Sammy hurled himself forward, trying to reach his brother. The pit bull jumped him, seeking the flesh beneath the robes. It clamped down with its jaws and whipped its head from side to side. The heavy black robes tore as Sammy kicked out at the dog. His boot connected with the dog’s midriff. Another wild kick, this blow landing on its snout. The dog yelped and released its jaws, falling heavily to the ground. Del took her shot, sending a stone into the meaty part of the dog’s thigh. The dog howled and scrabbled at the floor, trying to reach the wound in its leg. Sammy kicked it again in the ribs and ran, panting, to Aidan, who was weakening. He grabbed the rottweiler’s collar from behind and yanked it into the air. Scrambling to his feet, Aidan thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out the Taser, and pressed it against the dog’s side. The dog yelped and collapsed, shaking convulsively on the floor. Its pink tongue lolled from its mouth, and then it was still. Aidan limped over to the whining pit bull and Tasered it, too.
He stood looking at the dogs, his face pale and sick, and then he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground.
Lucy crawled over to him. His left arm hung loosely. She put out her hand, afraid that she might accidentally hurt him, and settled for stroking him on the cheek. “Are you all right?”
“Painkillers wore off,” he said scowling. “I’m pretty sure now that I’ve pulled a muscle.”
“Come on.” She helped him stand. They hobbled out the door into the dog run where the others stood waiting.
“Might have brought the Taser out a little sooner,” Sammy told his brother.
“Couldn’t reach it. You may have noticed the hundred pounds of dog sitting on my chest?”
“Always with the excuses,” Sammy said, pulling his shredded robe awkwardly over his head. His forearm was imprinted with four deep tooth marks gushing blood.
Del cursed. “Can you still use it?” She sounded angry.
Sammy looked disappointed. “Yeah, it hurts bad, but—”
“You can climb?” Del asked.
“Of course,” he said, watching blood drip onto the floor. “I didn’t mean to get mauled by a dog, you know.”
Del pressed her lips together. “I know,” she said in a softer tone. Stowing the slingshot in her back pocket, she ripped a length of cloth from the discarded robes and tied it tightly around his arm. He gasped.
Giving him a look, she gathered the children to her and faced the fence.
“You go first,” she told Sammy. “I’ll lift the kids up to you.”
He pulled himself up, swung over, and jumped down. Once he was on the ground, he held his arms up for the first of the two children. As soon as they were safely on the other side, Del went up, then Lucy, and lastly Aidan, who favored his left arm and climbed one-handed. He had just reached the top when the fox terrier burst through the door, barking madly. Its toothbrush tail stuck straight up, and the fur on its back stood up in a ridge. It ran back and forth along the fence seeking a way out, and then began throwing itself repeatedly at the chain link as if it were made of rubber.
“Let’s go before the poor thing kills itself,” Aidan said from the top of the fence.
Lucy turned away.
And then a second dog hit the fence barely a foot below the top. Another rottweiler, even larger than the first. It catapulted itself upward, thick black claws pushing the chain link outward as it tried to find purchase and muscle its way over. Aidan jumped, making no attempt to land gracefully. He staggered and then regained his balance, pulling Lucy back from where she stood almost mesmerized by the animal’s single-mindedness. The dog fixed its hot gaze on her and, growling terribly, made another impossible leap into the air, landing almost on top of the fence before falling heavily back to the concrete.
Aidan hurried her a safe distance away. “It’ll be over that in a minute.”
The dog was panting heavily, but still it paced and jumped and whined. Lucy’s presence was driving it crazy.
“It’s not going to stop hunting us,” Lucy said. She looked at the exhausted children huddled together in Del’s arms and at Sammy trying to smile. “It wants me.” She shrugged her arms out of her backpack, carrying it by the strap, and walked toward the fence. The rottweiler’s lips inched back from its incisors. Its ears flattened against the bony skull, and an awful snarling rumbled from the barrel chest. Muscles bunched in its back legs as it gathered itself to leap again.
“It can’t have you,” Aidan said, trying to haul her away. “Get away from the fence, Lucy!” She shook herself loose, jarring his arm. He winced with pain.
“It’s okay.”
Keeping her eyes on the dog, she opened her backpack and dug around in it, locating the tinderbox.
The dog kept up its continuous growl. “You want my blood?” Lucy shouted, pulling out the vial. She raised it above her head and threw it over the fence. The glass smashed against the concrete. Thick red blood spattered against the wall.
They ran. It wasn’t until they reached the parking lot that they paused, looking back at the dark hulk of the building. Lights blazed on the top floors. In an upper window behind heavy curtains, they could see human figures hurrying back and forth. Lucy might have imagined it, but she thought she could hear a single, shrieking note that seemed to go on and on.
“Think they’ll follow us?” Aidan asked.
Lucy shook her head, thinking of Mrs. Reynolds. “No. They have what they need.”
The sky opened and rain began to fall, a hard-driving shower that soaked them immediately but was as warm as a spring shower. Lucy looked up into the lightening sky and let the rain push her hair off her face. If more dogs did come, the rain would wash away most of their scent. The fog had dissipated and the air smelled fresh and clean. The dull pain in her head subsided to a thump. Sammy carried a kid on his back; Del had linked hands with the other one. Lucy heard her voice, low and soothing, as she urged them to move. It was weird to hear such kindness from the girl.
The empty parking lot glittered like an ice rink. They ran through the rain, slowing down again once they came to the bridge. Lucy looked back at the tower. The red light was dark.
Aidan slipped his arm around her waist. She leaned into him, careful of his wounded ribs and arm.
“Which way?” he said.
She looked ahead. Del and Sammy and the children were walking slowly. They’d reached the bridge. With the sleepy kids and the exhaustion that she was sure everyone was feeling, it would take them hours to get home. She scanned the horizon. The long bridge curved above the wind-whipped waves of Lake Harlem. Beyond that lay the Wilds, as familiar to her as the lines on her palm. Lucy could close her eyes and in her mind navigate over the flats, the grove, past the salt marsh and the blighted pines, the remains of her camp and the Great Hill. And then onward up the shifting terrain of the gorges and the escarpment and the suspension bridges swinging wildly with the slightest breath of wind. They’d have to carry the children, or haul them up the granite cliff face somehow. Aidan and Sammy were injured. Her own body hurt so much, everywhere, that it was almost funny.
Lucy turned away from the thicket of tall trees and the gleam of the restless sea she glimpsed between the black trunks, and toward the broad, solid road that snaked north for five miles before entering the Hell Gate. The road the Sweepers had taken. “That’s simple,” she said with a grin. “For once we’ll take the easy way.”