He turned his back and marched to the truck, slamming the door as he climbed inside. “Anton.” He rapped on the driver’s-side door. “Time to go.”
Anton climbed into the truck. “You’re being a dick, man. She’s scared.”
Leo knew it. It had been over two years. You’d think he’d be over it. He wasn’t. “You coming?” he asked Jennifer.
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then scrambled into the cab beside Anton.
“I don’t suppose you have another pair of shoes?” Leo asked her as he fired up the engine. “Stilettos aren’t conducive for forest life.”
“My suitcase with all my stuff is at my parents. I’m only here for the weekend.”
No shoes then. Well, she would have to get used to roughing it in stilettos.
Leo threw the truck into drive and roared away from the house.
Chapter 16Inhuman
NONNA ABSORBED THE arrival of Jennifer Miola with a slow blink. To Leo, she said, “Looks like you deviated from the list, Leonardo.”
Leo huffed and grabbed the first duffle out of the truck. His nerves were frayed. Jennifer’s presence was like a file against his bones.
“Hi, Nonna,” Jennifer said.
Nonna looked her up and down. “I don’t suppose you brought a sensible pair of shoes?”
“She didn’t,” Leo called over his shoulder as he stomped into the cabin.
Bruce came out from the bunk room. “Did you find the penicillin?”
“Yeah. How are they Lars and Adam?”
“Adam is still asleep. Lars is ... I don’t know, man. I’m not a doctor, but he doesn’t look good.” Bruce’s voice dropped. “The Russian poison is spreading fast. He has black veins all over his face and neck. It’s really fucking creepy. Nonna made me give him another aspirin, but he’s burning up and sweating buckets. Those wet towels didn’t do a damn thing to help him.”
Dammit. Leo didn’t have the slightest idea of what to do. He tried to sound confident for Bruce’s sake. “The penicillin will help. We have a shit load of stuff in the truck. Help us bring it in?”
Back outside, Leo was shocked when he found Jennifer on the ground with a large garbage bag of blankets slung over her shoulder. She gave him an airy look before climbing up the cabin steps in her red stilettos. Somehow, she made walking in those things look easy.
“Nonna, I have the penicillin.” Leo pulled the bottle out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her.
“Good. You can help me administer it to him. He’s a heavy patient.” Nonna joined him as they climbed back up the stairs into the cabin. She leaned close to speak into his ear. “What’s she doing here?”
Nonna was not a person to cross. She ceased liking Jennifer the moment she’d dumped her oldest grandson.
“She couldn’t get home. Believe me, if I wasn’t worried about her getting shot by a Russian, I’d have left her.”
“It’s no worse than she deserves. And now we have to share our supplies with her? I don’t like it.”
For some reason, Nonna’s iciness toward his ex made her presence more tolerable. “I’ll take Anton hunting tomorrow. We’ll have plenty of supplies.” Besides, how long could the Russians realistically hold out? Three days, maybe. A week at the most. The United States would kick their Soviet asses back across the ocean. They just had to hold out in the cabin until that happened.
“She has to pull her weight,” Nonna said. “There’s work to be done.”
Leo nodded. Jennifer wasn’t lazy. She’d graduated with a three-point-eight. Besides being captain of the cheerleading squad, she’d been a competitive gymnast and president of the Kiwanis club. All that hard work had earned her a scholarship to UC Riverside in Southern California. Idleness was Jennifer’s arch enemy. Leo knew she’d be up for whatever work needed doing.
Even if all she had was a pair of stilettos.
Leo and Nonna entered the cabin when a high-pitched scream broke out. It was coming from inside the room.
The sound was unlike anything Leo had ever heard before. It seemed like the very walls of the cabin might shred under the force of it.
Leo sprinted past Nonna toward the room. Bruce and Anton dropped the boxes they were carrying and raced after him.
The three of them burst into the bunk room. The scene before them stole the breath from Leo’s lungs.
“What the fuck?” Anton cried.
Adam was pinned to the floor by Lars. Lars had one hand around Adam’s neck. His other hand pinned his pelvis. His teeth were buried in Adam’s neck, blood leaking across Adam’s shoulder and gushing across the floor.
“What the fuck?” Anton cried again.
Lars looked up. His mouth and teeth were bloody. Adam flailed, but Lars kept him pinned in place.
Even though Bruce had warned him, Leo could hardly believe what he was seeing. In the hour and a half since they’d been gone, Lars’s entire face and neck had become covered with a webbing of black veins. His eyes were shot through with blood.
An inhuman snarl rippled out of Lars’s throat. Bloodshot eyes shifted, taking in Leo and the other two boys. He growled again. It was an animalistic sound—a warning to stay away. Like Adam was a fucking deer, and Lars was a lion.
“Help me,” Adam said weakly. “Help!”
The chaos of the moment kick-started Leo’s brain. He’d always been good under pressure.
He shoved Anton aside and charged. A boot to the face sent Lars sprawling across the floor.
“Anton and Bruce, help Adam,” Leo kept his eyes on Lars, readying himself to square off against the bigger kid.
Lars bounded to his feet. He barked like a rabid coyote and charged.
Leo grabbed a pillow from the bed and shoved it at Lars, blocking the bloody teeth that snapped at him. The bloodshot eyes of the big teenager locked on Leo. They were crazed and filled with an animalistic frenzy.
There was no sign of humanity in them. There
