Page 99 of It's You
Jack walked stealthily along the tree line, looking at the dilapidated cabins surrounded by mud and garbage, nothing like the orderly village at Portes de l’Enfer where his mother had gardens and flowering trees on her property. Jack had grown up close enough to a town to attend school with Métis kids, unlike this remote village where the kids were likely homeschooled, if at all. Jack wrinkled his nose at the smell. Unconsumed, rotting human parts. This was a messy, sloppy pack, which also made them dangerous.
Toward the back of the village, about twenty feet from the forest where he lurked, Jack spied a lean-to next to a dirty, muddy playground. Several Rougs were scattered around it in various states of undress, lying across a beat-up picnic table, on the bottom of a slide, and there, propped against a rusted jungle gym, sat Dubois with glazed eyes open, staring up at the sky.
Jack winced, clenching his jaw. His father was wasted to nothing, with sunken cheeks and hands shaking in front of him,held at an awkward angle, as though they had been broken at some point, and reset badly.
Jack stood at the edge of the woods and waited until Tombeur joined him.
“Found him?”
Jack nodded and gestured to the jungle gym. None of the Rougs had yellow eyes. All had that vacant, dazed stare. You’d barely know they were alive, but for the occasional ragged breaths they took.
“You see any pack?”
“I don’t think so. I think this is where thevisitorshang out.”
“He might fight us.”
“He’ll lose. He’s smaller than Delphine.”
Tombeur looked at Jack, holding his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jacques.”
“Let’s just take him home.”
They approached the cluster of wasted, softly groaning Rougs. Jack kneeled down beside his father and twisted his head to face him.
“Papa, c’est moi. Jacques. Me reconnais-tu?” It’s me. Jacques. Do you know me?
Dubois’s head wobbled uncertainly on his neck, and he tried to focus his runny brown eyes.
“Jacques?”
“C’est moi, Papa. Je vais te ramener à la maison.” It’s me. I’m going to take you home.“Pour Maman. Pour Tallis.”
“Tallis…Tallis, mon Tallis…”he murmured, tears trailing down his sunken cheeks.
“Oui, Papa. Tallis.” He looked up at Tombeur. “Take his legs. I’ll take his shoulders. We’ll get him into the woods, then shift and take him home.”
As they hefted Dubois’s body and started for the woods, they heard a noise coming from the closest cabin to the playground. A Roug came out of the cabin with a shotgun in hand.
“Où allez-vous tous les deux?”the voice demanded.Where are you two going?
Tombeur hurried his pace, catching Jack’s eyes and shaking his head briefly. Jack read his message.Don’t shift yet. Try to make it to the woods.
“Où amenez-vous ce vieil homme?” Where are you taking that old man?
Jack heard the hammer pull back, and the explosive sound of gunfire ripped through the air as a bullet sailed by Jack’s ear. They still had about five more feet until the woods, where they could safely shift and run.
Another hammer pull and another shot, but this time, the bullet ripped clean through the muscled flesh of Jack’s upper arm. He bellowed in pain, feeling his fangs dropping, his claws unsheathing under his father’s shoulders. Pain and fear were making him unstable. His blood was heating up. His claws weren’t retracting.
He didn’t want to think about Darcy, and yet hers was the face his mind seized upon to distract him from the pain ripping through his body. Her pale skin, her blonde hair, the freckles across her nose, the lips that he loved to kiss. He concentrated on her face. He had to make it through tonight, no matter what. He had to see her again.
“Don’t shift,” snarled Tombeur. “We’re almost there.Control, Jacques!”
Jack heard the hammer pull back one last time, just as they reached the tree cover of the forest, but the roaring of the gun and whizzing bullet wasn’t forthcoming. Surely the loss of one old junkie wasn’t worth a chase? Jack kept moving, but didn’t look back over his shoulder. He caught Tombeur’s face in themoon, and it had relaxed. Jack took a deep breath then, panting in relief. They’d made a successful escape.
About a quarter of a mile into the woods, they propped Dubois up against a tree, and Tombeur took a look at Jack’s arm. He grimaced.
“It’s not pretty. Going to leave a hell of a scar, Jacques.”
