Chapter Eighteen

I groaned myself awake. My entire body ached. A thundering sound in my ears slowly resolved into my own heartbeat. I opened my eyes and saw darkness, light, movement. I blinked several times.

“Jules?”

Newt.

He put a hand on my forehead and I looked up at him. His face was grim.

“Are you okay?”

I swallowed several times to get enough moisture in my mouth to answer him.

“I think so. What happened?”

“The tree fell. It clipped you. I think you have a concussion, but I don’t think there are any broken bones.”

I lifted my head to look around, then closed my eyes as everything swam fuzzily around me. I waited while the vertigo passed.

“Eclipser?”

“Dead.”

I waited for Newt to elaborate.

“Capturing her would take too long. I was worried about you and—well, really angry. So I killed her. She’s dead.”

“I want to sit up.”

Newt helped me. I sat still for a minute, waiting for my vision to stop spinning.

Oh shit. I fought off the nausea by focusing on the ground right in front of me. Old pine needles, sere grasses. I stared as if memorizing each blade. I breathed in and out. Finally, when I was fairly sure I wouldn’t throw up, I looked at Newt.

His forehead creased with concern. He reached out to feel the back of my head and I jerked away as he hit the tender spot.

“Sorry I wasn’t a little bit quicker,” he said. “I knocked you out of the way, but a stray branch hit you. She threw those flames at the tree on purpose, must have wanted it to fall on us and cover her escape.”

I blinked several times to get my eyes properly in focus before answering him. “Well, thank you.”

Newt nodded. “If you’re okay to sit here for a moment, I want to pull some major heat off the fire so it gets put out quickly. There aren’t any Eclipsers around.”

“Anything from Eliza and uh, Tony?”

“Not yet.”

I reached up to feel my head and winced as I probed the extent of the damage. Just behind my right ear, I felt a large bump, raised and wetly warm. I looked at my bloody fingertips for a moment, then wiped them on the ground. Realizing Newt still looked at me expectantly, I cast back to what he just said.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “You deal with the fire. I’m just going to…sit here.”

“Okay. I’m not going far.”

As Newt strode in the direction of the wildfire, his whole body began to shimmer with heat mirage. He stopped several yards from the fire line and spread his arms wide. Canting his face toward the sky, he stood motionless, his face taut with focus. The reaction of the fire proved he did something. The flames nearest him danced and faded; the roar of the blaze abruptly muffled. After a few more minutes, sweat trickled down my back and I shifted uncomfortably, only then realizing the very ground beneath me grew hot to the touch—hotter than usual even in late summer. I wondered how far his influence reached, how much of the fire would tamp down at his call, how much of the heat could be pulled from its source.

Newt stood there for what seemed like a long time. I glanced at my watch—10:27—and then realized I had absolutely no idea when any of this had started.

After another ten minutes, Newt dropped his arms. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck to either side before turning to me. I saw a grin on his face and took a deep breath of my own, feeling some of my stress ebb. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, leaving it more tousled than ever, and came back toward me with his lanky, bouncing stride. As he approached, the unnatural play of light on his hair and skin faded.

“Well?” I asked, as soon as he was close enough.

“That’ll help, anyway. They should have the fire under control soon. This part’s nearly out—just burning enough to seem normal—and I calmed down this whole quadrant quite a bit.”

“Should we—I don’t know, circle to a different area and do the same thing?”

Newt cocked his head. “Can you stand up?”

“Of course!” I said, stung, and moved quickly to prove my toughness. The effect was slightly marred when Newt had to reach out and grab my arm to steady me.

“I’m fine, really.” A lie, of course, and one I’d repeated a lot these last few days. My head pounded and standing left me with a vague sick feeling in my gut. Newt looked at me as if he knew how I felt, but let my words pass.

“Okay, then. Let’s start walking. We’ll go slowly so Eliza and Tony can catch up.” He didn’t add the other obvious reason to take our time: he didn’t want me falling on my face. Instead, he swooped a mock-bow and extended a crooked arm, somehow knowing I’d be less reluctant to accept his help if we disguised it as a game. I wound my arm through his and we wended our way through the brush.

We only walked for a few minutes before Newt paused, and a split second later, I heard branches crack off to the side. Newt pulled me around to face that direction, just as the two wolves emerged.

They both shifted form, stepping through darkness to emerge as their human selves. I noticed Tony’s transformation this time was nearly as fluid as Eliza’s. Almost before he fully changed, he strode toward me. Half of his hair hung loose, his clean-shaven jaw set in a hard line, and his eyebrows lowered in concern. I started to take a step backward, just from the sheer intensity of him.

Newt dropped his arm from mine.

“What happened?” Tony aimed the question at Newt, but his gaze locked on me.

I straightened my shoulders and raised my chin. “I’m fine. Really.”

Tony hissed a low breath as he reached me. His hand rose to push away my hair and his fingers unerringly found the bruised spot on my head. I shivered, perhaps because I’d been braced for pain, but his touch was so light it didn’t hurt me. I swallowed hard and found Eliza to focus on.

“Did you find the other Salamander?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s dead. Didn’t put up too much of a fight, wasn’t skilled. We threw his body into the fire, so hopefully there won’t be any traces of us, even once he’s found.” Eliza frowned, but I couldn’t tell if she was upset with me for being injured, or with Tony. Though, I couldn’t imagine why she’d frown at him.

“What happened here?” Eliza asked.

Newt answered. “We were trying to capture our Eclipser and a tree fell on Julie.”

“Well, the tree would have fallen on me, but Newt pushed me out of the way. I guess a branch just caught me on its way down.”

Tony’s hand lingered on the back of my head, and I steeled myself not to move away. He looked past me, at Newt. “The Eclipser got away?”

“No, I killed her.”

“You should have killed her in the first place, instead of trying to capture her. Julie could have been killed.”

I cleared my throat and both of them looked at me. “I wasn’t killed and it was a good plan—a wise—plan to try to capture the Eclipser. If we can win this fight without killing everyone in sight, we should.”

Newt’s voice sounded studiously light. “I agree, Jules. Guess it’s up to you and me to calm down our bloodthirsty wolves.” He winked at me.

Tony looked at me, then jerked his hand away from my head as if he’d forgotten he still touched me. He stood with his hand up, my blood on his fingers. His face moved with a strange expression and for a fleeting moment, I actually thought he was going to lick his fingers. My stomach jumped and I bit my lip.

Tony cleared his throat. “You’re still bleeding.”

“Just a little bit. I’m fine.”

“Okay, folks,” Eliza said, calling us all to attention. She walked toward us and took hold of my shoulders. She peered into my eyes, and evidently reassured by what she saw, nodded and drew me away from both Tony and Newt. “Let’s get back to the car and regroup. Julie, do you think you need to see a doctor?”

“No.” My vision didn’t spin anymore and I thought my headache could be managed with some ibuprofen. My stomach still felt a little funny—which I told myself was because of the head injury and not because of the way Tony looked at me.

“Okay.” Eliza set the pace, with me by her side and one hand on my arm. “Newt, you dampened the fire as much as possible, yes?”

“Right-o.” Newt followed us closely, while Tony lagged behind.

“As we circled the blaze, Tony and I tried to call up moisture near the fire line, so that should help, too.”

“Then let’s move on to the other fires,” said Newt.

“Without Julie,” said Tony and my spine stiffened in response. “She should stay behind. She might have a concussion.”

Eliza’s face didn’t reflect her thoughts. “Julie?” she asked.

“I’m not staying behind.”

“You’re being foolish. Carson needs you. For his sake, if not your own, you need to try harder to stay out of harm’s way,” Tony said.

I opened my mouth to make an angry retort, but Newt beat me to it.

“Ya know, Tony,” Newt said, “Julie can make her own decisions. She’s proved herself fully competent. Besides, she’s not some member of your pack you can order around. If she wants to come, she comes. Unless you’re planning on physically restraining her? Right, Jules?”

I nodded, unable to find the right words.

Eliza’s hand tightened slightly on my arm. “Right. Back off, Tony. You’ve lived the wolf too long.”

His response proved her point: a black wolf with hackles raised raced by my side and disappeared in front of us. The rest of us walked back to the cars.