“What the hell do they want?” Ray twisted right and left. “What’s going on?”
No one answered. The Changed had closed round in a circle. Alex and the others were lined up directly across from Daniel, who was still flanked by two ninja-kids. Another held Jack by the scruff of his neck. Spider was beside the boy, loose and limber, corn knife in hand. Jack’s fear-smell—curdled milk and hot urine—was so strong Alex tasted it.
Acne elbowed his way through, followed by Beretta and Leopard. Pain bit into Beretta’s face, but he was steadier on his feet now. His danger smell made her pulse skip. Acne clutched two rifles, his own with that gas piston, and another she recognized at once: the Browning X-Bolt that Nathan had given her before that mad dash from Rule.
This close, she also got a good look at the handgun tucked in Leopard’s waistband. She would know a Glock anywhere.
“What do you want from me?” Daniel said. It was costing him to stand. He was hunched into a comma, an arm clamped to his side. “I told you. You can have me. I won’t fight you anymore. Just let Jack go.”
Beretta stared at Daniel for a long second. Acne strode forward, the Browning outstretched.
“What?” Daniel stared at the rifle as if Acne was trying to hand him a python. “I’m not taking that. Give you a chance to shoot me? Fine. You want to kill me, just do it, but—”
“Don’t you get it, kid?” Sharon’s tone was flat. “You get to choose: shoot one of us or little Jackie-boy there gets his throat cut.”
Alex’s mouth dried up. She smelled how on the mark Sharon was. This was tit for tat: give me this, I give you that, and we’ll call it even.
“What?” Ray said. He pushed Ruby behind him. “What the hell?”
“Daniel.” Jack’s eyes were buggy with terror. “Daniel, Daniel, Daniel …”
“I won’t do it,” Daniel gasped. A hard shudder rippled through his body, and one of the ninjas grabbed him before he could fall. Daniel shook him off with a strangled curse. “You can’t make me like you. I’m not a murderer.”
“Well, I guess they think you are like them,” Sharon ground out. If doom could speak, Alex thought it would have this old woman’s voice. “Whatever you and your friends did, you pissed them off, and now they’re gonna make you pay.”
No, not just pay. The air was so clogged with the stink of the Changed and the dead and her fellow prisoners—and now with Daniel’s horror and Jack’s terror—that it was as if she was breathing them all in: their histories, their fates. She was certain this was a test. A trial.
A rite.
“Please. You said you’d let Jack go.” Daniel turned to Beretta and Acne. “I’m responsible. I organized the attack. Kill me, but leave Jack and these other people out of it, please.”
“What happens if he doesn’t choose?” Ray threw a wild look at Sharon as if she might know the answer. “He doesn’t have to.”
“I think they got other ideas,” Sharon said.
“I can’t do this.” Daniel’s gaze skipped from one to the other. When his eyes landed on Alex, they grabbed and held. “They can’t ask me to do this.”
They could. And they were. She wanted to say something, anything. In a movie or a book, this was where the heroine volunteered. Stepped up, did the right thing. It should be her. She did not want to die, but the monster lived inside her head. It had yellow eyes and needle-teeth. It was growing a face. It was a cancer, and she was going to die anyway. Tom would’ve done it. Chris, too. That little kid deserved a chance.
None of the others will. She could smell it. A bone-cold finger dragged down her spine a knob at a time. Just do it, do it now before you chicken—
At the corner of her left eye, something blurred, moving fast—
“Ray!” she shouted. “No!”