More Than Flesh & Bone
Chapter 37
OPERATION: GET-THAT-SON-OF-A-BITCH
"Hey, can I borrow your phone?" I leaned forward, putting one hand on either side of the two front seats.
Bucky looked up in the rear-view mirror and narrowed his eyes. "What for?"
I narrowed mine back. "Because I need to use it and you took mine and never gave it back."
"She's got a point," Bonzo said from the passenger seat. His hair was lank against his head, and it was a little greasy.
Bucky rolled his eyes, but shoved his hand in his pocket. "If you screw me over by…"
"What? Calling someone? Seriously? You know I'm not the enemy here. I mean, come on, dude. I frickin' died and came back to prove my point. So just chill on the threats for a hot minute, will ya?"
He silently held his phone up, and I took it without a thank you.
"What's the password?" I asked.
"We're here."
"Yeah, I gathered that, given the fact that you stopped in the middle of nowhere next to the other dozen cars that aren't occupied. Now, what's the password?" I asked again.
"Try 'REAPER.'" Bonzo suggested.
"He can't be that dumb…" I said, typing it in. When the phone unlocked to show a picture of Bucky holding a ceremonial scythe with a photoshopped background from Zombieland, I about died laughing. "You've got to be kidding me," I chuckled.
Bucky turned in his seat. "You don't say shit," he warned.
"Mmhmm…" I hummed, opening up the texts and firing off a quick message.
"In case you guys forgot why we're out here, we're wasting time doing I don't know what while my murdering shithead of a brother kills the rest of the Brotherhood… but no rush or anything," Zed complained, getting out of the van and slamming the door behind him.
I glared at his retreating back before sending the message and handing the phone back to Bucky.
"Who'd you text?" he asked.
"Backup," I replied, following after Zed.
I used my hip to close the door and walked around back. He was tossing an assortment of firearms into the back of the van in front of us. Bonzo came around to stand beside me, smelling like a joint. Bucky stepped up to my other side.
He grabbed a shotgun and looked from it to me. "You don't hesitate this time," he said.
I grabbed it out of his hand, leveling him with an annoyed look. "Try not to end up on your back the whole fight."
Bucky muttered an insult under his breath that I pretended not to hear as I walked toward the edge of the forest. The shaded undergrowth and rustle of leaves mocked me. We'd turned an hour drive into thirty minutes, but that didn't change the fact that they were probably closing in on the cabin as we stood here.
"Gretel," I said softly, calling on my ghost version of Siri.
"Yes?" she answered, popping up beside me.
"Are they still alive?" I asked softly.
"They are…" she said, and the hesitance in her voice made my stomach drop.
"What?"
"The zombies are likely to die either way, but you need to hurry if you don't want him to get away again," she explained. "You're faster than the rest of them, and with your most recent trip into the in-between, you should be able to make it before that happens."
I glanced over at her. Eternally a pre-teen with rouge colored lips and an expression too old for the lack of laugh lines on her face, Gretel regarded me closely.
"Thank you," I told her, feeling oddly sentimental and grateful toward the usual pain-in-my-ass spirit.
"Don't thank me yet," she said with a wink, disappearing in her signature puff of smoke.
"Try and keep up," I called back to the boys, using the footprints in the dirt as my compass as I made my way into the woods.
"Yeah, okay," Bucky snorted, slamming the back doors of the van closed.
"She's not joking…" Zed said, already chasing after me.
I heard all of this as easily as if I'd been standing next to them, and I was able to make out the tracks in the earth as clearly as if it was broad daylight and I was two inched above them. My senses had definitely been upgraded again.
"This way," I said, making a hard left to follow the tracks.
"How does she know where to go?" Bucky asked.
"She's one with nature, man. Death can always find its prey," Bonzo said.
I snickered. The answer was less metaphysical than that, but it boiled down to the same thing. I was following tracks, and they were definitely going to lead me to my prey.
I was trying to check my speed so that the others didn't get lost, but it was getting harder with each step as Gretel's words replayed in my mind.
That's when the shouts reached me.
The rest of the Brotherhood was nowhere in sight, but they were in trouble.
Adrenaline surged through me and the trees became a blur as I pumped my legs harder.
"Addie! Wait up," Zed called.
"Just keep going straight. You'll catch up," I shouted, not worried about being stealthy. I wanted that asshole to know I was coming for him. Let him underestimate me again. It would be his last mistake.
Less than a minute later, the woods started thinning and a cabin came into view. It was still a half-mile out, but I could easily see reapers surrounding the building. It looked like they'd surrounded it with the intention of capturing whatever was supposed to be inside. More likely, given the number of bodies littering the ground and a few of the spectral forms hovering nearby, they'd been ambushed by Zayne's wolf.
I slowed to a walk, panting hard as my eyes scanned the cabin for any sign of Zayne or his pet. The reapers were turning in circles, trying to protect each other's backs while they searched too.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," I crooned beneath my breath, senses on high alert as I continued to move forward.
There was the rustle of a branch to the right as the wolf leapt out, its jaws open wide with strands of bloody saliva hanging from its razor-sharp teeth.
"Watch out!" one of the brothers cried out, warning one of the others.
The wolf was inches away, ready to snap those killer jaws around his throat.
"Not happening," I said, pulling up my shotgun and taking aim. I let out a growl o frustration as the wolf aligned with his target. I didn't have a clear shot.
Ah hell, I mentally groaned. I might be fast, but I was also super tired after that sprint through the woods.
Not seeing another option, I urged my body to go back into gear.
This time there was no blurring of trees. No sounds of the forest. The world around me flashed white, and between one step and the next, I was standing between the wolf and a freshly dead body. I was too late.
I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised by my speed, but there was a flicker of something in the wolf's glowing red eyes.
"Surprise, motherfucker," I said, realizing it didn't matter how I got over here so fast, only that I did. I could sort that shit out later.
The shotgun I'd chosen was no use in this kind of close combat, so it was time to improvise. I switched my grip to hold it like a bat and took a swing.
The wolf must have learned from last time because it leapt back two feet and in my surprise, at least that's what I was telling myself, my hold on the shotgun was too loose and my only weapon went flying twenty feet.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I griped, happy that at least Bucky wasn't here to give me shit.
The wolf looked between the gun that I'd just thrown and me, now weaponless.
I could see the decision on its face before it lunged.
In a split second I had no other options, except one.
Drawing my hands together like Zed had shown me, I thrust my fists into the center of the wolf's chest just as his snarling mouth came for my face.
Saliva touched my cheek. The rank scent of rotting flesh made my stomach curdle.
I kept it together long enough to tear my hands apart.
The wolf yelped.
All went silent.
A thump hit the ground and I cracked one eye open, unable to believe my luck.
Did I really just…
"Addie?" a single voice echoed to me like a call from beyond.
"Trace?" I called back.
A watery version of him appeared before me, so translucent I could barely make out his features. It struck me as off that I was filled with so much relied and yet his expression was stricken.
"Run," he said.
"But…"
"Run!" he yelled, louder.
I took two steps back, prepared to do just that when the cock of a gun made me grimace.
"Well, well, well… if it isn't the Girl Who Lived. Let's see if you can repeat that trick a second time, shall we?"
"You piece of shit," I yelled, turning around.
I came face-to-face with the barrel of my own shotgun right before it went off.
Then it was just black.