Dark Side of the World // S.S. [Book Two]

Chapter 46

Lori Talbot walks up behind Roscoe. "Lori..." He begins.

She cuts him off. "I found this." She shows a bloody lacrosse stick. "It's Brett's, and he's missing, and I hear gunshots."

Scott frowns. "How do you know it's his blood?"

Lori meets his eyes. "Because he's my brother. It's mine, too."

She leads us to Brett and Liam. Malia joins us a short while later. Liam finds an arrow. "Here."

Scott turns to Lori. "I think he set a trap. He's fighting back. And now we know he's alive."

She nods. "But he's still hurt. We need to find him, he needs to know we're here."

She readies herself to howl, but Malia stops her. "You want the hunters to know we're here too?"

Liam gives a small frown. "He's new. We can take him."

"What if Brett howls back?" Malia counters. "He'll lead the hunter right to him."

Scott shakes his head. "No, we could find him. There's no human that can track sounds faster than we can. And we've got the advantage, we've done this before. We know what we're doing, guys."

Malia focuses on catching a scent and frowns. "How come I can't catch his scent?"

"He's masking it." Lori says.

"Can someone tell him not to?" Malia asks in an irritated tone.

Liam sees a set of tracks and says, "He went this way." Lori follows.

Malia, Scott, and I linger behind, talking. Scott turns to us. "His trap didn't work."

She shrugs. "Maybe this hunter is not such an amateur."

"Or maybe he's still learning."

We catch up with Liam and Lori, still searching for Brett's trail. Malia stops. "The trail's gone."

Scott frowns. "Uh, maybe he just stopped bleeding."

"God, I think we should split up." Liam suggests. "Lori and I go this way, you guys go that way. Meg comes with one of us. Or maybe we go in four directions?"

I shake my head. "No, I think it's better to stick together. We have the advantage. It's four against one."

Liam meets my eyes and argues, "Not if we split up. Right. I've been doing this the past three months without your help. I think I can make a decision."

"Li, this seems too professional."

Malia nods. "Well, if you're deciding to do something stupid and die, then go ahead."

"It's one hunter, one amateur who doesn't know what they're doing." Liam protests.

"Scott?" Malia asks, noticing he's stopped.

I crouch next to Scott looking at the tracks on the ground. Scott catches my gaze and says, "There's another."

"Two of them?" Malia asks.

"Maybe more." Scott says, turning to Lori.

"How many hunters have you seen out here before?" Lori asks.

"A lot." He admits.

Malia catches Liam's eye. "Still wanna split up?"

Liam shrugs. "We can deal with it. We just need to find Brett's trail."

We continue on and Lori stops in front of a pile of rocks. "No, we don't. Rock balancing. Satomi taught us. It's him, and I know where he's going."