Six Moon Summer (21 page)

The only way she knew he was gone was because she suddenly felt empty and lonely. Rylie’s eyes stung. Why was the only one who cared for her anymore sworn to kill her?

And why couldn’t she help but love him back?

The new moon was going to rise that night, and Rylie was alone.

She didn’t bother waiting for lights out before going up the mountain. As soon as Rylie filled herself on meat at breakfast, she took off at a run, making sure nobody could keep up with her. She had more food in her backpack, but Rylie was too fast for any normal human to follow even weighed down.

It didn’t matter if anyone knew she was gone. How could they punish her now? The summer was at its end, and so was Rylie.

Once she was far enough from camp to be sure nobody would follow, Rylie slowed to a more reasonable pace. On any other day, it might have been a nice hike. The sun shone hot, but a light breeze cooled her sweat. The air became crisper the higher she climbed.

She walked on instinct, heading for a destination even she didn’t know. It was as though something drew her higher and higher.

Rylie passed the ruins of the old church in the afternoon and stopped for lunch, hopping over the barbed wire and sitting on the stone pew inside. She ate ravenously, but tried to reserve most of her food for dinner that night.

The church wasn’t as scary during the day. Rylie stared mistrustfully at the metal rings embedded in the wall. Somehow, knowing she had let a werewolf hunter—even Seth—chain her during a moon made her feel sick inside. She had been helpless. What if he had decided not to give her the chance to avoid the transformation and killed her?

Of course, Seth had ignored many opportunities to kill her: the first night she was bitten, every time he came to her cabin while she slept, when she was weak during her transformations. He hadn’t done it yet.

“Yet” being the important word.

The pancakes were suddenly too dry in Rylie’s mouth, so she put the rest of her supplies in her backpack.

Rylie decided to stay at the ruined outpost. It was as good a place as any. She was far from the camps, preventing a repeat of the Amber incident, and she had a clear view of the sky. She would be able to see the change coming.

As the sun inched across the sky and made the shadows lengthen, Rylie felt the moon begin to tug at her. It was different this time. Her nerves were jittered. At first, she thought she was only nervous, but it only got worse as time passed.

The change was going to be bad. Very bad.

Rylie pulled out her journal to pass the time, sipping from a water bottle as she wrote.

The hours passed as she told her story. Even though she had logged everything as it happened, she felt like she had to go over it one more time. She talked about her alienation at the beginning of summer and meeting Cassidy. She wrote about how much she missed her dad, and how she had grown to love the forest.

But mostly, she wrote about Seth.

She reached their argument the night before and stopped. Rylie didn’t want to think about that.

She sighed and kicked a piece of rubble across the church.

It grew too dark for Rylie to see the page. She chewed on the end of her pen, trying to decide how to finish the entry with the knowledge she might never write in it again. Her fingers traced over the deep scratch on the leather cover that had been left by her attacker three months ago. It felt like a lifetime.

And she signed her name at the bottom.
Rylie
.

She shut the journal and tucked it in her bag to wait for sunset.

The forest darkened. Tendrils of orange and red clouds reached across the sky. Rylie tried to keep picking at her food, knowing she would regret it if she didn’t eat, but she had no appetite. She forced herself to swallow down the ham and bacon, tossing the remaining pancakes to the squirrels. They wouldn’t approach her to eat them. She really was alone.

Before long, the sun was gone, and the stars faded into place. Rylie stood in the middle of the encampment. She kept her ears perked, half-hoping to hear Seth coming for her, but it was quiet on Gray Mountain. All the small animals of the forest had gone to sleep.

Everything else was silent, as though watching her and waiting to see what would happen.

The moon would call her soon. Rylie could feel it.

“What am I going to do?” she asked the sky.

“I don’t know, Rylie. What
are
you going to do?”

She spun. For a half-instant, she thought it was Seth, but then she saw the figure lumber across the ruined outpost. She knew those broad shoulders, that yellow hair, and those angry eyes. He was wearing khakis and a loose t-shirt branded with the camp’s logo, and he carried nothing despite the long hike.

“Jericho,” Rylie said, disappointed. “What do you want?”

“It’s dangerous to be in the forest alone at night,” he said.

“So what? Are you going to report me for being out past curfew?” she asked. The situation was almost funny. Here she was, an hour at most away from becoming a terrifying beast, and a camp counselor was trying to menace her.

“It’s an option.” He took a step forward, and she stood her ground. “But what good would that do?”

Rylie glanced up at the sky. The sun was completely gone. “If I promise I’ll be back in bed by sunrise, will you leave me alone? You can’t threaten me with anything and I’m not going back tonight.”

Jericho laughed. “Neither am I.”

There was a strange tone to his voice, and Rylie gave him a second, harder look. His eyes were almost reflective in the darkness.

She took a slow sniff of the air. The wind wasn’t blowing in the right direction, and she wasn’t as sensitive in human form, but she could almost pick up that musky, woodsy scent she had detected at Golden Lake. The same scent she had tracked on the last moon.

The scent of the werewolf.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

Jericho, already massive and intimidating, only seemed to grow bigger. He flashed sharp, white teeth. “Now you know.”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m not.”

That gave her pause. “But…”

“You’re just a pup,” Jericho said. “I’ve come because it’s your sixth moon. The first real transformation can be terrifying if you’re alone. Why don’t you let me help you tonight?”

“Help me? How?” Rylie asked.

“Join me. We can bring the werewolf population back to power if we work together. I know you’ve been spending time with the boy who has hunted me all summer—that Seth you mentioned. I only realized he had found you a few days ago.”

“He’s been helping me.”

“Don’t be confused. Those hunters are ruthless,” Jericho said. “They’ve spent years wiping us out. He’s been using you to get to me because he knew I would come back for you. I always do. I take care of my pack.”

Rylie clenched her fists. “That’s not true. Seth wouldn’t do that.”

“I’ve been trying to keep you out of trouble. I made sure you weren’t kicked out of camp.” Jericho tried to smile, but it didn’t look as friendly as it was meant to be. “Aren’t you scared, Rylie? Don’t you want help?”

“No,” she said, but she faltered inside. She did want help. She didn’t want to fight the change alone, and if she did transform, she wanted someone to make sure nobody got hurt. But Rylie had imagined Seth helping her, not the man who mauled her. “What do you mean when you say you’re going to restore the werewolf population?”

“It isn’t a coincidence you survived that first night. We need to reproduce to survive against the threat of hunters. Camps Golden Lake and Silver Brook are a perfect opportunity! All those young, strong, healthy people are just waiting to be turned. It’s not too late for our kind to thrive.”

“You mean you’re going on a killing spree?”

“They can’t transform if they don’t survive,” Jericho said. “I want as many survivors as possible. The only ones who need to die are the hunters.”

“But Amber…”

“She was an accident. She wasn’t as strong as you.”

She felt sick. He was proposing that they subject all the other campers to the trauma Rylie had suffered all summer. And many of them would die, just like Amber.

“No,” she whispered.

“What?”

Rylie repeated herself more loudly this time. “No! I won’t do it. It’s wrong.”

“You’re going to betray your pack?”

“I don’t have a pack,” Rylie said. “If you want to help me, why didn’t you come on an earlier moon? Why didn’t you help when I was scared and confused and needed it the most? Maybe Seth is out to kill us, but you’ve got plenty of blood on your hands, too. At least he’s been there for me.”

He glanced up at the moon. “Fine. I don’t have time to change your mind.”

Rylie was strong, but Jericho had years of transformations on his side. He was much, much stronger.

He backhanded her. Pain exploded in Rylie’s head.

Reeling from his first hit, she didn’t see him coming for her a second time. He threw her into the wall of the ruined church. The stones cracked at the impact. She cried out and toppled to the ground as the stones crashed around her.

She threw her arms over her head to protect herself from falling rocks. Bricks thudded to the dirt and struck her shoulder.

“If that’s your decision, then fine,” Jericho said. “Just don’t interfere.”

Dropping to a crouch, Jericho ran away. He was as fast as he was strong. The last thing Rylie saw before he disappeared was his skin rippling and growing fur as he flung his shirt aside.

She groaned. Her shoulder was bleeding and it felt like her ribs were shattered.

Somehow, the injuries were far less frightening than Jericho’s plan. He was going to try to bite all the campers. There was no question about it: most of them would die. The ones that didn’t would become just like her.

It was wrong. Rylie couldn’t let it happen.

She tried to ignore the pain, but it was easier said than done. Every beat of her heart sent blood rushing through the injuries, making them throb. That overwhelming heat began to rise within her, and she recognized the signs of her body healing itself.

Rylie shoved the stones off of her and got to her hands and knees. She couldn’t wait to heal. She had to get to camp. She needed to warn everyone they were in danger.

She could only pray that she wasn’t already too late.