are a strange purplish blue, and it hurts to keep my eyes open. I struggle to breathe and realize I’ve stopped shivering.
Mora grabs my wrist, her skin so cold it burns like fire. I cry out, but Mora holds on, laughing so loud the sound echoes throughout the house. “Come on, Ginny. Really?”
I crumble, hating myself—but the pain is too much. It rushes through me like lightning that freezes my bones, my blood. The room is growing even colder, and Mora’s fingers feel stuck to my wrist. I shake, I can’t stop; it’s a cold and a hurt I haven’t known before, one that seems impossible and heavy on me. I squeeze the flashlight in my free hand, or at least, I try to—but my fingers feel as if they’re shattering, and for a moment I’m not even sure I’m holding it anymore.
And suddenly, it begins to get warmer. I exhale in relief—it’s a strange sort of warmth, after all that cold, one that seems to start somewhere near my chest and build out until it burns around my neck and wrists. I glance down at my hand and see I’m still blinking the flashlight nervously, automatically. The skin is blue, the movement sharp and robotic. Mora steps closer to me, lightens her grip on my wrist—though she’s still holding tight enough for me to know I can’t escape.
“It’s a lie,” Mora says delicately, right by my ear. Am I sweating? I shake my hair to the side, trying to cool my neck. “Right before you die from the cold, your body lies to you. Tells you you’re warm. Has mercy on you.” Kai shifts behind her. I flash the light again as my lungs tighten, refusing to allow another breath. One flash, two, three. One, two three.
“No one will take everything from me,” Mora whispers. “Not you. Not the Fenris. Not anyone. Not ever again. I’m the one with the power now.”
The flashlight catches Kai’s eyes. Black—but there’s gold. Gold flickering among the darkness.
My response is a whisper, the air hard and sharp in my throat. “But I’m going to win.”
Kai dives forward.
When Kai slams into me, it feels as if I’m made of glass and breaking into a million pieces. I fall to the floor, knocking over the rocker and a small table. He shoves Mora to the side, grabs my wrist; his touch feels like fire. Mora screams something. I can’t focus, but I see her on the floor, see Kai yanking something off the bookshelf— the model ship—and bringing it down hard on her head. But then I’m falling asleep into the warm world, but we’re moving, and I can feel Kai’s skin on mine, still hear Mora screaming at me as I drift down into—
I’m awake. My eyes spring open, and I realize Kai is carrying me, sprinting, panting as we run. Suddenly it’s warm—not warm, really, but not the dead cold from inside the house. I grab Kai’s neck, pull myself up to see behind him. Mora’s house is disappearing in the distance, but there’s movement on the trail—something’s behind us, and Kai can’t run fast enough while he carries me. I twist and struggle until Kai lets my feet down. They feel like cinder blocks, heavy and dead, but I force them along. Kai keeps his hand on mine as we race forward.
A tree whips at my face, drawing blood.
Something growls behind us, and I dare to glance back. Wolves, five of them, with sharp teeth and angry eyes. They dart in and out of the trees, well-practiced on the terrain. So close, so close—I heard a crunch as one leaps over a snowdrift and lands near me, but it doesn’t have me; they haven’t caught us yet.
Kai and I hit the lake, sliding forward but keeping our footing. The other side is too far away to see through the fog, but we fly toward it. I can tell they’re gaining on us by how close the sound of nails on ice is, clattering faster and faster. They’ll catch us. We can’t outrun them on a straightaway like this. Kai and I lock eyes for a harried instant, and I know he realizes it, too.
We keep running.
Hot breath at my heels, I hear jaws snap. I can’t go any faster; this is all I have. Kai’s hand hits my back. He pushes me, urging me to keep moving, but it’s no good. My chest aches; the wolves are growling, I try to take large steps—
I hit a slippery patch of ice and flail forward. My chin hits the surface first, then my chest, my hands. I try to bound back up, but it’s no use. My joints don’t work; my body doesn’t work. I flip over, draw my legs up as a dark gray wolf leaps forward—
The wolf cries out, falls out of the air. He hits the ice on his side, twitches, and I see drops of blood spattered across the lake surface. I turn around, scramble backward, torn between looking at the still-encroaching wolves and whatever stopped the gray one.
I see her smile first, the wicked one.
“Who is that?” Kai asks, breathless as we scramble to our feet. Flannery answers before I can.
“I’m the future Queen of Kentucky,” she says, “and I’m here to save your ass.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Flannery isn’t alone. Figures appear beside her—Lucas, who runs to my side, and then two others who walk up slowly, methodically.
Callum, with a rifle held up, eyes locked on his target. He fires a single shot, and the wolves slow. Beside him, Ella, hair streaming behind her in a high ponytail and a pink handgun held out in front of her. She glances at Flannery as she runs past me to yank the knife out of the gray wolf’s side; as she does so he transforms, becomes Larson again. Flannery grimaces at the sight, but rises—
“Come on, come on,” Lucas says, and I realize he’s been shouting at us. We start to run again. Kai’s skin is warm now, his arms tight around me. I can see the shore ahead.
“Kai!” Mora shouts; I whirl around. She’s walking up behind her wolves, looking at Kai with eyes so blue that the world around her looks colorless. There is something in them, though, the tiniest bit of hesitation. Of worry. Fear. The confidence is gone, the certainty, and it reminds me that through this, through all of this, she was really the one running.
Kai looks back at her, grits his teeth, and continues to run for the shore. Mora says his name again, screams it; he ducks his head down, presses his free hand to his ear to block the noise. I hear a cry again as another bullet finds its target, wonder which wolf they hit—
A new sound, one that I think is a gunshot at first, but it goes on too long. A low sound that I feel through my legs, shaking up to my chest. Lucas suddenly skids to a stop, sliding a few additional feet and nearly pulling me and Kai down.
“Don’t stop,” Kai yells at him as he tries to pull me farther.
“Look.” Lucas nods ahead, panting, while the long, low sound rings out again. Now that we’re stopped, I can tell it’s definitely no gunshot. I look to where Lucas is nodding and see a crack in the ice, thick and spreading like lightning across the space ahead. We turn around, see Mora walking forward, her fingers extended toward the ground—she’s doing this, breaking the ice apart.
Callum and Ella are preoccupied, firing at the remaining wolves that pace back and forth in front of Mora, threatening to attack us should the bullets pause. Flannery, however, realizes what’s happening to the ice—she sees her chance and runs forward, flinging a knife at Mora. It goes spinning by her head, but it gets her attention. Mora whirls around, glares at Flannery, who ducks down to avoid one of the guards. He leaps over her; a shot rings out and he falls and turns back into a boy, bleeding and naked. One guard left; I see Ella adjust, aiming at the remaining wolf, while Callum frantically reloads.
The last guard hits Flannery so hard, so fast, that I’m not sure where he came from. They fall away, I hear Flannery scream, the wolf growling. I scream at Ella to shoot the animal, but she can’t. She’s aiming, waiting for a shot, but she’ll hit Flannery—
And then I’m twisting away from Kai and Lucas. I’m running for Mora. I have to stop her; I have to end this.
