<Let these humans have some of the girls,> Simon said.
<Why?> Joe protested. <We’re taking these weapons away from humans. Why give some of them back?>
<Humans would call it a show of good faith. We can’t let these girls loose in the wild, so we’re going to need help. Give these humans a reason to help. I’ll make sure the girls aren’t used as weapons against us—even if I have to kill them.>
<Much will change in Thaisia because of this. We will want some help in return.>
<Yes,> Simon said. <Lakeside will help.> There would be plenty of time to explain to Lieutenant Montgomery and Dr. Lorenzo that he had included police and doctors in that promise. It was the only way to give the two men a reward for standing witness to the destruction of the enemy called the Controller.
Monty watched Joe’s paws shift into something resembling hands. The Wolf held up two digits. “You can each take two girls.”
“Six girls?” Monty said. “There are only six girls in the compound?” Left alive? he added silently.
“You can take six,” Joe repeated.
“What about the other girls?” Lorenzo asked. “They’ll need …”
“Six or none,” Joe snarled. “That is five more than we promised the Lakeside Wolfgard.”
“We’ll take six,” Simon said. He turned and walked away, his ears pricked toward a sound the humans couldn’t hear.
Monty hesitated; then he and Lorenzo hurried past the Wolves who were feeding on one of the bodies and caught up to Simon. The Lakeside Wolf probably wanted to feed like the rest of the Others, but Simon, at least, recognized Monty and Lorenzo as more than meat, so it was safer to stay close to him.
A stairway led down. They followed it to more corridors. Simon stopped and looked at them. Red flickered in his amber eyes, and Monty wondered how much longer he would stay in control.
“I’m only here for one,” Simon said. “The Lieutenant can choose three.”
“What will happen to the rest of the girls?” Monty asked.
“That is for the Midwest terra indigene to decide.”
“They think these girls are poison,” Lorenzo protested.
“If you try to take more than five, the terra indigene will kill them all,” Simon said. He stepped away from them and howled. Then his ears pricked and he strode down the corridor, slipping a little in the blood. He turned a corner and disappeared, leaving Monty and Lorenzo facing a corridor of locked doors.
“Gods above and below, how do we choose?” Lorenzo asked.
Monty picked up a set of keys lying next to a body and opened the door in front of him. The girl trying to hide in a corner of the room was maybe a year or two older than his daughter, Lizzy.
He thought about Meg Corbyn, struggling with an addiction to cutting that would most likely kill her while she was still young. Would she have felt compelled to cut if she’d lived in a place where she could receive some support, where her skin wasn’t a commodity?
“We choose the young,” he said, looking back at Lorenzo. “We choose the girls who will have the best chance of learning how to live in the world.”
Handing the keys to Lorenzo, he walked into the cell and crouched in front of the girl.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Montgomery. I can help you leave this place. Would you like that?” He held out his hand and waited.
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she put her hand in his … and broke his heart.
Simon smashed the door open, then stopped.
They would have done this to Meg, he thought, baring his teeth in a snarl.
Instead of showing fear, which would have been sensible since he’d just smashed through a door and was showing his fangs, the female smiled and said, “You’re Meg’s Wolf.”
Battered and scarred, she sat quietly on the narrow bed, her hands in her lap. One foot didn’t look right, and he wondered if she could walk on her own. She smelled foul, as if the humans had stopped caring for her and didn’t even let her try to care for herself.
“Jean?” He hoped she would deny it. How could he bring this creature back to Lakeside?
“Yes, I’m Jean. How is Meg?”
“She’s fine.” Reluctant, he stepped into the cell. “Meg is fine.”
“I helped her escape.”
“I know.”
“I’d like to ask you for a favor.”
He cocked his head to indicate he was listening.
“Don’t kill me in this room. Take me beyond these walls that I’ve hated for as long as I can remember. Beyond the compound. And use this.” She turned over her hands to reveal the silver razor. “They kept this locked in a drawer, so close yet out of reach, as a torment. But I knew that there would be a day when the Walking Names would forget to lock the drawer, and the next day Meg’s Wolf would come.” She brushed a finger over the razor. “So this is mine again. You should use it to kill me. If you bite me, it will make you sick.”
He took a step closer, then sank down to sit on his heels. “I didn’t come here to kill you. Meg asked me to take you away from here, to save you.” When she didn’t respond, he said what he thought Meg would want him to say. “She lives with us in the Lakeside Courtyard. You could come live—”
“No,” she said quickly.
He puzzled over that for a moment. “You don’t want to see Meg?” He wanted to see Meg.
“See her, yes, but not live in the same place.” Jean leaned toward him. “Meg is a kind of pioneer. Do you know that word, Wolf?”
He nodded. “The first humans to invade our land. Our first taste of the new meat.” He bared his teeth. “Meg is not a pioneer.”
Jean had a distant look in her eyes. Meg had that look when she was recalling images.
“Trailblazer,” Jean said. “Pathfinder. Someone who goes first, creating a path so that others can follow. Are those better words?”
“Better,” he agreed. At least those words didn’t mean an edible human.
“Meg needs to let go of the past.” Jean waved a hand to indicate her body. “I’m too much of a reminder, and she’ll think this happened to me because of her.”
“Did it?”
“Some of it, but it would have happened anyway. When she looks in a mirror, she has enough reminders of the past. She doesn’t need more.”
“Then what would you like?” he asked. Strange female. Crazy female? No, not really. The eyes that looked back at him didn’t belong to crazy.
“I don’t know. The images don’t make sense. Water falling. Mist rising. A sound that is a roar but not a roar. A jar of honey.”
“That’s where you’re supposed to go?”
“Yes. If I didn’t die here, that’s what I saw as my future.”
“Then it does make sense.” Simon stood and held out his hand. “I know that place. The people who live there are called Intuits. They can help you—and I think you can help them too.”
She held out the razor. “Hold on to that.”
He took the razor and shoved it into his pocket, not asking why she would let it go now that she’d just regained possession of it. Meg got nervous when she didn’t have control of her razor.
Meg the Pathfinder. The one who could show all of them the new path toward Thaisia’s future? That was a large burden for one short female, but he would help her. Somehow. He just hoped Meg leading the way didn’t mean all the blood prophets would do strange things to their hair.
“Time to go,” he said.
Jean struggled to her feet. She could walk, but she couldn’t have run away. Pity stirred in him. Had she seen what would happen to her after she helped Meg escape? Probably. And she’d said nothing so that Meg would run and not look back.
He let her hold his arm to help her walk. But he stopped at the doorway. “It’s bad out there. Maybe you should close your eyes.”
“Wolf,” she said gently, “I’ve already seen it.”