Home -- Wolv book 3

One - Snapped

A/N: This chapter begins where "Ice" left off

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I braced myself behind the slab of plywood, clutching the ancient musket next to my chest. I could hear them shouting across the ruins, calling out, and I cringed.

"Hey, hey, hey! Look what I found!"

Footsteps sounded somewhere across the street. "What's that?"

I tensed, expecting someone to jump around the corner and find me. I shouldered the rifle, waiting to pull the trigger--

"Oh, just a nice pile of caribou bones. Ha! I didn't think you'd brought any of that along!"

"Of course I did. Just leave it; we'll come back for it later!"

I let my shoulders slump forward; they hadn't found me just yet. I still had a few minutes left to live!

As quietly as I could, I raised myself up and peered over the ancient sheet of plywood, leveling my gun at the man standing across the street.

...

...?

What.

I couldn't take the shot.

I had him clear in my sights; all I had to do was pull the trigger, and he would fall to the ground. I could see his face clear as day, directly at the end of the barrel...but I couldn't pull the trigger.

If anything, it was sheer disbelief held my finger back. The man on the opposite end of the rifle wasn't supposed to be here, and while there was certainly no reason why he couldn't be here, he wasn't at all who I'd been expecting.

"Come on out here, you stubborn mutt! I brought you that caribou stuff you like so much!" he called out, and I ducked down behind a piece of plywood. "Peyên! Where are you?"

I held my rifle out in front of me and skirted along the pile of debris that had been serving as my cover, and ducked out behind another building. I peered around the corner, catching sight of the visitor once more.

He stood in front of a rusted pickup truck, fishing something out of the truck's bed. A younger man stepped out around the truck, his hands jammed in his pockets, and began grumbling.

"Come on, where is he? What if he's out hunting right now?" he muttered, casually walking around the truck, kicking at the railway below. The truck had the wheels of a train rather than tires, and it sat atop an old, rusted railway, pressing down on the rotted rail ties below.

The older man waved the younger off. "Then we will wait for him, Machk. Do I look like I know where he is?" He retrieved a rifle from the back of the truck and slung it around his shoulder. "He's probably holed up in what's left of his house. That's where old Peyên was last time! Let's go."

I pressed myself against the building as the two men trudged by. I stiffened as they passed, hoping that they wouldn't smell me. As soon as they were at the end of the crumbling street, I darted out from my spot and began creeping through the ruins behind them.

The community I was in--or rather, what was left of it--had once been the First Nation's Reserve of Kinwaw Lake. It had been abandoned decades ago, and the entire population had migrated north, to a much more secluded location...leaving Kinwaw Lake to rot. And by all means, it had; all of the homes had long since folded in on themselves, leaving only twisted piles of plywood and lumber behind; only the largest buildings were still intact, and even then, they too were beginning to fall apart.