“Bad dog,” I said. “Very bad dog.”
He was too content with his achievement to pay me any mind. Back in his yard, he happily nuzzled and nipped the damp fur of the rabbit. It took shoving him forcibly from the rabbit’s body for him to give it up, and even then he snapped at me.
I hissed at Clifford, and he grumpily padded off in the snow. I looked down at the rabbit, matted and bloody.
But it wasn’t dead.
All of my hardness gave way as I lifted the light, furry beast to my chest. I felt its tiny heart beating furiously, at the brink of death. Its eyes were glassy, uncomprehending.
I knew what would happen to it. Its wounds were not deep, but it would die of shock. It wasn’t dead now, but it was past life. The only thing this creature had to look forward to was the paralysis of its own fear and a slow, cold death.
I looked to the window. Katarina was out of sight. I turned back to the rabbit, knowing in an instant what the kindest thing to do was.
You are a warrior, Katarina had said.
“I am a warrior.” My words turned to frost in the air before my face. I grabbed the gentle creature’s neck with both hands and gave it a good hard twist.
I buried the rabbit’s corpse deep beneath the snow, where even Clifford couldn’t find it.
Katarina was wrong: I have killed before. Out of mercy.
But not yet out of vengeance.
CHAPTER NINE
Katarina pulls the truck off the dirt road and we get out. It’s been a day of straight driving and it’s now three in the morning. We’re in Arkansas, in the Lake Ouachita State Park. The park entrance was closed so Katarina broke through a chain barrier and snuck the truck in, off-roading in the dark of the woods until we came to the main camp road.
We’ve been here before, though I don’t remember it. Katarina says we camped here when I was much younger, and that she had thought it would make a good burial site for my Chest, if it ever came to that.
It has, apparently, come to that.
Outside the truck I can hear the lake lapping weakly at the shore. Katarina and I walk through the trees, following its sound. I carry the Chest in my arms. We’ve decided it’s too cumbersome and too dangerous to hold on to. Katarina says it must not fall into Mogadorian hands.
I don’t press her on this point, though there is a dark implication to this task that haunts me. If Katarina thinks it’s come to the point of burying the Chest to keep it safe, then she must think our capture has become likely. Perhaps inevitable.
I shiver in the cool of the night, while swatting mosquitoes away. There are more of them the closer we get to the water’s edge.
We finally come to the shore. In the middle of the lake, I see a small green island, and I know Katarina well enough to know what she’s thinking.
“I’ll do it,” she says. But she only barely gets the words out. She is exhausted, on the brink of collapse. She hasn’t slept in days. I’ve barely slept either, only a few quick minutes here and there in the car. But that’s more than Katarina’s had, and I know she needs rest.
“Lie down,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
Katarina makes a few weak protests, but before long she’s lying on the ground by the shore. “Rest,” I say. I take the blanket she brought out to use as a towel and instead use it to drape her, to hide her from the mosquitoes.
I strip off my clothes, then grab the Chest tight and step into the water. It’s bracing at first, but once I’m submerged it’s actually fairly warm. I begin an awkward doggy paddle, using one arm to stroke through the water and the other to clutch the Chest.