The sisters rolled into the middle of the road, Toni stopping to shift back to human so she could punch Delilah in the face. It was so satisfying punching the little bitch.
By now, most of the cult members had run out to see what was going on, then stopped to watch, shocked and horrified. Unable to move.
Del shifted back, too. She punched Toni in the face, the stomach. Then they shifted to jackal once more and dug into each other’s throats with their fangs.
Freddy was still humming when that man named John walked away from Livy. She was lying on the floor, no longer moving, her body frozen. It looked like one of those shows Freddy saw his parents watch at night that had lots of cops staring at people on the ground and saying important things before tracking down the one who “did it.”
John stopped a bit away from Freddy and stared down at him.
“He says you’re the one to bring the ultimate darkness,” John said, although Freddy didn’t know what he meant. From what Freddy knew, Delilah jut wanted him to write out the contents of Miki’s very cool notebook. Something Freddy would not do. “He says you’re to be protected. So we’ll protect you. You’ll be safe here.”
Freddy would only be safe with his mom and dad and with Toni. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to go home.
But the way John was staring at him, Freddy was just starting to think that he might never go home. That he might be stuck here with these too-nice people that terrified him.
Then, behind John, he saw Livy twitch. First her hands, then her feet. Then she sat up straight, her eyes blinking open. Freddy’s heart began to race, but he tried not to show it.
Livy looked around a moment until her gaze locked on the back of John’s head. She abruptly hopped up, completely silent, until she was crouching on the balls of her feet. She looked at Freddy and with her forefinger, made a circling motion. Livy had done that before when she’d snuck into the window of his parents’ home back in Washington. Between them, it had always meant, “I don’t want you to see this so you have nothing to testify to in a court of law.” It was their little joke, but Freddy knew it was serious now.
So, without getting up, he turned his body around until he faced the wall and, when the screaming started, he began humming his daddy’s favorite song . . . “Man with the Dogs.”
Because that would keep him calm. Calm was important for him; otherwise he did things, like set fires and steal.
And, let’s be honest, it was stealing that had gotten him into all this.
Del, fed up with all this bullshit, shifted back to human and shoved her sister off her. By the time Toni landed a few feet away, she’d also turned back to her human form.
Bloody and bruised, the sisters got to their feet.
“You’ll regret what you did,” Del told her. “No one—”
“Shut up.” Toni looked at something over her shoulder. “Your Messiah’s here,” she whispered.
Barely able to not roll her eyes, Delilah slowly turned until she was face to face with Chris.
He gawked at her as if she sported horns and a tail. Then again, of course he would. Not because of what she was, but because he now understood she was what he wasn’t. Special. Different.
Powerful.
“What are you?”
“Chris—” she began.
“Kill her!” he ordered his followers. “Kill the insolent whore!”
But no one moved. No one followed his orders. So, panicking that it was all slipping away, Chris grabbed a knife from one of his bodyguards and, screaming, charged Delilah.
Del couldn’t even pretend to be interested by this new drama.
Ricky and his brother changed back to human, threw on their jeans, and charged outside, following the sounds of screaming. They weren’t Toni’s screams, though, so he wasn’t too concerned.
As they neared the crowd, the group parted and Ricky and Rory cut through. But the brothers had to quickly step apart as skin that—Ricky was guessing—had once been attached to the church’s great prophet, Chris, landed wetly on the ground near their feet.
Rory gaped down at the mess on the ground before telling his brother, “That’s just wrong.”
Yeah. Ricky already knew that.
Delilah stepped back so that she could keep her eye on both the brothers and Toni. She motioned to the cult followers and, like the tragic lemmings they were, they all stood behind the blood-soaked female who’d killed their messiah. And, it seemed, had taken his place.
Staring at them with those eyes that were so like Toni’s and yet so different because there was no life behind them, Delilah asked, “What am I going to do with you now, big sister?”
Toni chuckled at that and pointed at Delilah’s chest. The young woman looked down and saw the telltale red dot locked on her heart.
“I’ve heard,” Toni explained, “that Cella Malone can hit a target from more than a mile away.”
“Shit,” Delilah growled out.
A roar went out from somewhere in the distance and the cult members all trembled in fear as if hearing the word of God. But Ricky knew it was just the roar of a tiger-grizzly hybrid.
“Let’s move,” Ricky said to Toni.
She nodded and naked, she walked forward toward her sister. When they were only a few inches apart, Delilah asked, “Is this where you give me dire warnings, Toni? Tell me what you’ll do if I come near Freddy or the family again?”
“No,” Toni said. “This is where I say good-bye.” She leaned in and kissed her sister on the cheek.
“I love you,” Toni said simply and, for the first time, Ricky saw what Toni had been trying to tell him. Delilah had no idea what her sister was talking about. She didn’t understand why her sister wasn’t killing her, ordering the rest of them to shift and tear the cult apart. The threat of what Toni would do if Delilah came near the family again was there, unspoken. Not needing to be spoken. But the fact that Toni still loved her, even if she would never like her or trust her or want to see her again was beyond Delilah’s simple ability to reason.
Delilah would never understand love or affection or what it meant to be part of anything that meant more than one’s own life. She would never be part of a family or a good group of friends or a pack or pride.
And, Ricky had to admit, he kind of felt sorry for her. He couldn’t think of a more miserable way to live.
Toni had almost reached the spot where they’d left the SUVs when she saw Livy standing by one of the vehicles with Freddy in her arms.
Letting out a sob, Toni charged over to them and pulled her brother into her own arms, holding him tight against her. Neither cared that she was naked with a good amount of blood on her.
“Freddy, are you okay? Tell me you’re okay,” she begged.
“I’m fine.” His little arms were tight around her neck, his legs around her waist. “But you may want to check on Livy,” he whispered.
With her brother safe, Toni felt confident enough to now notice her best friend.
Livy did look a little under the weather. Pale, sweaty, shaking, and also covered in blood.
“God, Livy, what happened?”
She shrugged, coughed, and spit on the ground. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Poison?” Toni asked. It was one of the coolest things about honey badgers—they were really fucking hard to kill.
“From the taste of it,” Livy replied, “snake-based.” She held up both her thumbs. “My favorite.”
Toni, still crying a little, grinned at her friend. Thank you, she mouthed.
“What else are people who don’t hate you for?”