The Savage Grace

  Jude’s grip weakened, but he didn’t let go of my throat. “Go home?” he asked. “You make it sound easy. You don’t even know what you’re talking about—”

  “Being in this cage,” Daniel said. “It’s like being an addict who’s been forced into rehab. Staying in here is what’s easy. Yes, going home is the hard part. I know. I’ve been through it. I know what it’s like to try to go back to your normal life, to have to face all the people you hurt on your path to destruction. I know what it’s like to walk around with that terrible voice in your head, constantly tempting you. How every single waking moment is a decision to either keep fighting it, or just give in.”

  Ragged breaths heaved in Jude’s chest. His fingers trembled against my throat. “I don’t know.…” His voice caught. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep fighting.”

  “You are, Jude,” I said. “I know you are. And I’m here to help you. We’re both here to help you. But we can’t unless you let us.”

  Jude’s fingers slipped from my throat. He backed away and collapsed onto his cot, his whole body quaking in gut-wrenching sobs. “Help me,” he cried against the canvas cot. “I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

  I massaged my throat as Daniel went for the key that hung from the wall at the entrance of the basement. He unlocked the gate and pulled it open. The two of us ran to Jude and cradled him in our arms.

  Daniel took off his moonstone pendant and strung it around Jude’s neck. “You need this more than I do.”

  My brother clutched at the stone like it was the most precious thing in the world.

  I brushed my hands through his hair and held him tight, rocking him until he wrapped his arms around me. One of his hands rested on the scar on my arm where he’d bitten me, infecting me with the Urbat curse.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I forgive you,” I said one last time because he needed to hear it. I clasped his head with both of my hands and tipped his face so I could look him in the eyes. They were violet and glistening with tears—but they were my brother’s eyes that I remembered. Mirror images of my own. “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I promise.”

  I prayed with all my might that this promise would be one that wouldn’t get broken.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  ARRIVALS

  AN HOUR LATER

  We pulled into the driveway behind April’s red hatchback and Talbot’s blue truck. Every light blazed in the house, and I was sure the whole group was still here. Probably lying around sleeping like happy, fat dogs after a feast.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Jude said as we got out of the car. He squinted at the lit-up house like it was almost painful to look at.

  “It’s time to come home,” I said, trying to nudge him forward.

  “What if they don’t want me anymore?”

  But I didn’t get a chance to answer his question, and I didn’t need to, because the front door opened, and Mom came running down the porch steps.

  “Jude!” she cried, throwing her arms around him. It looked like she might suffocate him with her hug.

  Dad appeared in the doorway. His mouth fell open, and his eyes got shiny with tears, watching the reunion of mother and son. “Are you sure about this, Gracie?” he asked, approaching slowly.

  “Yes,” I said, and squeezed his arm.

  “Good girl.” Dad swallowed hard and went to Jude and my mom. The three of them embraced.

  “Let’s go inside,” I said to Daniel. He took my hand, and we left the others so they could cry and talk and embrace some more.

  I was right about the rest of the household—they were fat-dogging-it all over the house. Brent and Zach were sprawled across the front room furniture, passed out napping, with hands resting on their full bellies. April, Charity, and James snuggled together on the couch, watching one of James’s Playhouse Disney DVDs—but I couldn’t help noticing that Charity’s attention seemed to be a bit preoccupied. She kept glancing out the window at Ryan, who appeared to be getting a lesson in the finer ways of staking from Talbot out on the back porch.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to get the girls’ attention.

  Both April and Charity sat up when they saw me.

  “You’re back,” Charity said.

  “How did it go with Jude?” April asked.

  “He’s here,” I said. “Outside with my parents.”

  April jumped up. “Do you think it’s okay if I join them?”

  “Me, too?” Charity asked.

  “Yeah. The happier we can make his homecoming, the better.”

  I watched as April and Charity bounded out of the family room, leaving Baby James to suck on the edge of his blankey with blissful oblivion. At least I never had to worry about his running off with a pack of paranormal thugs.

  “I’m going out back,” Daniel said, hitching his thumb at Talbot and Ryan in the backyard. “I need to ask Talbot a few questions about the Shadow Kings.”

  “Okay,” I said, and let go of his hand. I also wanted to hear everything Talbot had to say about the Shadow Kings, but at the moment, Jude’s homecoming had to be my priority. I headed to the dining room and piled up a plate of food for Jude from what remained of the breakfast-for-dinner extravaganza.

  I picked up the plate and was about to head for the kitchen to warm it up when I found Slade standing in the dining room doorway, blocking my exit. The dish almost dropped from my hands.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said, coming closer to me than he ever had before.

  “About what?” I stepped back, but the table blocked me from going any farther.

  “Why did you do it?” He grabbed my arm tight, almost tipping all the food off the plate and onto the ground. The tattoos on his skin looked garishly colorful compared to my pale arms. “I need to know why. I can’t handle it anymore.”

  “Okay. What the heck are you talking about?” I pulled my arm from his grasp.

  “Why did you save me from that Akh at the trance party? Why didn’t you let it kill me?”

  I put the plate on the table. “Why would I let it kill you? I don’t want you to die.” I didn’t want to lose any more of the lost boys like I had Marcos.

  Slade swallowed hard. “But I deserved it. I deserved to die.” A look of genuine confusion passed over his eyes. “I disobeyed a direct order from you. I couldn’t help you save your father. I couldn’t go into that fire. You should have punished me for refusing to go. That’s what Caleb would have done. But instead, you saved my life. Why? What do you have in store for me? What punishment could be worse than death by Akh? I can’t handle not knowing when the ax is finally going to drop. Just do it now and get it over with. Kill me.…”

  I put my hand on his chest, stopping him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. No one is going to kill you. You’re not even going to be punished. If you haven’t noticed, I’m nothing like Caleb. Neither is Daniel. I understand why you couldn’t go into that fire. You were afraid. I get that now. Werewolves fear fire because it’s one of the few things that can kill them.”

  Slade nodded. “It can disintegrate an Urbat completely. Not even leave any bones behind. But the others were able to get over their fears and come to your aid. I couldn’t. I was petrified. But I swear, I wasn’t always such a coward.” He licked his lips. “You know, I’d just been accepted to train as a smoke jumper—those guys who jump out of airplanes in order to put out forest fires?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s what I’ve always wanted to be—ever since I was a little boy. But the Shadow Kings took that away from me when they turned me into an Urbat. They took my whole life away.” Slade ran his fingers over the colorful flames on his forearm, tracing the lines. “I ink my arms with tattoos of flames, burn myself with a lighter, like I thought I could fool myself into believing I’d overcome my fears. But when faced with it, I caved. I failed you.”

  “I understand. I really do.” The wolf in my own head had
almost prevented me from being able to save my father. For someone who’d wanted to be a firefighter all his life, I could understand the shame and agony Slade must feel. “No harm is going to come to you for that.”

  Slade grabbed my hand in a lightning-quick movement. “Thank you,” he said, squeezing my fingers. “Thank you.”

  “Um. You’re welcome.” What else are you supposed to say when someone thanks you for not killing him? It’s not exactly a situation that comes up often—at least for normal people.

  Tears welled in Slade’s eyes, shining brighter than the steel bar in his eyebrow. Slade crying was the last thing I’d ever expected to see. Caleb had really done a number on these boys.

  “What I don’t get is that it sounds like you had a pretty good life—training to become a firefighter and all. How did Caleb even get his claws into you?”

  Slade let go of my hand, almost as if he felt ashamed to touch me. “There was this girl. Lyla. Prettiest thing I’d ever seen.” A slight smile pulled on his lips like he was remembering her face, but then his chin began to tremble. “But she was in trouble. Needed money. I’d been street racing since high school, best driver around, but the winnings still weren’t enough. After a race one night, this guy approached me. Said his crew needed a driver for a job…” He glanced at the floor.

  “You mean like for a heist?”

  He nodded. “Normally, I’d say no. But the money he was offering was killer. Enough to pay Lyla’s debts and bring her out to Montana with me for training. Enough to start a new life. Only thing is, when the job was over, the guy says I can’t leave. That the job was my audition, and now I belonged to him. When I refused … Well, next thing I knew, I woke up in the warehouse with this.…” He pushed up his T-shirt sleeve and showed me the ragged crescent-shaped scar on his tricep.

  I knew what it was, I had one myself. “Werewolf bite.”

  “And they had Lyla. Turns out the guy she owed money to was the same guy who’d recruited me. They’d used her. And then they used her again to turn me—to get me to give in to the curse they’d infected me with.”

  I imagined the scene unfolding in the warehouse. Slade waking up disoriented and confused, his arm throbbing with the burning venom of a werewolf bite. Caleb threatening Lyla, forcing Slade to give in to the raging wolf in his head in order to try to stop them from hurting her.

  By the dark look in Slade’s eyes, I could tell the scene was playing out in his mind, also.

  “What happened to Lyla?” My voice was barely more than a whisper.

  Slade’s eyelids slid shut as he lowered his head. “She was the first person I killed after I turned into the wolf. I don’t remember much of what exactly happened—I was in such a frenzy. I thought I was going after the guy who held a knife to her throat, but she ended being the one I killed. I don’t know why I did it.”

  “The wolf wants you to kill the person you love the most. She didn’t stand much of a chance once Caleb forced you to give in to the wolf.”

  “It wasn’t Caleb.”

  “What?”

  “He was there. Caleb was always lurking up above in the warehouse. But the guy who recruited me, the guy who forced me to do what I did to Lyla—that was Talbot.”

  I felt the air catch in my lungs. I shouldn’t have been shocked by this revelation. I should have seen it coming from the very beginning, since I’d already known that Talbot had been in charge of “recruitment” for Caleb’s gang of Shadow Kings. Talbot was the one who had supposedly had a talent for getting infected individuals to give in to the werewolf curse. He’d been given the task to recruit and change me—only he hadn’t.

  Supposedly, Talbot was a whole new man now.

  “Why did you stay with them? After what they did to you?”

  “Because after you kill someone like that—especially someone you love—you feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet. You know that you can’t just go back to your life again. But you’ve got this raging, screaming, selfish thing inside your head that doesn’t want to be alone. And that’s when Talbot and Caleb swoop in on you, telling you that you’ll never belong anywhere else. But if you’ll do what they want, then they can give you a home, and score after score, and a purpose. But really, I see it now, they just wanted me to be another foot soldier in Caleb’s terrible army.”

  Deep down, I already suspected that each one of these lost boys we’d brought from Caleb’s pack—even Brent and young Ryan—had probably been through a similar experience as the one Slade had recounted. Which meant that at some point, each of the lost boys had either killed someone—or at least wanted to—or else they wouldn’t be full-blown werewolves.

  But they’d each chosen to follow Daniel and me away from that warehouse, and to stay with us. Which meant they were each looking for a second chance.

  And we could give it to them, just like the second chance we’d offered Jude.

  I put my hand on Slade’s shoulder. “Caleb may have treated you boys like his foot soldiers, but I want our pack to be a family. I know you’ve been hesitant to truly accept Daniel as your alpha. But you’re welcome to be a part of this family, if that’s what you want. No harm will ever come to you by us.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I want to be part of this family.”

  “I truly believe we can learn to use our powers for good. Maybe you’re still destined to become the best damn firefighter anyone has ever seen. Imagine the good you could do with your speed and strength?”

  “But I’d still be afraid of fire.”

  “Talbot and the others were able to overcome their fear to help me. I think, deep down, you’ve got it in you to make a difference in this world—firefighter or not. And I want to help you. If you’ll let me.”

  Slade was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps,” he said. “But before you do anything else for me … there’s one more thing I must tell you.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “I was stupid. I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let that Akh look me in the eyes. He read my mind. He knows where the other boys and I are staying. And I am afraid he may know where you live also. He got away, which means now Caleb knows. I would have told you sooner, but I thought…”

  “Thought I might kill you?”

  His nod looked more like a flinch. My stomach felt ill.

  “Thank you for telling me. We’ll find another place for you boys to stay—and Daniel, too. And don’t worry about Caleb knowing where I live. He’s always known that. He used to live in the house next door.”

  Slade’s eyes went wide. “But that makes no sense. Caleb doesn’t let anyone just leave the Shadow Kings. You should see the things he and Talbot made us do to guys who tried to run away.…”

  I could believe, actually. The first demon I’d ever killed was a Gelal who’d left the Shadow Kings, and I’d been used as a pawn by Talbot to punish him.

  “If Caleb knows exactly where to find us, then why hasn’t he attacked yet?” Slade asked. “What is he waiting for?”

  “That’s a really good question,” I said.

  And now I was the one waiting for the ax to fall.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Only, the ax that fell wasn’t the one I’d been worried about.

  I was headed to the front door with Jude’s warmed-up dinner, when a bright light filled the front window, making me shield my eyes with my hand. I heard Dad shout from the front yard. It almost sounded like he was saying my name, and then something like, “Run!”

  “What the … ?”

  The front door burst open. Strange light flooded the entryway as Mom, Jude, April, and Charity came into the house. Dad followed, shouting mine and Daniel’s names. When he saw me, he grabbed me so hard it knocked the plate of food from my hands. “They’re here! They’ve come for you. Get out of here. Run!”

  Daniel rushed into the hall by way of the kitchen. Talbot and Ryan were right on his tail. The other boys who had been
sleeping sprang to attention when they saw Daniel. No doubt Dad’s screams had awoken them.

  “The Shadow Kings?” I asked.

  “No.” Dad clenched my arm. “Sirhan and his pack. His entire pack is here, from the looks of it.”

  “What?” Daniel bolted for the door to get a look outside. Dad tried to stop him.

  “Don’t go out there. Take Grace and get as far away as you can.”

  “And then what?” Daniel asked. “If they want to find us, they’ll find us.”

  Daniel went through the front door. The boys followed after him like his sentinels and fanned out on the porch. My father tightened his near-death-grip hold on my arm, trying to prevent me from following.

  “You can’t stop me, Daddy.”

  His nostrils flared. “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “You can’t. Not anymore. Not in this world.”

  Dad stared at me, the fear in his eyes moving from panic to sadness as he bowed his head. “I know. I’ve known for a long time the day would come when I couldn’t anymore.”

  “Then let me go.”

  Dad released my arm. I followed the boys out onto the porch and stood side by side with Daniel. My father followed and stood in the doorway behind us. Jude stood next to him.

  In the piercing light, I made out the outline of what looked like at least ten black cars—probably SUVs, from the size of most of them—facing the front of the house, their brights shining in our faces.

  I kept my hand level with my eyes, wishing my superhuman vision wasn’t quite so sensitive.

  “They’re trying to put us at a disadvantage,” Ryan said, shielding his eyes.

  “It’s working rather well,” Brent said.

  Ryan punched him in the arm.

  “I was just making a comment.” Brent punched him back.

  “Cool it!” I snapped. Brent and Ryan stood at attention now, except for their hands guarding their eyes.

  Daniel was the only one who stood with his arms at his sides—as if he weren’t hindered by the light.

  “How do you know it’s Sirhan?” I asked Dad. “That could be anyone. It could be the SKs.”