The Little Tail I Can't Shake Off

POV: Brill Cox

"Let go of me!"

The shout came from below the rubble slope on the third day after I had set out in the direction Elias pointed.

Out on the waste, a cry for help didn't necessarily mean someone worth saving. It could just as easily be a trap.

I stopped and pressed myself behind a rock, peering down through a gap in the broken stone. There were five people at the bottom of the slope.

Four grown male wolves had a wounded girl surrounded.

Their clothes were so filthy you couldn't tell what color they'd started out, and none of them bore any Pack mark. The girl in the middle looked sixteen or seventeen, very thin, her hair a tangled mess spilling over her shoulders. The trouser leg on her left side had been torn open, and blood was running down without stopping.

"Hand it over." One of the males reached for her pack.

She backed away, missed her footing, and went down straight into the snow.

That was the first thought in my head.

I had helped plenty of people before, and what I got back was insults and stones.

This time would be no different.

I turned, and before I had taken two steps, a cry of pain came from behind me.

A few more steps and I could pretend I hadn't seen anything.

But that cry of pain behind me wouldn't let my feet move.

Of course I couldn't just leave her.

I crouched and felt around at my feet.

The whole slope was loose stone, and a dozen or so paces further down lay a patch of dead grass buried under snow. I remembered crossing that way the day before: underneath it was a collapsed streambed, and the snow surface looked flat but was hollow beneath. I had nearly gone through it more than once.

I picked up the biggest rock I could find and threw it at the loose scree on their left.

Crash.

A whole sheet of stone went down, gravel spraying over them, and all four males turned their heads.

"Who's there!"

I bent low and, while the falling stone covered their line of sight, slipped out from behind the rock and sprinted toward the girl, grabbed her by the arm, and hauled her into a run.

"Run! Stay close to me!"

Her leg was hurt and she ran very slowly; I was practically dragging her. Someone came after us, and a werewolf's speed is too much. We couldn't have outrun them.

But we were nearly out.

"Follow me, don't get lost," I panted, and pulled her to my right.

I stepped onto the strip of hard earth along the edge of the dead grass, no wider than half a foot, and didn't dare misplace a single step. The girl was yanked so hard she couldn't keep her balance, but she was obedient and stayed with me the whole way.

The first male was already three paces behind me.

I could almost feel the heat of his breath.

That was when I cut hard to the right. He lunged at empty air and came down on the snow surface.

Thud.

The snow collapsed and he dropped straight through, only his two hands clawing at the surface, cursing filthily, and the two behind him were too close to stop and went down with him.

The last one reacted fast and caught himself.

I tightened my grip on the other rock in my hand and stood still on the hard earth.

He looked at his companions scrabbling in the snow pit below, then at the grass under my feet, and finally backed off two steps. "You just wait. I'll remember you."

Maybe he was afraid of falling in too. He glanced at where his companions had gone down, then turned and left.

I didn't move. Only when he was far off did I notice my hands were shaking.

He had gotten a good look at my face before he went.

I didn't dare leave right away. I waited until everything around us was quiet, then took the girl the long way around. If they climbed out of that pit, they would come back for us.

"How did you know it was hollow there?"

The girl was panting beside me, her voice still hoarse from crying.

"I came through that way," I said, and turned to look at her leg. The wound wasn't deep, but it was long, and the blood had glued the cloth of her trousers to her skin.

I found some broad-leaf grass nearby that hadn't frozen through, crushed it, and packed it against her leg, then tore a strip from the bottom of my own clothes and bound it for her.

"What's your name?" she asked first.

I didn't answer, just pulled the knot tight. She sucked in a breath at the pain but didn't pull her leg back.

"I'm Tessa," she said. "I don't have a Pack. Thank you for saving me."

"Where are you from?" I asked.

She smiled and turned her head away. "Somewhere far."

I didn't ask anything else.

She didn't want to say, and I didn't want to hear it.

I stood, knocked the snow off my hands, and walked off. I hadn't gone far before I heard footsteps behind me.

I stopped, and the footsteps stopped too.

I looked back. Tessa was standing there on her bad leg, watching me.

"Don't follow me," I said.

"Mm." She nodded.

I walked on, and she followed again.

I quickened my pace and she came after me, breathing hard, keeping very close, and I couldn't shake her at all.

After the better part of an hour I stopped by a tree to rest. She stopped too, a short distance away, crouched down in the snow and hugged her knees.

I didn't know why she insisted on following me, or what I had left to give her.

I sighed, took out the last dry cake in my pack, broke off a little and put it in my mouth, and held out the rest to her.

She looked at it and didn't take it.

Then she stood, limped over to the few trees at the edge, crouched down, and started digging in the snow.

She dug for a long time and came up with a few wild berries, purple with frost. Then she walked over and held out her hand to me.

Three berries in her palm. She gave me two.

I looked at the two berries and didn't take them. "I don't eat those."

"They're sweet," she said. "I ate them when I was little. They're not poisonous."

"I said I don't eat them, and stop following me." I looked up. "I'm not a good person. If you keep following me, I'll throw you to the beasts."

At that, Tessa smiled instead.

"But you just saved me," she said, her voice soft. "Bad people don't pack herbs on someone's wound, and they don't tear up their own clothes to bandage them."

I opened my mouth to mock her naivety, but looking at her smiling face, in the end I said nothing.

I reached out, stuffed the two berries into my pocket, and stood. "I'm going to Blackridge Academy. The road is hard. If you can't keep up, leave."

"I'm going there too!"

I glanced at her, not knowing whether she was telling the truth or what she actually wanted from following me.

She answered too fast, as though she had known all along that I was headed there.

She tucked the remaining berries into her cloth bag and kept her hand pressed over the opening, and she didn't explain why she was going to the Academy either.

I didn't press her, but I could tell she was hiding something from me.