Outside, I perched in the tree and quickly scanned the area. Chorda’s house was bound by an overgrown, tangled hedge with meadow beyond it. I saw no sign of the broken highway or the lake.
I climbed down a few branches, dropped out of the tree, and ran through the garden gone wild, wishing I had my father’s machete. I had no idea if I was headed in the right direction to find Rafe and Everson, but no direction could be wrong so long as it led away from the death house. My ears pounded with the sound of my own feet hitting the ground. The cuts on my calf throbbed, and my lungs burned, but I didn’t slow down, and I didn’t look back.
As I barreled through the hedge, the branches caught my hair and scratched my face and arms. The evergreen scent was a welcome relief. On the other side, I tripped over something in the dirt and landed on my stomach. Inches from my nose, a human rib cage jutted out of the muddy ground. Too breathless to scream, I heaved myself up and raced through the meadow — a killing field — leaping over bones and tearing through the scrub until I reached a broken road. Was it the same one that we’d taken the day before?
I glanced back and saw the tiger-man lurching across the field, bloody and enraged. A cry burst from my throat.
How had he gotten away?
Something growled to my left. I spun to see the jeep skidding for me. It didn’t even make a full stop, just swerved alongside me long enough for Rafe to lean out, grab my arm, and haul me into the backseat with him.
Chorda veered onto the road to cut us off. Everson laid on the speed, heading right at the tiger-man. Blood streamed from the gashes that crosshatched his face and body. With foamy lips and glistening fangs, he locked eyes with me. Everson hunched over the wheel while Rafe braced us for impact. The jeep bore down on Chorda until — at the very last second — he vaulted aside and we flew past. I twisted around to see him throw back his head and bellow out his rage.
Rafe pulled me close and I pressed my forehead into his chest, trying to block out Chorda’s roars. My muscles began to jerk and tremble. I dug my nails into my palms to give myself something to concentrate on, but it didn’t work. Fabiola’s vacant eyes kept floating into my mind, followed by the corpses. My stomach twisted, and with a groan, I pulled away from Rafe to lean out of the speeding jeep and vomit up the pineapple I’d eaten for breakfast. There wasn’t much, but my body kept going until my throat burned raw. Rafe gripped my arm to keep me from falling out, and then he swore under his breath. “You could have mentioned you were bleeding to death.” He guided me back onto the seat.
“He bit her?” Everson slowed the jeep and twisted to look at me.
“No,” I croaked. “It’s from his claws.”
Rafe placed my leg across his lap and pushed up my torn pants leg. Blood coated my skin from the knee down. He grimaced, but a split second later, when he lifted his eyes to mine, he’d wiped the worry from his face. “Man, these will be some fierce scars,” he said, as if that was something I would look forward to.
The jeep slammed to a stop and Everson leaned over the front seat. I knew the cuts were bad when he too steeled his expression. “That needs to be disinfected. Stitched.”
“No kidding.” Rafe pulled his T-shirt over his head. “Go! You don’t want to know how fast a raging feral can run.” As the jeep bucked and tore out, he wrapped the shirt around my lacerated calf. I closed my eyes and ground my teeth against the searing pain.
“Tell me when it’s safe to stop,” Everson said over the engine’s roar. “I’ve got what I need in the med kit.”
“You know how to stitch a wound?” Rafe asked skeptically.
“Yeah, and I won’t leave her with a fierce scar.”
I opened my eyes to see a fuzzy little gray face, peering at me over the front passenger seat. I sat up, legs still across Rafe’s lap, and tried to smile. “Hi.” Cosmo blinked back the tears that were rapidly filling his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m okay,” I told him in a scratchy voice. “A-okay.”
With a wet sniff, he popped up in his seat and thrust his ratty dish towel into my hands. I held it close to my heart and mouthed, “Thank you,” knowing my voice would break if I said it aloud.
“You know, you scared the crap outta Cosmo,” Rafe said and then cast me a sidelong look. Any other time I would have smiled at his reluctance to admit that I’d scared the crap out of him, but not now. Not when I was struggling to hold in a sob.
Everson glanced over his shoulder again, checking the T-shirt on my calf — now blood-soaked. “Wrap it tighter and apply pressure.”
“I knew that,” Rafe muttered. I gasped as he rearranged the makeshift bandage and cried when he clasped a hand to my calf. Pain blazed along each cut as if Chorda’s claws were still embedded in my skin. I tried to wriggle free, but Rafe held on, and slowly, after several panting breaths, I realized that the firm pressure of his hand had taken the pain down by a degree.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks. “How did you find me?”
“I followed the tiger’s trail, but lost you at the stream.” He sounded apologetic.
“You got us close enough,” Everson pointed out. “We found her.”
“Yeah, we did.” Rafe’s voice sounded strained. Probably leftover worry. “There’s a place about twenty miles from here. We can fix up your leg there.”
My thoughts weren’t on what lay ahead, but on the nightmare behind me. “You were right,” I whispered. “He killed all those people.”
Rafe stared at me, brow puckered. “Tiger-guy told you that?”
“I saw them.” I could barely get the words out. “He eats their hearts. He thinks it’ll turn him human again. If he eats the right one.”
“Lemme guess, you have the right heart.”
I nodded. “Because I stopped you from killing him.”
“See what being nice gets you?”
“She doesn’t need to hear that,” Everson snapped.
But Rafe had been right and I’d nearly had my heart ripped out because I hadn’t listened to him. “I’m so stupid….” The memory of the tiger’s claws threatened to pull me under. I focused on taking in air. Chorda was out there loose, because of me. If he killed someone else … it would be all my fault.
After thirty minutes of bumping over broken asphalt, Rafe pointed in the distance to what looked like a limestone fortress, complete with stockade walls, turrets, and towers.
Cosmo rose to his knees in the front seat. “What’s that?”
“Home sweet home,” Rafe said with a forced smile.
In no time we were cruising alongside a massive stone wall — the Titan in miniature. The place truly did look ready to withstand archers and battering rams. We rounded a corner and reached the front wall where my romantic notions were quickly dispelled by the windows — all iron barred.
Everson parked the jeep right next to a large sign near the entrance that read “Joliet State Penitentiary.” “A prison?”
Rafe pulled a circle of keys from his knapsack and headed for the heavily fortified gate. “Doesn’t get any safer than this.” He unlocked a number of chains and used his weight to push open the gate. “We’ll stay here tonight. And go into Chicago before dawn.”
“But it can’t even be noon yet,” I said. “Let’s go now.”
Rafe gave me an odd look. “It’s way past noon.”
“Oh.” How long had I been unconscious after Chorda’s punch? “Still —”
“Let’s see what time it is when Ev here is done stitching up your leg.” He said it so firmly, I didn’t bother to argue, just followed him through the gate.
With Everson’s arm wrapped around me, half holding me up, I limped my way into a spacious courtyard where squawking chickens roamed freely. The afternoon sun lent a golden hue to the walls and parapets. But most striking were the solar-collecting panels. Almost the entire roof was taken up with slanting and shimmering panels that blazed in the sunlight. I had to admit the place wasn’t horrible as we passed a vegetable garden. But still … “This is where you live?”