Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

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.”

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. Shoot her, shoot her! Flannery runs for her knife, black hair screaming out behind her.

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. Lucas is shouting at me, Kai too, everyone is yelling, the roar of the gunshots and the wolf and Flannery’s screams as it tears at her.

And then a sound louder than the rest. Deep, something that reverberates through me and hurts my ears as I run at Mora. She’s still, tense, watching me, holding my eyes to hers—

Keeping me from looking at the ground. From seeing the crack in the ice that I trip over. I fall forward again, bracing for the pain when I strike the ground, but this time it isn’t there. There is no ground—there’s water.

I slide down so quickly that I’m not sure what’s happening until a thousand knives are digging into me all at once. I try to flail, try to swim, but I can’t feel anything except shooting pain in my head—because I can’t breathe, I realize. My lungs are still, won’t even struggle for air. There’s bright light above me in the sea of dark, and I want to swim toward it, but the darkness of the water is spilling over into my vision. I finally inhale, but my lungs fill with ice. My chest screams a final time before fading—

Something sharp tears into my shoulder, brighter than the pain of the freezing water. The world swirls around me, and suddenly air is sharp and hard on my body, the world is loud again. I’m pulled backward, away from the water, the ice hard and angry against my body. Everything feels heavy, and I want to close my eyes—is it getting warmer? I can’t tell. I force myself to look over to whoever is dragging me out of the water.

My lips part. I try to scream but there’s no sound—it’s not a hand digging into the soft spot of my shoulder. Teeth, sharp and white, black lips pulled back over a pale brown muzzle. It’s a wolf; a low, steady growl vibrates from his throat into my body. I finally find the strength to struggle, to twist away—it’s not as hard as I expect it to be. I crawl backward across the ice, slipping when my hands are too cold to find traction, unable to look away from the wolf as it follows me, one slow step at a time. It lifts its eyes, looks at me—

They’re golden. A gold I know, a gold I’ve seen a thousand times before.

“Kai?”

The wolf stares and drops his head low. I lift a shaking hand toward him. I need to touch him, need to feel that this is real—

A clicking noise from behind Kai—I look around him and see Ella, gun out in front of her.

“No,” I say, voice breaking and weak. “No, no, it’s him. Don’t.” Kai stays perfectly still. He doesn’t move as I scramble forward, wrap my arms around his neck, and let my fingers dig into his fur. Ella’s eyes are steeled; she’s breathing heavy, staring. Behind her, I see Callum helping Flannery. Blood is streaming down her arm from bite marks across her shoulder and chest.

“Move,” Ella says.

“Please, Ella, don’t shoot him—”

“Not him , Ginny. Move ,” Ella hisses at me. I turn, look behind me, and suddenly I realize what she’s really aiming at. Mora, standing perfectly still, but breathing hard, furiously. Her eyes go from me, to Kai, to Ella, back again. I can see the body of one of her guards behind her, a pool of blood spreading out on the ice and freezing, turning dark purple. There’s a cracking sound.

“Stop,” Ella says to Mora, voice steady. “Break this ice one more time and I’ll shoot.”

“You’ve only got one shot,” Mora snarls. “Better not miss.”

“I didn’t miss back in Nashville,” Ella reminds her, and Mora’s face contorts with anger. “Ginny, Kai, move . Get to shore.”