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Ivy's lungs are burning and she can taste copper in her mouth.
She shouldn't have cut through the alley behind the Rusty Nail. She shouldn't have stopped when she heard the muffled grunt. And she definitely shouldn't have looked.
But she did.
She saw the knife go in. Saw the way the man's eyes went wide and then empty. Saw the killer turn his head—slow, like he had all the time in the world—and lock eyes with her through the gap in the dumpsters.
She ran.
That was twenty minutes ago. Maybe thirty. Time's doing something weird when your heartbeat's louder than your footsteps.
The town's gone. The streetlights are behind her. Ahead there's nothing but the black mouth of the Ashridge mines and the smell of rust and old fear. People don't go into the mines. Not anymore. Not since the pack fell apart and the things that used to be men started hunting in the dark.
Ivy doesn't slow down.
Behind her she hears boots on gravel. Two sets. Maybe three. They're not running. They don't have to. They know where she's going. They know there's no way out.
She hits the chain-link fence at full speed and starts climbing. Her hands are shaking so hard she nearly loses her grip twice. The wire digs into her palms. She doesn't care. She throws herself over the top and lands hard on the other side, ankle rolling, shoulder slamming into the dirt.
She's up before the pain registers.
The mine entrance is a concrete frame half-buried in weeds. The metal door's been ripped off its hinges. It's leaning against the wall like a rotted tooth. She ducks inside and the temperature drops ten degrees in ten feet.
The smell hits her next. Damp stone. Rust. Something else underneath it. Something that makes her hindbrain scream.
She keeps moving.
The tunnel splits. Left or right. She doesn't know. She goes left because it's darker and maybe that means it goes deeper. Her phone's in her pocket but she's not stupid enough to turn on the flashlight. Not yet.
Behind her she hears the fence rattle.
They're coming in.
"She went into the fucking mines," someone says. Male voice. Low. Annoyed.
"Then she's dead already." That's a woman. Flat. Cold. "Let's go back."
"Rex wants proof."
"Rex can go get it himself."
There's a pause. Ivy presses herself against the tunnel wall and tries to breathe quieter. Her heart's doing something arrhythmic and awful in her chest.
"Fine," the man says. "Ten minutes. If we don't find a body we tell him she's gone."
Footsteps. Closer.
Ivy moves.
The tunnel curves. She follows it. Her eyes are adjusting but it's not enough. She can see shapes. Shadows. The ceiling's low enough that she has to duck in places. The walls are slick with something that might be water or might be worse.
She hears them behind her. Not far. A flashlight beam cuts through the dark and she throws herself around another corner.
This tunnel's narrower. The air's thicker. She can hear water dripping somewhere but she can't tell where. The floor slopes down. She's going deeper.
Good.
Maybe they'll give up. Maybe they'll decide she's not worth it. Maybe—
Her foot catches on something and she goes down hard. Her palms skid across stone and come away wet. She bites down on a yelp and rolls onto her side.
That's when she smells it.
Blood.
Fresh blood.
She freezes. She's not alone down here.
For a second she doesn't move. She doesn't breathe. She just lies there on the cold stone and listens. Behind her the voices are getting closer. Ahead of her there's nothing but silence and the smell of copper and something animal.
She chooses ahead.
She gets to her feet and keeps moving. The tunnel opens into a wider space. Not a cavern. More like a junction where three or four tunnels meet. There's old equipment rusting in the corner. A cart on broken rails. A pile of timber that's gone soft with rot.
And a shaft.
It's in the center of the space. A black circle in the stone. No railing. No warning. Just a hole that drops straight down into nothing.
Ivy edges around it. Her foot sends a pebble over the side. She doesn't hear it hit bottom.
She's halfway across when the flashlight beam hits the junction behind her.
"There."
She bolts.
There's a tunnel on the far side. She doesn't think. She just runs. The beam swings after her and she hears boots pounding on stone.
The tunnel's tight. She has to turn sideways to fit through. Her jacket catches on something sharp and rips. She yanks it free and keeps going.
It dead-ends.
No.
No no no.
She spins around. The walls close in on three sides. There's no way out. Just the tunnel she came through and the light getting closer.
She's trapped.
Her hand goes to her pocket. She pulls out her phone. The screen's cracked but it still works. She unlocks it with shaking fingers and pulls up her messages. She needs to—she doesn't know. Tell someone. Leave something behind. Proof that she was here. Proof that she saw.
The light fills the tunnel entrance.
"End of the line," the man says.
Ivy looks up. He's big. Broad shoulders. Dark jacket. She can't see his face behind the flashlight but she doesn't need to. She knows what's coming.
"I didn't see anything," she says. Her voice cracks. "I swear I didn't—"
"Yeah you did."
He steps forward.
Ivy backs up until her shoulders hit stone. There's nowhere to go. Her phone's still in her hand. The screen's too bright. It makes everything worse.
"Please," she says.
He raises the knife.
And then something moves behind him.
It's fast. Too fast. One second the tunnel's empty. The next there's a shape—low, dark, wrong—and the man makes a sound Ivy's never heard a human make before.
The flashlight hits the ground. It rolls. The beam spins across the walls and ceiling and catches on something red. Something wet.
The woman screams.
There's a crack. A thud. Silence.
Ivy can't move. She's pressed against the stone and her phone's still glowing in her hand and she can't look away.
The shape moves into the light.
It's a man. Or it was. He's on his hands and knees. His head's down. His shoulders are heaving. He's covered in blood. Fresh blood. It's dripping off his hands and soaking into the stone.
He lifts his head.
His eyes catch the light. They glow. Amber. Animal.
Ivy's breath stops.
He doesn't move. He just stares at her. His chest rises and falls. His hands are curled into claws against the ground. There's something wrong with his face. The bones are too sharp. The teeth are too long.
He's changing.
No. He's stopping himself from changing.
Ivy knows what he is. Everyone knows. Even if you've never seen one you've heard the stories. The warnings.
Wolf.
She should run. She should scream. She should do anything but stand here.
She doesn't move.
He tilts his head. Slowly. Like he's trying to figure out what she is. His nostrils flare.
He's scenting her.
"Don't," she whispers.
His lips pull back. It might be a snarl. It might be a smile. She can't tell.
He moves.
Not toward her. Toward the tunnel entrance. He grabs the flashlight off the ground and crushes it in one hand. The light dies. The dark rushes in.
Ivy's phone screen is still glowing.
She hears him stand. Hears his breathing even out. Hears the wet sound of him wiping blood off his hands onto his jeans.
"You're bleeding," he says.
His voice is rough. Low. Human.
Ivy looks down. Her palms. She scraped them when she fell. There's blood on her phone screen. Not much. Just enough.
"I'm fine," she says.
"No you're not."
He steps closer. She can't see him. Just his outline. Just the shape of him against the lesser dark of the tunnel.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"Wrong question."
"What do you want?"
"Also wrong."
He's right in front of her now. Close enough that she can feel the heat coming off him. Close enough that she can smell the blood. Not just the hunters' blood. His blood. He's hurt.
"You need to leave," he says.
"I can't. They'll kill me."
"They're dead."
"There's more."
He goes still. "How many more?"
"I don't know. I just—" Her voice breaks. She swallows hard. "I saw something I shouldn't have. They've been following me since—"
"Since when?"
"Tonight. An hour ago. I don't know."
He's quiet for a long time. She can hear him thinking. Weighing options. She's good at reading people. It's how she's stayed alive this long. But she can't read him. He's all edges and control and something underneath that feels like it's about to snap.
"You picked the worst night to bleed," he says finally.
She doesn't understand. "What?"
He leans in. She feels his breath against her throat. Feels him inhale.
"Full moon's tomorrow," he says. "And you smell like mine."