“What would you like me to say, Dahlia? Trash saved your life. Yes, that’s good. Yes, it shows that he has some redeeming quality. But he also betrayed the entire Pack and told them where our camp was. If you hadn’t seen him do that then we might have been raided and slaughtered. We don’t know how many of them there are. You got lucky today. That’s the bottom line.”

“He saved me,” she insisted.

“Which is why I didn’t kill him,” Church said coldly. “That’s his reward. Trust does not come with it.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Understand this, Dahlia, if it comes down to Trash’s life and a single member of our family, then I will end him.”

“I won’t let you.”

His eyes were like flecks of black ice behind his tinted lenses. “What is more important to you? Saving Trash or saving the entire Pack?”

“Both,” she said immediately.

“And if both is not an option?”

Before she could answer he walked around her and continued leading the Pack through the woods toward Happy Valley.

Dahlia stood where she was, fists balled, heart beating in all the wrong ways in her chest. Hating Church. Hating herself and everyone. Wanting them all to die. Wanting herself to die. Being a damn zombie would be so much easier than this.

As the Pack moved past her she gave them brutal death stares, daring anyone to show pity or say a fucking word. No one did. Not even Neeko, who lingered for a moment, looking hurt and confused.

When they were all gone, Dahlia stood alone in the slanting sunlight. She almost wished there was a zombie or four to fight. Or some random thug who just tried to give her shit. Someone she could happily stomp to death.

But the woods remained calm, with bees and butterflies and songbirds.

Dahlia wanted to light a match and burn it all down.

“God damn it, Trash,” she snarled. When she uncurled her clenched fingers and looked at her palms, there were crescent-shaped nicks in the skin. Two of them welled with blood.

She bent and snatched up a fallen branch, whirled and smashed it against the trunk of a tree, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions. The sound was startlingly loud and it froze her. She looked up as if she could see the echoes bounce off the trees and flee across the forest.

“Shit . . . ” she breathed.

The birds were silent now and she could feel them watching her. Ice formed around her heart as she wondered who else had heard that sound.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

She ran to catch up with the Pack.

Neeko was waiting for her a few hundred yards along the trail, chewing on a stem of sweet grass and pretending it was just any ordinary day.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said. They fell into step together.