Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page A

feet away, but still too far for even a very determined, very
desperate person to have a hope in hell—then back, and now one
more time . . .
    Now! her brain screamed. Do it now, do it now, do it now now now! Her left hand made a grab. Rock chewed her fingers. She clawed,
wildly, but then physics—that bitch —took over. Her swing’s momentum reversed, carrying her away.
“ Shit! Shit , god—” A lurch and the words dried up on her tongue
as Wolf ’s fingers slipped, his muscles shivered, and that greedy water
drew closer—so close. No, no, don’t lose it, Wolf ! Don’t lose it now, just a
few more seconds . . . And then she was sailing back, and she could tell
from the frantic twist of Wolf ’s fingers—slick with blood and water
and sweat—that he wouldn’t be able to hold on for another go. This
was it. She felt the air whisking through her hair, whiffling past her
ears. The rock wall suddenly loomed, but she’d picked her spot: at
her ten o’clock, a slight curve of shadow, an inverted grin of stone.
At the last second, just before she butted the wall, her hand shot out,
fingers hooked. She grabbed that stone lip, felt a ridge of rock slot
beneath her knuckles—
Wolf must’ve felt the moment she connected, because his elbow
suddenly kinked and then he was leaning in, shifting his weight, trying not to let go or pull her off. Anyone looking would’ve sworn she
and Wolf were engaged in a weird variation of arm wrestling. Yet, at
that moment, on the rock, they were a single unit, a team bent to one
purpose. Jamming her knees against sharp stone, Alex clung to the
rock with both legs and her left hand like a three-legged fly.
“Get them to pull us up, Wolf,” she croaked, not knowing if he
would understand speech, and beyond caring. The earth was groaning, fatiguing fast in a swoon that might still take them all down, and
she knew: they weren’t close to being safe yet. “Hurry . ”
What? Startled, Greg aimed a look at the rough brick floor. He
could’ve sworn the bricks moved. Unless I’m going crazy. The stable
was so cold their breaths plumed, but Greg still felt sudden anxious
sweat on his upper lip. Another flashing stab of light skewered his
eyes as his sledgehammer of a headache pounded. Please, God, please.
I can’t be losing it. Not now.
What convinced him that he was still semi-sane was when he saw
Daisy, his golden retriever, scramble to her feet and give a sharp yap
of alarm. So, he knew she’d felt it. There was also something else—
a sound, something that was not Mick Jagger or a bluesy guitar or
Dale’s dribbling sobs: a faint, faraway, hollow whump.
That was real. I heard that. What the— Greg tossed a glance up to
Pru, who stood at his right elbow, a wrinkle of worry between his
eyebrows. At seventeen, Pru was two years older and one of the biggest kids Greg had ever seen: six foot six, square-jawed, and broad, the
kind of bullnecked hulk a high school football coach would sell his
grandmother’s soul for. Pru was also the only boy Greg considered
close to a friend these days, now that Peter and Chris were gone. Pru
heard that, too. Could it be thunder? Greg shot a quick glance out the
stable windows. No lightning; only the diffuse, muddy green glow
of the setting moon. Unless it was snowing near Lake Superior; that
might explain it. Thundersnow happened around the Great Lakes
all the time. But the lake’s more than a hundred miles away. Even if it’s
thundering up there, we shouldn’t be able to hear it.
The floor shivered again in a bizarre undulation, the grimy, bloodspattered brick heaving as if a gigantic underground monster had
rolled over in its sleep. The vibration, much stronger than before,
went straight up Greg’s calves and into his thighs.
“Holy shit,” he said. “Did you guys feel that?”
They were ten feet from the edge, then five. At the lip, still clutching
Wolf ’s left wrist, she managed a last stumbling