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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kia

I called Sloane, but by the time we found Ethan, it was too late.

The wendigo had found him first.

Sloane’s teeth elongated and sharpened, her eyes rolling back in her head in pain. The flower in her hair dropped to the ground just before she did. Her hands turned to paws, and fur covered her skin as her clothes ripped at the seams. The change was so primal, so ancient that the hairs on my arms lifted. My heart raced, refusing to reconcile the wild animal in front of me with the girl who wore lace skirts and ate cinnamon buns by the pound.

Especially since Sloane was already bounding away, shedding skirts and sweaters and a pink scarf, racing through the snow in wolf form before I could ask her where she was going.

I followed her eerie wolf howl ululating from the vicinity of where I’d set off the forest fire. I took off through the trees, praying the moss girls were busy somewhere else. I eventually found tracks, which I assumed were Sloane’s. I wasn’t exactly a forest ranger. I forced myself to keep running, the frigid air cramping in my lungs. My fingers started to glow, warmth spreading up my arms. I
really
hoped the moss girls were busy somewhere else.

When I slid on a patch of ice-encrusted snow, I knew I was close. The trees wore lace gowns of frost and icicles. The large standing stone marker for Summer was in the center of a clearing. Sloane had tracked Ethan’s scent. And his blood.

The scratches on his chest were bleeding through his shirt, splattering him with red. His teeth were bared, and he looked more savage than Sloane did, even with her hackles raised. Icicles hung all around us, making a crystal chandelier of the branches overhead. Sloane paced around them, snarling. “Ethan,” I called. At the sound of my voice, the wendigo turned its head, growling. I knew why it targeted me now, why Ethan’s and my kisses were interrupted that night in the pool. She was jealous.

She still wanted Ethan.

Sloane gave a warning bark when the wendigo shifted, trying to decide what it wanted to do first: rip off my face or concentrate on Ethan. “Kia, get out of here,” he snapped, finally moving. “Sloane, you, too. Back off. This is one of Dad’s traps, damn it!”

“That’s not the wendigo that killed Summer,” I told him. “That
is
Summer.”

He didn’t shift his attention from the wendigo, but I could see his neck muscles bunch up. His breath trembled when he exhaled. “
What?
”

“She was infected or turned somehow when it attacked her. That’s why it has her earrings trapped in its fur.”

“And her silver ring,” he whispered, but I didn’t think he was talking to me.

Sloane paced closer, lips lifted off her teeth. The wendigo snarled back. I threw a hunk of ice at its head. It hunched its shoulders, charging at me. Snow swirled around its bare feet. Ethan was faster, grabbing its bony shoulder and throwing it off course. The wendigo punched him in the chest. He fell back a step. Sloane couldn’t help him. Neither could I.

We were a little busy with a new problem—the giant thing lumbering toward us, smelling like rotting meat. “Oh my God!” I yelled. “Now what?”

“Ogre,” Ethan yelled back, still dodging the wendigo. “Don’t worry, they’re stupid. Dad let it out so you could kill it, Kia. You or Justine.”

“Me? What the hell for?”

It might be stupid, but it was also eight feet tall and three feet wide. It was wearing bones and mildewed animal skins, with tiny bird skulls around its neck. And a severed human arm tucked into its belt. I thought of the dead hiker with the missing arm. Then I thought about throwing up.

The ogre licked its lips at me. “Hungry.”

He swung a huge arm my way. Sloane was a sleek muscled bullet, flying low to snap at the ogre’s ankle. He whined like a child, swatting her. I broke off hunks of icicles from the branches and threw them like knives. The first two missed his bulk altogether, but the third caught him under the eye. He howled.

Beside us, Ethan wielded a broken branch, catching the wendigo across the throat. The look on his face was heartbreaking: raw, sad, determined. It gagged on a scream, using Ethan’s grip on the other end as a counterbalance. The branch snapped in two.

The ogre lumbered between us, blocking my view. Flames flickered from my fingertips, turning the snow that fell around me into rain. Sloane was limping. I slipped on a patch of ice and fell, landing on my hip. The ogre was too close now. His shadow fell over me, stinking of rot. A massive hand lowered toward my head. I grabbed for another icicle and drove it into his foot like a stake.

He reared back. An arrow slammed into his chest, another into his eye. Blood splattered. I rolled out of the way just as he tripped and fell, taking down saplings and making the earth tremble. His head landed in the lake, water arcing up. I thought I saw Justine in the shadows, but I didn’t have time to thank her.

Ice closed a hundred iron hands over Ethan, trapping him. His feet dangled above the ground, as if he’d been tied to the tree.
Snow
and ice coated his bloodied face. The wendigo approached, looking almost gentle. Black, misshapen fingers stroked his blond hair. Ice sparkled in his lashes. I already couldn’t tell if it was ice from the wendigo or if he was being turned.

“Summer,” he croaked. “
Summer, please.
”

The wendigo paused, but only for the briefest, briefest moment.

I broke into a run.

Sloane was faster. She growled, deep and low in her throat, nose crinkling and ears flattening. She was all fur and teeth, streaking through the air. She clamped the wendigo’s shoulder between her teeth and shook it, the way she’d have snapped a rabbit’s neck. The wendigo howled and clawed back frantically. They tumbled into the trees, swiping savagely at each other.

Ethan’s eyes fluttered open, but he still couldn’t move. Panic had him struggling, blood smearing the ice over his chest. I picked up the broken end of the branch and closed the distance between us. Fire danced from my hands up my arms. Even the ends of my hair sparked.

I heard flesh tearing, bones breaking. And then nothing at all. Bile was sour in the back of my throat. The wendigo’s fur was matted with blood. Sloane lay in the snow, naked and pale, wrapped in her long red hair. Her clothes were in shreds back at the cemetery, and the wolf had left her. Everything had left her.

She wasn’t moving.

Ethan was trapped.

And Sloane was dead.

Chapter Thirty

Kia

Ethan wasn’t the only one who was immobilized.

I literally couldn’t move.

Sloane was dead.

The stars watched us, uncaring. The snow continued to fall. The lake glittered. Ethan screamed in his cage of ice.

And Sloane was still dead.

The snow turned to water under my boots, melting right down to the layer of dead leaves. The wendigo turned away from Sloane. The ice grew so thick, so fast that it echoed, sounding like an avalanche. The water under my feet turned slick and treacherous. Even the tears froze on my cheeks for a brief moment before melting away again.

I fought my way through the swirling storm, made wild by the wendigo’s hunger. There was snow in my mouth. I shot the fire toward the wendigo. The smell of burning hair and pine resin was acrid. Blisters broke bloody on my palms, but I didn’t feel them. I had to get Ethan free. His blond hair looked paler, his cheekbones sharper.

If I didn’t get to him soon, Summer would turn him, just as she had been turned. I didn’t know how it was done, I only knew she would do it. There was no question anymore.

That was why she’d been whispering his name, driving him into the forest. And why she was trying to stop me from reaching him now.
His
eyes drifted shut.

Icicles broke off from the frozen canopy, slicing down at me like daggers. I dodged them as best I could, but they still bit into me, bruising my arm, cutting my cheek. Huge icicles started to come up from the ground, closing me inside their wintry jaws. A pointed tip tore through the hem of my pants, scraping along my shin. Hot blood trickled down my leg. The clash of fire and ice was so intense, I could barely see through the fog and steam and hail.

An arrow pierced through the haze, slicing through the wendigo’s arm as it reached for me. It howled, jerking back. Justine was perched up a tree, another arrow already nocked. Our eyes met. She nodded once.

I leaped for Ethan, blindly trusting that Justine would protect me. I pressed my palms over the ice encasing Ethan, one over his heart, the other cradling his cheek. My skin stuck, the blisters searing. “Wake up!” I yelled. “Ethan, wake up!”

Arrows whistled behind me, so close I felt the fletchings tug on my hair. I forced fire through my body, through my arms and my hands into Ethan. I ignored the pain of the hair on my arms being burned off and my scorched eyelids. I closed off the rest of the world until I was only seeing fire.

Candles, bonfires, forest fires. Inferno. Red everywhere.

Drops of water ran down Ethan’s clear coffin, but it wasn’t enough. His lips were blue. The ice was too thick to shatter, even with the spear. I peeled my hands away and rubbed them together until they chafed and heated up. Blood smeared. The fire made my fingers glow until I could see the veins and the bones beneath. Heat wavered until I was sweating. Snow turned to steam before it touched me. I was broiling inside my own skin. My bones were melting, my flesh was sizzling. I was a beeswax candle, consuming itself. I was soot and ashes and smoke.

By the time the ice cracked, I was panting and seeing spots. Ethan fell forward onto his knees, gasping. I crumpled, fighting to stay conscious.

The wendigo slammed into the ground between us, one of Justine’s arrows through its heart. Blood congealed and gleamed, freezing almost instantly. Justine dropped down from the tree. Ethan looked like he was trying not to be sick.

“That wasn’t her,” he said, mostly to himself. “Not anymore. Not really.”

Holden, Justine’s dad, and Abby crashed through the trees. Abby held a rifle.

“Ethan,” Holden said through a sigh, as if he was deeply disappointed, as if his son wasn’t lying battered at his feet. “I knew you’d interfere.”

“Good work, honey.” Justine’s father beamed at her. She stared at him, seething.

When they approached Sloane’s body, I shot a ring of fire out of the snow around her, scalding them. “Stay away from her,” I snapped. Ethan and I helped each other up. Justine flanked me.

“She can’t stay here,” Holden said gently. Fire snapped toward him, like a whip. He stumbled.

Ethan smiled grimly. “No one touches Sloane except for Justine’s mom.”

“What about that thing?” Justine’s dad said, trying to defuse the tension. He pointed to the wendigo. “My little girl’s first real trophy.”

“That
thing
,” I said, “was Summer Kirihara.”

Ethan’s fists clenched. “The three of us will bury her while we wait for Justine’s mom. She can take Sloane’s body and deal with the official doctor paperwork stuff. The rest of you can go to hell.”

“You have to see the big picture here,” Holden said soothingly, as if we were being irrational. “We should be celebrating. We have two new champions. Three, after Justin has his Trials.”

Holden beamed at me. “Welcome to the Cabal, Kia.”

Abby’s rifle swung to him. “Like hell.” She looked fierce. “It’s bad enough she had to come to this damned place. You’re not taking her into your cult, too. Clean up your own mess and leave my family out of it.”

“You came to me, remember?” he asked smoothly. “For help.”

“That was a long time ago.” The safety clicked off the gun. “I only stayed for the children and the animals. Not for your Cabal.”

“I protected you,” he said, suddenly sounding sinister. “Kept your secrets.”

“I won’t trade my granddaughter for my safety,” Abby spat. Her eyes flashed silver, and canine teeth dimpled her lower lip.

“Um, Abby?” I croaked.

Ethan let out a wavering breath. “She’s a werewolf.”

I stared at him, then at her. “Shut up.”

She didn’t take her eyes off Holden or lower her gun. “Being a vet was easier,” she said. “I was bitten by dozens of dogs and never turned into one of them. It’s different with werewolves.”

“Sloane,” I said, stunned. “You were the werewolf she couldn’t kill.”

Abby nodded once, her hair looking more like gray fur. “Yes. And I couldn’t very well leave her after that, could I?”

“Sloane?” Holden asked. He paused, frowned. “Never mind. You’ve protected them, Abby, and now they can protect you.” Holden smiled at me. I wanted to kick him right in the teeth. “You want to protect your grandmother, don’t you, Kia? You can do that. Be one of our champions, and she’s safe. No one will ever hunt her.”

I hadn’t thought I had the energy left for the kind of hot fury that boiled inside my body.

Ethan rose to his feet like smoke. Abby closed one eye, taking proper aim with her gun.

She never got a chance to shoot.

Chapter Thirty-One

Ethan

I punched my father right in the face.

He stumbled back as Nix shot out of the lake, her silvery fishtail flashing in the moonlight. She yanked him into the water before anyone could stop her, before I even had time to wonder if I would have bothered to try. He went under almost instantly. Abby’s tranquilizer dart skimmed the water but missed its mark.

Bubbles broke the surface. In the darkness, they were tiny silver pinpricks like shooting stars, leaving traces of my father’s movements but no clues to where he went. The lake was black and unforgiving. Kia tried to send fire to help crack the ice left from the wendigo, but she was exhausted. I couldn’t think about the wendigo being Summer. Not now. I had to get everyone home safe first. I had to get my dad out of the lake. Abby’s flashlight beam swung over the lake, slowly, methodically. “There. By the rocks.”

I ran across the slippery boulders, not waiting for the others to catch up. I stretched out on my stomach, trying to see through the gloom.

There was a splash and Dad surfaced, gasping at the cold.

I stretched as far as I could but I couldn’t reach him. I slipped under the water, hard with ice. It closed around me, merciless and pitiless. “Ethan,” Abby yelled above me. “You’ll freeze!”

I went under, ignoring her. I might hate him most of the time, and God knew I had no respect for the man, but he was still my father. I couldn’t just let him drown.

I searched for the pale flicker of his body as sparks danced over the lake. When I finally resurfaced, I dragged him behind me. He was limp and unresponsive. I swam hard though my legs were numb and heavy. I was shivering violently by the time we reached the beach. Justine’s father shouldered me aside to help my dad. Kia rushed toward me, trying to emit as much heat as possible. She sat between us, trying to warm us both. My shivers died down to thin trembling, but I could barely feel my own body. I felt a numbness that had nothing to do with the snow.

Justine’s father pounded on Dad’s chest and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It was slow, painful work. I held onto Kia’s hand so tightly our finger bones were grinding together. She didn’t let go. The cold water between our fingers turned to steam.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Dad coughed weakly, bringing up water. His lips were blue, his eyes unfocused. He coughed again, a hoarse, rough sound that hurt to hear. He went red, then pale. The cough went silent. He grabbed his throat.

Nix floated nearby, watching us with grim satisfaction. She didn’t say a word, just flicked her hand in a “come here” motion.

“Why won’t she talk?” Kia whispered.

“Dad had her tongue cut out, remember?” I answered. She was still holding my hand, so she stood up, too. “So she wouldn’t lure people into drowning.”

Dad was on his knees, gagging on air that wouldn’t fill his lungs. Nix lifted her chin, waiting. Dad’s pants were stiff with ice. Under the cuffs, his feet were bare and silvery.

“Are those…scales?” Kia murmured.

Nix laughed, though there was no sound.

“It’s very rare,” Justine’s dad said, stunned. “Usually merfolk drown their victims, they don’t change them. And they certainly don’t keep them.”

“Keep them?” Abby asked. Her rifle lowered to the ground.

I crouched next to Dad. “You’ll have to join her.”

Dad shook his head. “Give me a hunter’s burial,” he said, still gagging on air.

“For Christ’s sake.” I grabbed the back of his shirt, shoving him toward the lake. He dug in his heels, still choking on air he couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want my father to die, despite everything. “I’m not going to watch you die, choking on your own pride.”

He sprawled into the lake. Water closed over his face, and he bobbed like a pale, strange fish. When he turned over, spluttering, he was able to talk. “Don’t leave me here,” he begged. “She’ll kill me.”

“I doubt it,” Abby said, glancing at the mermaid. “She wants you to know how it feels. How all of us feel.”

“That’s worse! I won’t be one of them!” I’d never heard actual fear in his voice before.

“I’ll look after Ethan,” she promised. “I always have.”

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait! The Cabal is here. I sent for them.”

I thought I was already frozen inside, but I was wrong. “Here? Tonight?”

“For Justine and Kia. It’s been too long since we had a new champion. Now they’ll see.”

“You’re not even human anymore,” I said, disgust and relief that he wasn’t dead mingling in equal parts.

“Because of the mermaid. It’s not my fault—”

“It’s entirely your fault,” I spat. “And Nix is not the reason you’re a monster. You became one long before tonight.”

Abby touched my shoulder. “Come on. There’s nothing else we can do for him right now. We have bigger problems.”

I turned away from my father because there was nothing else to do, because I was Cabal.

And he’d taught me to take down the monsters.