One thing I knew for sure was that if Mr. Church was anywhere around here, he would not have let something like this stand. No sir. Which meant that either he wasn’t at Happy Valley or he wasn’t able to stop this kind of savagery. Either way, I had to find out.

I clicked my tongue for Baskerville and we faded into the woods. Hunting for more than answers.

— 20 —: DAHLIA AND THE PACK

— 20 —

DAHLIA AND THE PACK

Days became weeks. And Dahlia became something else.

She knew it. She could feel it happen.

After that one afternoon in the Arena, something inside Dahlia shifted. Maybe inside a lot of the others of the Pack, too. Outwardly she looked the same—big boned, carrying a lot of weight and a lot of curves, lots of black hair. But the eyes that looked back at her from the mirror each morning were different. Older, maybe, though not in years. Or, maybe it was that she looked wiser. If that was something that could show in the eyes. There was less outward fear, fewer flickers of uncertainty, and more visible confidence. All of that.

Some sadness, too. Dahlia missed Trash so much. She missed what he could have become if he’d stayed and learned from Old Man Church. Trash’s own father had been a brute, and that’s the lesson about manhood he’d learned. Church was so different. So much stronger, but he didn’t reek of testosterone and anger. Dahlia liked who she was becoming, but it was hard to go there alone. At night, alone in her bed, she ached for Trash. For the surprising gentleness of which he was capable when no one else was looking. Of his kisses and the way he touched her—with strength but with respect, his big hands gliding over her skin rather than grasping or grabbing.

Where was he? Was he even still alive? There hadn’t been a single sign of him, or of the others who went with him. Serena and Nathan, and a handful of others from the Pack. The rest had stayed, waiting for Dahlia, and then joining Old Man Church’s little army.

Now, the Pack really was an army. Fit and fast, coordinated and efficient. Neeko, freed from his fear of the older and bigger Pack members, had proven himself to be a good fighter and a natural leader. Church taught him a lot of useful skills about tracking, spying, gathering intelligence. Neeko’s group—which now ran under the nickname of Bravo Team—had found more than a dozen groups of survivors. Some of them were part of Church’s army, while most had been sent on—provisioned and with reliable maps—toward Asheville. With every life saved, Neeko seemed to swell, to become physically larger and more self-assured. Dahlia asked Church about that one morning while the two of them were out on a patrol in the deep woods.