Replica(77)

An image of the old man he’d been wavered in my mind, the old man I’d loved with all I’d been able to give him.

“You’ve done good, Lea. You have. Don’t forget it, no matter what happens. You were right to bind her to you. It’s the only way you’ll both survive this. I never really was a good bond, I know that.” He let out a sigh and snorted. “Go on, save your friends.”

“You are my friend, too.”

“I know. Now get the fuck out of here, bloodsucker. Go save the world; that’s your job now.”

I jerked my mouth off his neck. His heart was still beating, but it faded fast. Judging by the sound, the second pack was at best a mile away. I drew my silver stake and drove it through Calvin’s heart, twisting it once for good measure. “Goodbye.”

I ran from him, tucking the blade back into my boot as I moved. I scooped up Rachel as I went by, ignoring Antonio’s protest that he could carry her. “More wolves.”

“Yeah, we heard. Calvin?” Rachel asked.

“Dead.”

“For sure this time?”

“I drank him down.”

Ivan grunted. “His memories, was there anything in there to help us?”

Fuck, I’d barely paid attention to that. I fast-forwarded through the last weeks of his life as we bolted across the desert. “There’s an oasis up ahead. Weapons and the antidote to the toxin are stashed there.”

“Now, that’s what I like to hear,” Antonio said.

A trickle of concern rolled between Rachel and me. I nodded. “Yeah, some of Stravinsky’s boys could be lying in wait. But that could work in our favor. The pack behind us is big.”

“How big are we talking, and how the fuck can you tell?” Rachel spat out, the words jarred by the bumping of my stride—which also made her wince with pain I could feel as if it were my own. I looked at Ivan and gave him a nod.

“The howls are the Alphas calling their packs to them,” he said. “There was at least four sets of howls.”

“Four packs. Are you serious?” Her heart rate escalated against my back. “And you said packs can be—”

“Roughly twenty members. On average,” Ivan said.

Antonio grunted. “So close to a hundred zombie werewolves on our asses?”

“But they will kill anything that gets in their way,” I said, “and the oasis holds weapons and cannon fodder.”

At least, I hoped it did. Rachel’s injuries from Calvin had to be handled too. She wasn’t going to like the solution, but it was the only way.

“Fuck me,” she muttered. “I don’t want to drink blood again.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Antonio spat out.

Rachel shook her head and I said nothing. There was no choice. She had a broken hand, plus a slashed-up leg and bicep. Without my help, there was no way she’d be able to stand on her own, never mind fight.

“The village is the other way,” Rachel said. “I won’t leave without trying to help them.”

“Neither will I,” I said.

A large sand dune rose ahead of us and we charged up it. Ivan put out a hand, slowing us. “Voices.” He breathed the word, and I dropped to my knees to let Rachel slide off. Once she was beside me, I handed her a knife and held up my wrist. “No time to be squeamish.”

With hunched shoulders, she took the knife and slashed my wrist with more force than necessary. I didn’t flinch. I lifted my wrist and looked away as she drank from the wound.

Antonio choked and Ivan put a hand on his shoulder. “Rachel will slow us down and probably die if she isn’t functioning at full speed.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it,” Antonio snapped.

Rachel drew back from me and I took her hand, making sure the bones were all in place. I counted the heartbeats, sensing her body heal.

“Twenty seconds,” I said.

“We’ve only got a minute before the wolves are on us, so I hope you’re right,” Ivan said.

I counted down the seconds, and Rachel’s eyes popped open by the time I hit twenty. “I’m ready.”

The four of us belly-crawled up the last ten feet of the hill to peer over.

Calvin’s memories had been on point. The oasis was bigger than I had realized, though, easily covering a twenty-acre area—the palm trees and bushes thickening deeper into the center. There was movement within the trees..Stravinsky’s men, I had no doubt, and I could see several Humvees.

I looked behind us, and could see the four packs coming in fast and hard. “We’ve got to move. We’ve got cannon fodder, the antidote, and weapons ahead of us. Rachel, stay with me. Antonio, stick close to Ivan.”