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  I trembled in a fog of utter shock. “If I had to make a ruling, I’m eleven percent this is a good thing and eighty-nine percent this is a what-the-almighty-fuck-I-don’t-know thing.”

  “Eleven percent?” He narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

  “I’m hungry, Salem.” I glanced at his beautiful throat. “Fangs would allow me to—”

  “No.” He pointed at me, voice stern.

  “Just a taste.”

  “No tasting.” He took a step back.

  “Why the fuck not? You just tasted me.”

  “I unlocked this…thing in you.” He gestured at my fangs. “We don’t know what’ll happen the other way around.”

  “Why would you think—?”

  “Your mother…” He gripped the back of his neck and paced the far side of the room. “She destroyed the Drone’s monstrous creations. Creations like me. She shared their strength and speed and blew them to hell with a thought.”

  “The aphids. Not you.” I gritted my teeth and flinched against the prick of my fangs. Fuck!

  He watched me with shadows of distrust behind his luminous eyes. “We need to test your strength.”

  “Now?”

  Just as the word left my mouth, he was on me, chest to chest, my back to the floor, and his hands around my neck. I couldn’t breathe past the stranglehold. Black spots invaded my vision. My fangs pierced my lip and filled my mouth with blood. I couldn’t shove him off, couldn’t pry his hands from my throat. Let go, let go, let go.

  He did, leaping up and back across the room. “Human strength.” His voice was even, unruffled, relieved.

  “Go to hell.” I gripped my throat, gulping for air. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “We need to get out of here.” He turned toward the door.

  “What are you going to—?”

  Bang. Bang. Bang. His fist pounded on the steel. “Let me out!” He raised his voice to a volume that rattled the rafters. “I fucked the crazy bitch, and she turned into a fucking hybrid. Get me the fuck out of here!”

  I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

  He glanced at me over his shoulder, put a finger against his shushing lips, and winked.

  I rolled my eyes. Our captors didn’t come when he said I was dying. I didn’t hold on to any hope that they’d rush to protect him.

  Gliding my tongue over my new teeth, I acquainted myself with the angled edges. I continued the oral exploration while pulling on my shorts and tying the makeshift bra around my chest. Lifting my head, I caught the glow of his veins out of the corner of my eye. My breath hitched.

  “Salem,” I whispered. When he looked my way, I pointed at his chest and mouthed, They’re coming.

  I scanned the concrete ceiling, embedded wood beams, and single electric bulb as I’d done a million times over the past ten days. There were no cracks or peep holes anywhere in this cell block. No way our captors could spy on us.

  An electric buzz signaled the impending movement of the door.

  I met Salem’s eyes. “It’s too soon for a food delivery.”

  He backed away from the door, angling in the opposite direction of where I stood. Should I go after him? Pretend to attack him? We hadn’t discussed a fucking plan.

  The gears groaned, and the door shimmied opened an inch, another inch, and stopped. My heart crashed to a halt.

  I stole a glance at Salem, but his attention was on the door, his back straight, expression severe. I followed his gaze, my pulse throbbing in my throat.

  Something moved in the dark crack. Small and indiscernible, it hovered at chest height, glinting in the light. Metal?

  The next few seconds flashed in a blur. A pop sounded. The air whistled. Salem shouted and lunged for me. His body slammed me to the floor and pain jolted through my back. What the—?

  He sprawled across me, the tension draining from his muscles and a dart protruding from his shoulder. A chill tore up my spine, and I jerked to run for the bathroom. But he was too heavy to move off me, and I was too slow. Another pop had already rent the air.

  A prick stung my thigh. I reached down, bumped the dart in my leg. Queasiness surged. Vertigo spun me into groggy confusion. I fought it, fumbling in slow motion. So heavy. Too fuzzy.

  Fuck you, Salem, and your stupid ideas.

  The lights went out.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  My legs were on fire.

  I clawed my way out of the dazed space between unconsciousness and awareness, mentally probing my body. The prickling scorch of a thousand needles attacked my face and hands, and a knot of nausea twisted my stomach. Why was I burning? Where was I?

  I lay still on my back and listened.

  Nothing. But the nothingness sounded different, vast, as if it stretched out around me for miles. And the air felt sharper, fresher. Brutally cold. A waft of alpine tickled my burning nose. Not burning. Freezing.

  I cracked open an eye and met pitch-black darkness. Where was Salem? My pulse kicked up. Don’t panic.

  My fingers curled into frigid, powdery…snow? My breath rushed out, and my head spun through the weight of lingering sedation. Warm softness covered my upper body and feet. I felt around with clumsy movements and found familiar textures on my body—my cloak, medallion, boots, shorts. Holy shit, my bow!

  A branch snapped in the distance, and something skittered overhead. My heart catapulted to my throat. I was outside. At night. Drugged. In shorts.

  How did I get here? Were my captors nearby? Salem? Everything I’d had with me when I was captured had been returned, except…

  I pawed through the folds of furs, frantically searching for my mother’s dagger. When I found it buckled to my hip, relief escaped my cracked lips in a plume of condensation. An answering breath sounded a few feet away. Salem?

  Rolling to my side, I strained my eyes and spotted an obscure human-sized smudge lying in the snow.

  “Salem?” I whispered.

  The shadow stirred. “Dawn?”

  Oh, thank fuck. I crawled toward him, scraping my exposed legs through the wet snow and shaking violently.

  My vision adjusted on the silhouettes of surrounding trees and the trail of footprints heading off to the right. Were we still in the Yukon? How long did a sedative last? They couldn’t have transported us far. Unless they’d tranquilized me more than once.

  I reached his leather clad body and rolled him to his back. He wore a long black coat buttoned down the front, leather pants, and heavy boots. Beside him sat a huge backpack and a strange wooden club with a curved neck and a spiky bulb at the end.

  Hooking a finger beneath the collar of his trench coat, I tugged it down. No veins.

  “Am I glowing?” He opened his starlit eyes and stared up at me.

  “Uh, just your eyes. Damn. You could light up the sky with those peepers.” I glanced around, my heart rate accelerating. “I just woke. I don’t know where we are. Looks like the Yukon. We’re alone, but who knows for how long.”

  “Shh.” He cupped my cheek and gave me a small smile. “You okay?”

  “Frozen to the bone.” I shivered to the point of pain. “A little sluggish. A lot confused. You?”

  “Same.” He sat up and started to topple over, catching himself on a braced arm. “Whoa. I think I need a minute.”

  “Why are you waking after me?” I maneuvered my numb legs into a crouch, pulling the cloak around my bare skin. “Doesn’t your body recover quicker?”

  “It should’ve…no, wait.” He dropped his head in his hands. “I came to…I was being dragged face down through the snow and…fuck!” He reached back and rubbed his shoulder blade. “They shot me more than once.”

  “Did you see them?” I glanced at the tracks and counted two sets of footprints. “How many?”

  “It was dark. I only remember flashes. Snow. A pair of boots. The sting in my back.” He looked around. “Any idea which way—?” His gaze landed on my crouched position. “You’re still in those shorts.”

  “
Yep. I’ll be dead from hypothermia in a few hours.” My teeth chattered. “Got any extra room in your pants?”

  “You already know the answer to that.” His eyes glimmered as he grabbed the backpack. “This is…” He dug through it. “This is my backpack. It doesn’t make sense. They let us go? Put clothes on us?” He pulled out a hunting knife and stared at it in shock. “Why would they return our weapons?”

  “They want us to live?”

  “So they tossed us out in sub-zero temperatures with no food or shelter?” He removed a pair of fur-lined leather pants. “Put these on. I’ll find something to hold them up.”

  A few minutes later, he led us in the opposite direction from the boot tracks. A rope belt held my borrowed pants in place, and fur gloves and a hat from his backpack added extra protection from the cold. On his mission to stalk me, he’d come prepared, where I’d run off into No Man’s Land, leaving all my supplies behind with Eddie. Stupid, impulsive me.

  Clutching my mother’s dagger, I plowed through the snow, weaving around low-hanging branches and feeling my way through the dark. I didn’t have a single arrow and needed to fashion some as soon as we found shelter.

  He squinted at a compass from his backpack, but we didn’t have a starting point. We’d been dropped in a frozen forest without a map or a smack on the ass.

  “You know what’s bugging me?” He stopped, waiting for me to catch up.

  “My shorter legs?”

  “No, baby.” His leather-gloved hand lifted my chin. “I love your legs.”

  I pressed a kiss on his palm, expecting him to flinch away from my teeth. Instead, he pulled my head against his chest and wrapped me in a warm embrace. Maybe he could sense my bloodlust had taken a nosedive in lieu of a more pressing need—surviving the night.

  “What’s bugging you?” I mumbled against the chest straps of his backpack.

  I could think of a thousand things. Why did our captors free us? Because we had sex? Because I grew fangs? Why not just kill us if they didn’t like the outcome? Or maybe we gave them exactly what they wanted? What if I was pregnant? What if my fangs are meant to destroy humanity, not save it? Don’t think about that.

  “I don’t want to freak you out.” He nudged my face up, warming my cheeks with his gloved hands. “But are you sure you’re okay? You don’t feel any bites? No pain from a possible…from forced entry?”

  Rape. The hairs on my nape stood on end. “Let’s keep moving.” I trudged ahead, concentrating on twinges or discomfort I might’ve overlooked. If I’d been raped, would I feel raped? “Other than your bite on my neck, I don’t feel anything suspicious.”

  “If our captors were hybrid,” he said, “why didn’t they bite you?”

  The hybrid venom mentally programmed the infected with an uncontrollable need to bite humans and impregnate women. If I were still human—Scratch that. I am still human—they wouldn’t have been able to stop themselves from fucking and feeding on my comatose body.

  I rubbed my arms beneath the cloak. “Maybe my fangs deterred them.” I threw him a sideways glare. “You did tell them the crazy bitch turned into a hybrid.”

  He kept his eyes straight ahead, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “I promised you I’d get us out of there.”

  “About that…” I stopped, tilted my head. “How did you know that would work?”

  He looked around, scrutinizing the woodland shadows. “We’re not doing this here.” Without a backward glance, he sped up his gait.

  “Not doing what?” I chased after him, tightening my grip on the dagger. “You know something, don’t you? What are you not telling me?”

  “Let it go, Dawn.”

  “No—”

  He whirled on me and caught my throat in a punishing grip. “Daylight is coming.” He stabbed a finger toward the right. “If we don’t find a place to bunker down…” His expression tightened with an unusual mix of pain and ferocity. Just as quickly, his face softened. “I know you don’t trust me—”

  “I do.” I pried at the fingers on my throat. “When you’re not fucking choking me.”

  His hand loosened but didn’t release me. “You don’t trust me, and we’ll talk about that. We’ll talk about all of it as soon as we’re safe.”

  He dropped his arm and strode away, leaving me shaken and speechless.

  Assuming we were still near the Yukon River in Canada’s far north, there would only be about four or five hours of daylight. But how did he know what time it was? I stared at the canopy of branches overhead and the black sky peeking through. It could’ve been nine at night or nine in the morning. My sense of time and direction was fucked up beyond recognition.

  The wide hump of his backpack faded into the darkness, and the dense shadows of undergrowth crept in around me. I missed the warmth of sunlight on my face, the scent of it on my skin, and the profound sight of it destroying the gloom of night. Dawn. The word my mother whispered on her dying breath. The last thing she saw before she gave me her life. A life I wouldn’t squander.

  Salem wanted us to find safety, and that took priority over his secrets. I didn’t trust him with intel regarding Resistance missions, didn’t trust that his actions were in favor of humanity’s future. But I trusted him with my life. I believed, in the depths of my soul, he would protect me.

  We plodded side by side in silence through the endless timberland. He stole glances at the eastern horizon but stayed on a southern course, according to his compass. I kept my eyes peeled for signs of my fathers. They would be frantically hunting for me. Could they be looking in this very forest? I’d been missing for at least ten days. Their concern must’ve been eating them alive. I watched for breaks in the tree limbs and stacked stones—any of their trademarks indicating they’d passed through the area.

  I left my own breadcrumbs by knotting branches on trees I passed and bending them in the direction I traveled.

  “What are you doing?” Salem eyed my hands.

  I tied off a black spruce limb and folded it until it bowed with the end aiming southward.

  “It’s something Jesse taught me.” I released the branch and continued walking south. “When I’m lost, I bend the branches to point like arrows along my route. If one of my fathers sees it, he’ll know which way I went.”

  “And if there are no trees?” He sounded skeptical.

  “We have distinctive trademarks for every situation.”

  “Do they actually find you through these trademarks?”

  “Always.” I drew in an unsteady breath.

  The Yukon spanned over one-hundred-thousand square miles. Finding me was like finding a needle in a mountain of pine needles. But Eddie knew I’d headed west—the opposite direction of our camp.

  “If our captors dumped us near the mansion,” I said, “We’re west of my camp, a three or four day walk maybe.”

  “What kind of camp?”

  “A small barricaded town. A few people lived there when we found it. We’ve been helping them fortify their walls, and in exchange, they let us use it as a temporary headquarters for the past couple months.”

  He nodded and continued walking. I didn’t question his decision to venture south. The footprints in the snow where we woke trailed north. Mission number one was putting distance between us and our captors. Once we gathered our bearings, I would go east, back to my temporary hub, with or without Salem.

  My chest clenched at the thought of separating from him. I forced it out of my mind, refusing to focus on what-ifs.

  “What is that?” I nodded at the odd wooden club in his hand.

  “It’s a totokia club.” He held it in front of me, giving me a closer view in the dark. “Sometimes mistaken as a pineapple club.”

  It reminded me of an ostrich, with the long neck curving into a round head and a pointed beak. Except the head bristled with wooden thorns and the beak sharpened into a lethal spike.

  “Does it have a story?” I asked.

  “My friend, the man I told yo
u about, Wyatt…” He tipped the club upward to rest on his shoulder as he stepped over a fallen log.

  “The man who was like a father to you.”

  “Yeah. He was an antique dealer before the virus and had this club in his collection. When he gave it to me, he said it was from the Fiji Islands. See the spike? It was designed to puncture a neat hole through a skull. The bulky head puts weight behind it, so when you drive the spike through bone, you don’t need a long warning swing. The natives were known cannibals. You can imagine its usefulness.”

  “That’s, uh…” I coughed against my fist. “Disturbing.”

  “But effective.” He slid me a fanged grin.

  “Well, you’re probably not going to need it out here.”

  I hadn’t seen a hint of life in the however many hours we’d been walking. I’d kept a watchful eye on his neck, waiting for the phosphorescent veins to appear. Not that I expected to encounter a random enemy or wandering vagabond. The Yukon had been sparsely populated in the old world. It would be exponentially barren now.

  “Do you know how many people died in the last world war?” I paused to knot and bend a branch that hung in my path.

  His eyebrows scrunched. “I’m going to guess it was a lot.”

  “Over sixty million.” I brushed the snow from my gloves and caught up with him. “That was three-percent of the world population in 1940. Do you know how many died when the virus hit?”

  “Humans?”

  “Yes, Salem. How many humans died in those first few weeks?”

  “Ninety percent.” His focus drifted over the trees, his gaze distant.

  “Yeah. That’s over six billion people. Gone. Just like that.” I stared at the frosty skeletal terrain. “There’s not very many of us left, especially not out here in this arctic hell. The chances of us running into someone who could help—”

  “Look.” He grabbed my hand and pointed at a dimly lit clearing up ahead. “Maybe we’ll see a landmark or something to guide us.”

  We rushed forward and slammed to a stop.

  A river stretched out before us, about forty-yards wide, frozen over, and glistening beneath the moonlight.