Rafe caught my expression. “It’s ancient history. I’m fine.” He draped an arm over his eyes. “Maybe if I saw it I’d be screwed up, but I stayed under the bed, looking out for my own hide. It’s a talent of mine.”
“You were a little kid,” I protested.
“I’ve seen kids make a difference in a fight with a feral. I didn’t even try.” Rafe’s tone was nonchalant. Too nonchalant.
I wanted to spill into the back seat and hug the memory right out of him, but I remembered Hagen’s warning. Rafe didn’t want my pity. So I stayed up front and ached for the little boy who’d heard his sister die, even if he hadn’t witnessed it.
Everson cleared his throat. “Who was in the grave?”
“Hagen’s daughter,” Rafe replied. “Delilah.”
I wasn’t sure I could bear another devastating story, but Everson was clearly in research mode. “Did a feral bite her?” he asked.
“Her dog. The mangiest-looking mutt you ever saw. When it started shedding, she didn’t think anything of it. Had no idea the stupid animal had gotten itself infected.”
Everson glanced back at him. “Which strain?”
“How should I know?” Rafe sat up, looking annoyed. “All her hair fell out. Does that tell you something? After that, she went feral fast and got driven out of the compound.”
A chill settled into my muscles, into my bones, and slowed my pulse. “What happened to her?”
Rafe studied me as if deciding whether to answer. Finally he said, “Hagen sent me after her.”
“To bring her back?”
“To put her down.”
Everson’s gaze jumped to the rearview mirror. “She sent you to kill her daughter?”
“You better get off that high horse, silky, before it throws you,” Rafe snapped. “It’s what Delilah wanted. She made Hagen promise to do it, but when the time came, Hagen couldn’t. I did them both a favor.”
Again I wanted to reach for him, but I wrapped my arms around myself instead. “How awful for you.”
He snorted. “I don’t cry over dead grups,” he said roughly. “Not even one who used to be a friend.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, ending the conversation.
Everson sent me a sidelong glance. He wasn’t buying Rafe’s blasé act either.
I wondered if Rafe had been in love with Delilah … and felt my guts twist. Whoa. What was that? I couldn’t possibly be jealous of a dead girl on account of a boy I didn’t even like. This place was making me crazy, and I hadn’t even been bitten.
After another hour, we drove into what once might have been a quaint little town of one-story shops, but now was a debris-littered wasteland with crumbling buildings. Power lines draped what was left of the street and Everson had to swerve to avoid a snarl of downed wires. The jeep scraped along the jagged curb until, with a bang, its right front tire dropped into an open storm sewer. Despite having four-wheel drive, the jeep was completely and utterly stuck.
The three of us climbed out to survey the situation. “And this would be why we ride bikes,” Rafe said and then his expression turned wary. “How far east did we get?” He turned in place, eyeing the town. “I can’t keep track of the miles, going so fast.”
“Fast?” Everson mocked, and popped out the portable GPS. “We’re sixty miles outside of Moline.”
With over a hundred left to go before we reached Chicago. “We need to find a car jack.” I looked for a garage among the empty shops that lined the street. “There.” I pointed to a filthy gas station sign at the end of downtown.
Rafe frowned at the sky. “We do not want to be on this stretch of road after dark.”
“Why not?” Everson asked as he took a flashlight from a compartment under the seat.
“Tell us after we get the jeep unstuck.” I took off toward the gas station with the guys right behind me. Unfortunately, the station was attached to a convenience store, not a garage. A rusted pickup truck sat in the parking lot. Behind the squat building, the land seemed to drop off.
The guys checked inside the store and I crossed the parking lot, which ended at the edge of a steep hill. A lake lay in the valley below with woods on the far side. I took a deep breath, letting the smell of pine and the rustle of cattails fill up my senses. Dusk was almost upon us and we still had miles to go and yet I didn’t feel like a girl with an impossible task ahead of her. Instead, my body and mind were humming as if the oxygen on this side of the wall were laced with caffeine.
The door to the abandoned store squeaked open. “I’ll check the pickup truck,” Everson said.
I was about to turn around when movement drew my attention to the bottom of the hill. Two large dogs were tussling in the reeds. One gave a low-pitched growl, which sounded like the noise my dogs made when we played tug-of-war. I had a creeping feeling, however, that these dogs weren’t fighting over a dish towel. I eased back slowly to keep them from noticing me.
“What’s with all the blood?” I heard Everson ask. The dogs below heard him too. Their heads snapped around and their growls deepened.
Oh crap! I spun back onto the asphalt, looking for Everson, who had the gun. He and Rafe stood frozen in place with their eyes locked onto something beyond the rusting pickup truck.
“Dogs!” I hissed, hurrying toward them.
“We know,” Rafe whispered and held up a hand.
I stopped just short of Everson, who was several feet behind Rafe. On the other side of the pickup, four mutts were brutalizing a bloody carcass.
The other two dogs scrabbled over the rise and started barking.
“Great,” Rafe muttered as the rest of the pack lifted their blood-soaked muzzles and glared at us. He glared back and I could have sworn that he was growling as well.
Everson took aim and fired. The shot ricocheted off the metal of the truck and hit the asphalt next to the biggest dog — a black mutt. The pack scattered.
Rafe spun around, eyes blazing. “You said you could shoot.”
Everson lowered the gun. “I wasn’t trying to hit it.” At Rafe’s incredulous look, he added, “What? I was supposed to open fire on all of them?”
“Yeah, Ace, that’s the idea.”
Everson rolled his eyes. “They’re gone and we’re only down one bullet.” He jammed the gun back into its holster.
“Were the dogs feral?” I asked, crossing my arms to stop them from trembling. “As in feral feral?”
“They wouldn’t have run if they were.” Rafe nudged a bloody bone with the toe of his boot.
“What was it?” I asked.
“Turkey.”
Everson leaned against the bed of the pickup. “You can tell that from a bone?”
“No. From that.” Rafe pointed to a chewed-up turkey head by Everson’s foot.
Everson scooted back, only to slip on gristle and land in a puddle of coagulated blood. With a yell of disgust, he shot to his feet and tried to wipe off his blood-coated hands with the hem of his shirt. He caught the glimmer in Rafe’s eyes. “You think it’s funny?”
“It’s a little funny.”
My mind reeled with the potential dangers. This situation could have been scripted for a freshman health class. “It’s not funny at all! What if he has an open cut? What if the turkey had Ferae?”
“Birds can’t get it,” Rafe said.
I knew that, but still … “There’s no running water over here. How is he supposed to wash off?”
“He could try using that.” Rafe pointed past me to the lake.
Everson and I skidded down the hill to the water’s edge where he washed his hands, but his blood-spattered clothes posed a bigger problem.