We Walk As Wolves

Chapter 32

Dells

Dells saw her face.

Her brown eyes and her dark hair. Blurry around the edges. She wasn't the one he'd expected to see, but what shocked him more was the expression on her face. He'd expected some kind of sympathy - he had only just died, after all.

But she was bent over him, glaring at him. Screaming his name.

She wasn't particularly good at it. Her voice was dull, muffled, like she was yelling through a gag. It was worse than Cass's complaining. He tried to open his mouth, tried to say something back.

You ever heard the phrase rest in peace, sweetheart?

His lips wouldn't open. He didn't know where he'd been shipped off to after he died, but wherever it was, it was more irritating than the Island had ever been. He watched her roll her eyes, lips scrunching. It was amusing, really.

Then she slapped him.

A sputtering noise shot from his mouth, and then the soft hum of the world around him shattered into a confusing turmoil. Splintering cracks from the remaining trees. Deep moans from the boys next to him. But all Dells cared about were the elongated howls from the dying wolves.

Dells glanced up at Redd. Her eyes were scarred. He remembered the attack, wolf after wolf piling on top of him. He couldn't imagine how it had looked to her. "Are you okay?"

"You're not."

Vaguely, he registered the hot blood pooling underneath him. With her help, he forced his body upright. Wolves littered the ground around him, the tips of her arrows protruding from their chests, their spines, their skulls.

The lines on her face were like two sides of a split map as she watched him - hard to connect and even harder to put back together. No matter what awful things the Thief had done, Dells could tell it still hurt her to stand on their side.

He nodded his head. "Thank you."

"Couldn't have gotten here a little earlier, could you, Redd?" Reed collapsed next to Dells, his mouth sliced open and his left arm mangled.

She showed him her teeth in a deep smile. "I'd say you boys were handling it."

"Up until he went down," Scout said as he waddled over to them, nodding his head in Dells's direction. "Fox was on the menu tonight, that's for sure."

Redd turned to Dells, one hand hovering just over his shredded shoulder. She wouldn't meet his stare, downcast eyes heavy with something that made his chest ache. She was searching his body, counting his wounds, debating how lethal they were, and he wondered if she was imagining a different attack, a different decade. A different wolf.

She thought she'd lost him again.

He'd been about to grab her chin, force it up, direct her attention to the children around them. To show that yes, they'd failed before, they'd make mistakes, selfish ones, but they hadn't failed now, when she abruptly shifted her gaze, eyes flashing up to meet his. "Can you stand?"

The moment was gone. Like it had never been there. "We have to get to Cass," Dells answered, already pulling himself to his feet.

Reed rose with him. "Where's Cass?"

Redd had a hand on his shoulder, and Reed caught him around the waist as the left side of his body buckled. "With the Thief," he grunted, straightening up and ignoring the sharp pull from the wounds on his skin. "Poe's with him."

"If you go, we go," Reed nodded.

Scout beamed, and began pushing himself to his feet. "Let's go save our little rabbit."