Carter’s face was rigid with tension, but there was doubt in his eyes. “Sarah—?”

Eve’s mother looked up, and if Benny was expecting her to be the voice of reason, he was dead wrong. “She’s right, Carter, we can’t take any chances. Don’t hurt them, but take their weapons and gear. Then we have to go. We have to get to Sanctuary and—”

“Jesus! Hush your mouth, woman!” screeched Riot.

“Sarah,” Carter said with quiet horror. “What have you done?”

The woman clapped a hand to her mouth and her face went dead pale. “Oh God,” she said. “I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

Carter nervously shifted the shotgun barrel between Nix and Benny, as if trying to decide which of them should die first. Or maybe, thought Benny, trying to decide which one would be easier to kill without losing too much of his own soul. Benny did not believe that this man wanted to fire that gun, but he looked desperate and shoved to the edge of panic. Benny knew full well how panic could inspire the worst possible choices.

Riot’s face hardened. “Now we got no choice at all, Carter.”

In a voice loud enough for only Benny and Chong to hear, Nix muttered, “Screw this.”

“Nix,” warned Benny too quietly for the strangers to hear, “don’t do anything crazy.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she murmured.

And then she fired at Carter.

Chapter 24

24

LILAH HAD NO CHANCE.

She heard the scuff of a footfall on stone behind her, but before she could turn the thing slammed into her. Even then she tried to dodge, but pain exploded along her side and suddenly she was flying through the air.

Blood trailed behind her like the tail of a comet, spattering the leaves and bristles of the shrubs. Her spear spun away into the weeds. Then Lilah struck the ground on the edge of the cracked shelf of rock, and the impact knocked all the air from her lungs.

She lay there, firestorms of pain racing up and down her spine. She clung to the edge of the shelf and to the edge of consciousness. Blood pooled under her. Every part of her was wrapped in pain. She tried to get up, tried to see what it was that had attacked her, but fresh pain detonated in her lower neck and back. She collapsed down with a helpless cry.

The thing wheeled toward her and grunted in awful hunger.

Lilah craned her neck and stared at it. At the impossibility of it.

It was a massive wild boar. Five hundred pounds of muscle and hunger. Brutish, ugly, with a barrel chest, short legs, and wicked tusks.

But that was not the worst part of it.

Flesh hung in bloodless strips from the massive shoulders. Its teeth were caked with rotted meat. It stank of rot and death.

It was impossible.