Laura Anne Gilman Read Online Free PDF Page B

on metal fatigue, or something. Worry about yourself, not them!”
    “Where did we leave the truck?” Black Nails asked.
    “Down there, back in town, a couple—five blocks.” They switched direction, walking too fast, almost dragging Jan between them. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the bus was out of sight; was whatever had broken through still on the bus right now? Or were these guys right, had it left, was it after them?
    “What the hell is a turncoat? And who the hell are you? And where is Tyler?” Jan’s usual tolerance had taken a hard blow today, and she wasn’t the most patient of people even on a good day. But this...this was beyond enough. She coughed and then, despite the inhaler, started to wheeze.
    “I need to sit down,” she told them.
    She must have looked as bad as she felt, because they swung around and plunked her onto a bench in the Green, away from the inevitable gaggle of teenagers hanging around the fountain. She bent over and tried to calm down, waiting for it to pass.
    “You okay?” Black Nails asked.
    “Stupid question,” Hoodie-guy snapped.
    “No, I’ll be okay.” She was able to speak, and her chest was starting to ease, now that she’d stopped moving.
    Black Nails sat down next to her while Hoodie-guy prowled back and forth, clearly looking for...something. His gaze flickered everywhere, the nervous energy pouring off him, just like it did Tyler when he was wound up by an idea.
    His nerves got on her nerves, which were already ragged, and she wished that she had something heavy to throw at him, to make him stop pacing like that.
    Black Nails tried to take her hand again, but she pulled away and glared at him, horrified to feel hot tears prickling in her eyes. She rubbed the heels of her hands against her jeans, hard, trying to drive the tears away.
    “I swear, tell me now or I’m gone.” She didn’t care about Tyler. She didn’t. But that thing on the bus.... “What the hell was that, on the bus?” she asked again.
    “Turncoats. They’re...” Black Nails hesitated. “They’re rooting for the ones who took your leman, they want to prevent you from rescuing him. They will do anything to ensure that—and the easiest way is for you to...”
    “Die.” The growl was back. Hoodie-guy stood in front of them, his hands fisted on his hips, and scowled. Not at her, Jan noted, but at the other man. “If you’re too delicate to tell her, I will. They’ll catch her and tear her apart and eat her for good measure. They’ve always liked human meat.”
    “AJ...”
    Jan latched on to one word out of all that. “Human? What do you mean...”
    “Of all the moon-washed idiocies...we don’t have time for this.” The one called AJ reached up and pushed his hoodie back. “Human. You. Not us.”
    Not a monobrow. Not a misshapen nose. This close and clear there was no denying that it was a real muzzle, short but obvious, with the jaw hinged oddly, coarse dark hair overrunning what would have been a hairline to trace down to the end of his nose. Round dark eyes set too far back stared at her, waiting for her reaction. Not red, but she thought they would glow in firelight, a bright, dancing red. Like a wolf’s.
    She stared, and then turned to the other man, studying him more carefully. He looked human. Face normal, if a little long to be attractive, and his hair was a neck-length tousle of black that a supermodel might have longed for. The right number of fingers and limbs, his skin tone normal for someone who was maybe Indian or South American, she thought, even as a part of her brain shrieked run, you idiot, run!
    “No,” he said, his voice still silky-smooth and soothing, his hands taking hers between them, holding her still. “I’m not human, either.”
    She jerked her hands away and tried to stand up, but they had her effectively trapped. She should have listened to her gut, back on the bus, she should run, she should scream...but she didn’t.
    Her heart raced,