Page 52 of Gone Hunting

She’s edging back toward the cave. Liam is near the garden. Gemini and Koda are on the path leading back to the forest.

The scorpions have separated us. We’re several yards away from each other. But it ends now.

The first thing I learned as a wolf was toneverseparate from your pack. You hunt and you bring down your enemy as one.

“Regroup, now!” I yell.

I charge toward Celia, kicking the scorpions in my path onto any hard object I find, or up into the air and toward the ravenous owls. Mimi doesn’t have much we can use as a weapon out here, but I have plenty of anger.

I send one giant scorpion soaring across the yard, slamming it into another around the same size. They attack one another, striking their stingers like cobras and forgetting all about us.

I ignore them, dashing toward Celia as she climbs on top of Mimi’s cave to avoid the band of scorpions scuttling after her. “Celia!”

Every part of me stalls as Celia leaps backward off the top of the cave, doing some flippy thing and landing full force on two super-sized scorpions. She doesn’t stop there. She kicks the remains of one scorpion into several smaller ones that leap toward her, stunning them and allowing the owls to attack. She then brings down the poker onto the head of another.

Neverhas a woman been thishot.

The entire incident happens in mere seconds. If I wasn’t awere,I would have missed most of it. Celia sprints toward me, kicking away the smaller scorpions flicking their tails at her.

I blindly catch a leaping scorpion and break it in two, tossing it aside as Celia reaches me, barely aware that I’m gawking.

Celia jumps, using her weight to crush those she can’t beat to death with the poker. I snatch two more that jump, feeling their hard shells snap beneath my grip, but not before their claws rip at my flesh.

Like Gemini said, these aren’t regular scorpions. One manages to sting my calf before I can stomp on it, its venom burning my flesh like liquid fire.

The invasion into my system awakens the healing components of my wolf. It attacks the venom, localizing it before it can spread and destroying what’s left of it. Another few stings and I’ll be on the ground. But hell will freeze over before I let anything hurt Celia or my friends.

I snatch another one that leaps toward Liam’s exposed neck as he reaches us, mutilating it with my hands before it can sting.

Koda joins us, followed by Gemini.

“More than half are down,” I yell, over the excited tittering of the owls. “Let’s get this done and get out!”

There’s no grace to our movements, no organization, no precision strikes or mad skills that make us look sleek. You won’t find Superman among us. No. The Hulks are in the house and hulkssmash.

These scorpions jump high. When they do, our fists sail, punching as we would any opponent stupid enough to cross us. When they don’t leap, our feet find them, stomping hard enough to kill or stun them. These aren’t just bugs, scampering around and trying to hide. They come at us full force, like hungry locusts invading a large field.

Nothing we practiced ever prepared us for an attack like this. That doesn’t mean we’re not crippling these things, or that the owls Mimi sent aren’t effective.

I’m not sure how long it takes. An hour, maybe longer. Koda makes the final kill, his large foot coming down on the last of the scorpions. I tried to avoid the stingers and I think I would have avoided most of them if I hadn’t been trying so hard to spare Celia.

She falls into a crouch, covering her mouth when she sees the large hole burrowing through my right thigh. The final few kills cost me. But Celia is safe and that’s all that matters.

“Don’t touch it,” I say, when she reaches out her hand. “My wolf is already mending it.”

Her large, soulful eyes blink back at me. “Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Totally,” Liam interrupts. He turns around, exposing his back. Gray lines branch out, spreading the venom and leaving indentations of melting skin. As the venom reaches his shoulders, the power of his wolf pushes it back, centralizes it and smoothing the damaged tissue.

It doesn’t take long for Liam’s wolf to repair him from the inside out. It also doesn’t take much longer for him to speak. “I tried to get creative and trample them with my back.” He makes a face. “It wasn’t a good idea.”

Celia rises. “Liam, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Koda says. “He’ll be all right.”

Celia gasps when she sees the chunk of arm Koda’s wolf is working overtime to fill in. “Koda,” she says. “You poor thing.”

Very gently, Celia takes Koda’s wrist, turning it back and forth so she can examine the extent of the damage. Koda’s face turns two shades redder than Mimi’s squashed tomatoes. “Uh. It’s fine,” he says, tripping over his words.

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