Chapter 14: The Waterskin

I rolled him over.

His lips were blue. His eyes were open and rolling.

"Hey," I said. "Hey. Look at me."

He didn't.

The other wolves came skidding back down the switchback through the snow.

The big gray one put his nose against the kid's cheek and whined.

I yanked the kid's sweatshirt up to his chin.

Black lines were spreading across his stomach from his navel. Fine as hair. Branching toward his ribs.

They were moving.

I could watch them climb.

"He drank it," I said. "God. He drank it."

The rogue on my ward had lasted four days with it in his leg.

In the stomach, it would take an hour.

I pulled off my gloves and threw them in the snow.

Then I put both bare hands flat on his belly and pressed.

His skin was icy and slick with sweat.

Under my palms the lines felt like cold wire.

"Come on," I whispered. "Come on, come on."

Nothing happened.

The snow came down on my neck and melted.

The twins had shifted back. They crouched beside me in their jackets, barefoot in the snow, holding each other.

"What are you doing?" one of them said.

"Hush."

The kid made a terrible sound in his throat.

I leaned my whole weight onto my hands.

The wire under my right palm went soft.

Then it started to slide.

I felt the line pull back under my skin.

Then another.

Then a dozen.

I didn't take my hands off him for fifty minutes.

My knees went numb in the snow. My back cramped until I was crying from it.

The one-eyed warrior shifted back and knelt behind me so I could lean on his chest.

He held my shoulders up when my arms started shaking.

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