is, and—”

Shira tossed her phone over her shoulder where it landed with a bounce and a slide in my lap. “Tell them yourself. They’re calling right now.”

I scrambled to catch the phone before it slid off my knee to the dark floor below. My thumb glanced over the answer button, and I jerked it up to my ear. “Hello?”

“Thank God!” Riss screeched in my ear.

I held the phone away an inch with a wince.

“You got Everly? You’re in one piece?” Angie called, her voice a little distant like she was trying to climb Riss who was probably holding the phone up and out of reach.

“Everly’s with me. We’re all good.”

“Thank God,” Riss repeated. “You heading to the hospital first or the safe house?”

I hadn’t even considered going to the hospital. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked my sister up and down. She sat tucked up against my side, her hands folded between her clenched thighs. No scratches. No bruises. Just a few stray hairs and dirt smears. Besides the clothes that weren’t hers, she looked the same as the day I lost her.

“She seems okay for now. We’ll go to the safe house first to regroup and figure out our next move.”

“Alright, we’ll follow—”

“We should split up so we don’t look conspicuous.” The lie rolled off my tongue a little too easily. “Is Ben driving? Tell him to take this next left. We’ll meet up at the gas station in the next town over.”

“Good thinking.” Riss’s voice grew muffled as she leaned away to give Ben directions.

Meanwhile, I shook my head subtly in the rearview mirror, meeting Shira’s questioning look. There would be no rendezvous at the gas station.

When Ben’s car turned down the side road behind us, their lights disappearing from Shira’s mirrors, I sagged in the backseat with a heavy sigh.

“Rae? You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Riss.”