Page 28 of Rejected Moons (Rejected Moons 3)

What I need is somewhere I can go that they can’t—or won’t—follow

The idea comes to me, and in a heartbeat, I wheel about and leap down the stairs that lead to the city’s old public transit tunnel.

Chapter Nineteen: EMLYN

Thepublictransittunnelis like another world.

I’ve never been down here before, obviously. I’ve never actually seen it firsthand. I’ve only heard the stories. But every wolf avoids this place like the plague because this is where the Ravagers have their hives.

I know Harley and the others from my pack won’t follow me this way. No one from the Moon Hunters has ever been underground before.

Which makes it insane that I’m doing it now.

Maybe Nate was right about me. Maybe I am crazy.

Would it be worse to die at the hands of my pack or at the hands of Ravagers? If I had to pick a way to go…

No. I’m not going to give up. There’s a chance I could get out of this. I just have to make it to the next tunnel exit.

I know how the public transit system works, vaguely. I’ve seen it from the street level, even though I’ve never been down here before. Before the Lunar Reversal, trains used to run down here, taking people all over the city. The trains are dead now, of course, just like everything else, but the tunnels are still here. And there are entrances and exits to this underground system at intervals.

They won’t think I’m going to do that. They won’t believe I’d have the courage to travel through the tunnel. They’ll expect me to huddle at the bottom of the stairs and wait for them to go away. They’ll stake out the entrance where I came in, expecting that eventually, I’ll either come back out on my own or the ravagers will drive me out.

I look down the tunnel.

There’s nothing to see. It’s pitch dark down here. Even my keen wolf eyes aren’t sharp enough to pick anything out in the black.

But my other senses will be useful down here.

I perk my ears, listening carefully. The air moves strangely underground—it sounds different. It’s disconcerting. But I don’t hear the sounds of footsteps that would indicate ravagers.

I inhale.

The scent of them is pervasive. I’ve never been around Ravagers before, but I know at once that this is their smell—because it’s human, and yet it’s not.

The Ravagers were human once, a long time ago. Before I was old enough to understand the world I lived in and the dangers it presented. Now they’re the only humans left. The only ones who survived.

But the things they did to survive—they’re unthinkable.

The Ravagers have become cannibals.

Now they live banded together in hives, like predatory insects, ready to swarm over and devour anyone who gets in their path—other Ravagers, shifters, probably even Moon Casters. They have no discernment. They have no humanity left. As far as I’m aware, they don’t attack members of their own hive—they must have some way of recognizing each other. But I’m sure theywouldturn on one another if they got hungry enough.

No one knows why the Ravagers stick to the tunnels, because no one understands the mind of an insane person. And they’re all crazy. Cannibalism will make you crazy. I’m guessing it’s some human instinct to retreat to the most sheltered place they can find. Probably started to kick in around the same time most of the other humans died in natural disasters. If I hadn’t been a shifter, living among a pack, I would definitely have looked for someplace like this to hide out.

As it is, the only reason I’m choosing the tunnel over the threat of the pack behind me is that the Ravagers aren’t looking for me. There’s a chance, if I’m quiet and careful, that I can make it through without attracting their notice.

Just a chance.

I shift my weight slowly as I walk. It’s all I can do not to break into a sprint, bolting through the dark. But as soon as this thought occurs to me, I feel a loose rock shift beneath my foot, and I know that if I was running, I would have kicked it away. It would have made a noise and brought the Ravagers down on me.

The tunnel seems to stretch out forever. I try to tell myself that every step is bringing me closer to the place where I can exit, but it feels like I’m just descending deeper and deeper into darkness, like I’m diving into the core of the earth. My heart is beating a mile a minute. I’m shaking. At any second, I could hear the sound of Ravagers descending on me.

They’re justhuman. I shouldn’t be so afraid of them. And yet…

They hunt in huge swarms. I could fight off one of them, no problem, but they’d surge over me, their teeth sinking into my flesh, too wild and stupid to fear death. That’s what makes them so dangerous. They attack without fear.

I’m not the kind to let fear hold me back. But I definitely have a healthy sense of self-preservation. And right now, it’s telling me to get the ever-loving fuck out of this tunnel before the ravagers arrive.

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