Page 68 of Raised By Wolves

Logan has gotten all the way behind his brother now. He’s using him as a shield. How brave. How brotherly.

My finger presses a little harder on the trigger now.

All it’ll take is one tiny squeeze.

And then I hear the siren.

CHAPTER 50

IT PIERCES THE ear like a scream. A flock of crows rise cawing into the air.

The trembling starts in my legs and travels up my body like a wildfire. My arm shakes. The gun wobbles. I can’t keep my aim.

My target smiles a slow, cruel smile. “You’re dead now,” Mac Hardy says. “Game over.”

I lower the gun. My shoulders slump. The weight of what I almost did crushes me.

What was Idoing? Was I really about to shoot Mac Hardy?

I look down at the gun in disgust. Its black metal has a dull, lethal gleam. With my thumb, I flick the safety back on. And then I fling the weapon away as far as I can. It lands with a faint thud somewhere deep in the woods.

“Hey!” Mac yelps. “That’s mine!”

“Fetch,” I snarl.

But Mac’s still frozen to the spot. I dig my nails into my palms as the cruiser comes to a screeching halt, spewing upgravel. The chief charges out, his own gun drawn. “Drop your weapons!” he shouts.

Holo flings his hands up. “We don’t have any,” he cries.

Not anymore we don’t.

The chief quickly takes in the scene—me and Holo facing off with the Hardys, Logan slowly stepping out from behind his brother, brushing dirt from his knees. There’s no gun in sight. And Holo, at least, looks totally innocent.

Not to mention terrified.

The chief lowers his weapon. “What’s going on here?” he demands. “We got a call about a girl with a gun.” He turns to me, his expression dark. “Kai? Did you have agun?”

But I’m too overwhelmed to speak.I was ready to kill Mac Hardy.

Logan points a finger at me. “She was going to shoot my brother!”

And probably you, too, I think.Any bullet I would’ve fired at Mac would’ve ripped right through him and slammed into you.

The chief steps closer to me. “Kai,” he says, low and fierce, “this is deadly serious. I need you to tell me what happened. I need you to explain yourself.”

I try to open my mouth, I really do. But suddenly there are more cars pulling up. People are getting out and they’re shouting. A lady with bleached, orangish hair runs right at Mac Hardy with her arms held wide, and then she’s crying and hugging him and wailing her head off.

“Mom,” he says, snarling, trying to shake her off, “I’mokay.”

“What did these animals do to you?” she says, grabbing at Logan now. Black lines of mascara run down her cheeks.

Animals—of course.

Like mother, like son.

“Lock ’em up!” someone yells, and another person cheers.

I close my eyes as the shouting gets louder. Pretty soon someone’s going to say something about calling the pound. Or the zoo. Or the wildlife exterminators. I know how this goes.

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