Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

in
with her aching right ankle and launching herself toward the weapon.
She saw Wolf start; saw the others trying to get at her; spotted a kid
with very long dreads, the tallest of the six, suddenly reaching for her;
felt his fingers whisk her hair. . . .
“No!” she gasped, twisting, dancing out of the way. The sudden
twist sent a spike of red pain from her ankle to her kneecap, bad
enough that tears started. She clamped back on the shriek that tried
bubbling past her teeth. Keep going, come on, it’s not that far. Snowy
slabs slipped and rocked beneath her boots like dinner plates on ice;
a sudden skid to the right and she nearly lost her footing, her right
boot kicking free. Her left jammed down hard, driving into snow
that grabbed at her calf, but then she was hopping free, nearly there,
thirty feet, twenty-five . . . shuck a round into the chamber . . . no more
than fifteen feet now . . . throw the bolt, swing up on an arc, because
they’re moving, they’re behind you. This was something she’d practiced
with her dad, hitting a moving target with the Glock: Lead, honey,
and mount the gun. Don’t duck down.
The earth shivered. She could see the skis waggling back and
forth. The rifle began to scoot and skip. But she was close now; it
was almost over; she could do this. The rifle was to her left, two
feet away. And if Wolf got to a weapon or pulled a pistol? Could
she shoot him? After all this? It would be like sticking a gun into
Chris’s face. She didn’t want to have to make that decision.
She slid the last foot—and then felt the snow tremble. There was
a monstrous jolt, a stunning whack as something very big—another
cave, maybe—collapsed underground. The sensation was nearly
indescribable, but it was as if she were a glass on a white tablecloth
that a magician had tried to snatch away, only he’d muffed the trick.
The impact cut her legs out from under; she felt her knees buckle and
her feet leave the snow. With a yelp, she came down hard on her butt.
A white sunburst of pain lit up her spine. For a second, her consciousness dropped out in a stunned blank. She couldn’t move. Her chest
wouldn’t work. Electric shocks danced over her skin, tingled down to
her toes and fingers. Gagging, she finally managed a gulp of air and
then another. Rolling to her stomach, she dragged in air, shook the
spots from her vision.
All the boys were down. Most were crabbed on their stomachs,
digging in, hanging on, riding the earth like rodeo cowboys on bucking broncos. That kid with the dreads was lower than the rest, his fall
taking him closer to the edge of the rise and far away from her. A
lucky break. She watched him trying to clamber his way straight up.
For her? That was stupid, a mistake. He should move out of the fall
line and then up before the snow collapsed.
But that was when it dawned on her: the kid with the dreads
wasn’t coming for her . Wrong angle. Her eyes swept up again—and
then she saw where he was going.
Wolf was maybe fifty feet away, close to where they’d popped out
of the mine, and to her right. He was still flat on his back—but not
moving. God, was he unconscious? He’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe
it wasn’t the fall. Maybe he’d fainted. She almost shouted to him but
snatched that back before it could spring off her tongue. Doesn’t matter. Let old Bob Marley there worry. And, grimly: At least this way, I don’t
have to decide whether to shoot him.
But she couldn’t set her feet. The earth was heaving, trying to
shake her off its skin. Panting, she pulled her left knee to her stomach,
got her hands planted, pushed up. The skis had toppled to the snow,
and the rifle—where was it? Her gaze snagged on a gray-green glint
of moonlight, just beyond a ski pole, reflected from the rifle’s scope. Yes. On hands and knees, she spidered for the weapon, fighting the
quaking earth, working her way around the skis. Stretching for the
rifle, she felt her fingertips