Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

Here goes nothing .

I tapped into the Break—a little easier each time I did it, with loneliness, my emotional trigger, so close to the surface at all times, despite living with more than a hundred and fifty other people—and the Break snap-crackled around me. Buzzed on my skin like static. It filled me, and I fell into it, focusing on my intended destination in the middle of the construction site. The Break pulled me apart, and the faintest ache poked me between the eyes.

The journey was quick, and I pulled out precisely where I intended to land, materializing directly behind a pair of slim, pale-skinned bodies wearing cargo shorts too large for their frames. They were crouched over the body of their dead brother, growling low. I ignored my sharp headache, raised my hands, and fired. Red feathered darts hit both of them right between the shoulder blades. They stood and spun in perfect unison, snarling loudly, teeth bared.

I scurried backward, giving them room to falter a few steps as the anesthetic took hold and froze their basic motor functions. Legs dragged, arms flopped, and both of them—Teen Wolf, and his companion, whom I dubbed Freckles because he had a lot of them—collapsed face-first into dirt.

“Hot damn, it worked,” I said.

Baylor’s squad was an eclectic bunch who regularly worked daytime detail, so they didn’t have a vampire assigned. Carly Hall had been one of Baylor’s Triad Hunters, and she looked a bit like I did once upon a time—short, thin, blonde, and a firecracker of fight hiding beneath a demure exterior. Not that I’d ever looked, acted, or pretended to be demure …

The other human was Paul Ryan. I disliked him for personal reasons, but respected his ability to kill things efficiently now that he’d grown up a little. Baylor’s other members were Autumn, a female Vulpi/Kitsune who shifted into a Bengal fox, and Sandburg, a gray-eyed Musti who was the only Therian I’d ever met who shifted into a ferret.

I saw it once, and he promptly bit Carly for cooing at him.

Phineas rounded out the group, but he flew in only long enough to make sure things were progressing according to plan. His simple presence put the Lupa into a rage, so he volunteered to keep watch and promptly flew back out of the construction site. Once the two Lupa were put into seated, upright positions and chained to individual iron pylons, Baylor handed me a wooden box with a few special implements.

“Is this the reckoning you were talking about earlier?” I asked Teen Wolf.

He snarled, head tilted slightly to the side. The anesthetic had the awesome effect of numbing his extremities while allowing him to remain conscious, but it also made holding his head up difficult. Paul was on standby with two more rounds of the stuff. Therians heal quickly, and we didn’t want the numbness to wear off before we were through. Sometimes the knowledge of grave injury is a more effective weapon than the actual pain.

I opened the box and removed a pair of wire cutters. The blades were sharp, fashioned from silver, and able to cut through solid objects up to two inches thick. I handed them to Carly, who circled around behind Teen Wolf. He tried to track her movements and failed.

“Now,” I said as I crouched at eye level with Teen Wolf, “I could lie and tell you that I’ll let you live if you cooperate, but we both know I have orders from the Assembly to kill you.”

His expression remained the same—cold fury.

“The only thing I can offer you is a much faster death than your friend over there. Bleeding to death from a belly wound over the course of an hour is a nasty way to go, don’t you think?”

“He was my brother,” Teen Wolf snarled, the words slightly garbled through his half-numb lips.

“Sucks for you. Are you going to talk?”

Silence was a good answer, given the question.

“Okay, then,” I said.

Teen Wolf frowned, then blinked rapidly. He certainly felt something, he just didn’t know what, with most of his nerves numbed by the anesthetic. But he’d find out in a moment.

Carly stepped back around to his front and dropped something into the dirt by his feet. Teen Wolf stared at the blood-covered pink object until it dawned on him what it was. His eyes widened; his nostrils flared.

“That was your index finger,” I said, careful to keep my tone even and commanding. “The next thing she cuts off is your thumb.” This sort of bargaining was something I hadn’t done in a long time, and the sight of a severed finger made my skin crawl. I just couldn’t show my distaste to the Lupa. Would not .

Baylor stepped up behind me, muscled arms folded over his chest. “Why did your brother attack one of our humans tonight?” he asked.

“Fuck off,” Teen Wolf said.

I clucked my tongue. Carly slipped behind the pylon. Sweat broke out across Teen Wolf’s forehead. I heard the distinct snick-crunch of the shears doing their job, and my insides went a little wobbly. God, when had I lost the stomach for this? I used to revel in it.

Moments later his thumb joined his index finger in the dirt.

Freckles whined. Teen Wolf snarled at him.

“Why did you attack us last night?” I asked, toeing his thumb with my shoe. Ugh.

“To send a message,” Freckles said. It earned him a second, louder snarl from his buddy.

I stood and turned, giving Freckles my full attention. He was the same age as Teen Wolf, similar coloring, with a sea of freckles on his face, chest, and arms. He looked as dangerous as the science nerd who trips over his own too-large sneakers. “Looks like we’re cutting pieces off the wrong wolf here,” I said. “You have something to say?”

Freckles swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He was sweating, drooling, and might have even peed on himself. Not the bravest wolf in the pack, that was for sure.

“I’ll kill you,” Teen Wolf said.

“We’re dead no matter what,” Freckles snapped back. “They win this round, brother.”

“Why did your brother attack?” I asked.

“To send a message of fear. To remind humans what we can do to them.”

“The infection, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you bite me or Phineas?” Freckles frowned, puzzled. “The Coni.”

“We were ordered to harm neither of you. The other human had no such protection.”

“Ordered by who?”

Teen Wolf snarled again, a warning if I ever heard one. It made me more desperate to hear the answer. Only Freckles hesitated.

“Carly?” I said. “You wanna jog his memory?”

She came around the support beam, bloody shears clutched in one hand. Unlike me, she seemed to be truly enjoying herself. I wanted to look at the others, see the faces of Paul, Autumn, and Sandburg, and judge their reaction to the gory scene playing out in front of them. Looking away, though, might display weakness to the Lupa, and I couldn’t risk it. I barely dominated the conversation as it was.

“Our master,” Freckles replied meekly.

I heaved a put-upon sigh. “Look, we can take you apart a little bit at a time, or you can just be fucking straight with me.”

“Master Thackery.”

I fully expected his answer, but it still stung a little. “Who else?”

Freckles made a bizarre face—like he’d tried to shake his head and forgot he couldn’t move it. “I don’t understand.”

“You started working for Thackery only recently—”

“No, my entire life has been in his service.”

Yikes. His young age put him at maybe three and a half years—for a Therian. Which meant it was likely the Lupa were given to Thackery as babies to be raised as his own personal rabid pack dogs.

“Who put you into Thackery’s service?” Baylor asked.

“I don’t know,” Freckles replied. Carly stepped behind his support beam. Freckles turned a terrible shade of red and yelped. “I don’t know, I swear! We weren’t told!”