Trent tried to scent. He could not. His nose seemed practically useless without his wolf. Trent pried his eyes open for long enough to see he was right, theywerein a truck, he was in the back of the double cab and blood was everywhere. His blood from the hole in his leg.
“Dammit, Rocko, I can’t even scent his wolf, I swear, it’s like he’s a human,” Troy said.
“Fuck that,” Rocko said, punching the steering wheel. “He was shot. He’ll shift. Just give him a few more minutes. That fuckingcursedoesn’t exist, and if it does, he doesn’t fucking have it—he was justshot with a real motherfucking bullet!”
Rocko’s voice was tight and strained and something about the way he said the word,‘curse’made Trent’s heart stutter in his chest, which was bad, because his heart wasn’t doing so good to begin with.
Troy clutched at Trent in the back seat. The truck bounced around. Troy seemed about to argue with Rocko, when he tensed and steadied Trent, his face a grimace as he pointed out the back. “Look out for Grey and the rest of them, coming in fast behind us. Grey’s got a big-ass gun and his trigger finger is way too happy.”
“Son of a dick,” Rocko spat out and the truck swerved hard, tossing all of them around. “He was the one who shot Trent.”
Trent tried to muscle his body under control, but nothing would obey him. Troy manhandled him into one spot, and tried to yank a seatbelt around him.
Trent heard gunshots. A side window exploded.
Troy ducked and lay over the top of Trent, shouting to Rocko. “I will kill that fucker then next time I see him,” Troy said. “No Court of Wolves, no fucking questions, he isdead.”
“Grey who?” Trent tried to say. His voice was a croak. He knew a Grey, a bad wolf, a wolf from another world. His brain did not want to work, and he did not want to die again.
“I think I can lose him in the dunes. That truck he’s in won’t be able to take anything over a couple of feet high.
“Shit, hang on,” Troy told Trent, but Trent still couldn’t get his hands to work or his body to move at all. Rocko hooked a left and a right, and then things got really bumpy, but no one shot at them anymore.
Trent’s teeth were knocking together in his head and his vision was blurring again, his limbs going cold, and still, he tried to shift harder than he’d ever tried before, because he knew he was dying again.
He couldn’t die.He had a mission. He’d given his word. He could get his life back if he did everything right. He must have some sort of … divine help or something keeping him alive, right? Smokey wouldn’t put him in this body and then just let him dieagain, would he?
“Where can we take him?” Rocko shouted over the constant scream of the engine, the slamming noises, and the sand blasting the sides of the truck.
“We’ll have to take him to a hospital,” Troy yelled back.
“A hospital!?” Rocko shouted. “Ahumanhospital?”
“What other choice do we have?” Troy growled back. “He’s dying.”
“What about Atenboro, or what about the augur? They could help him shift.”
Troy shook his head, peering hard out the back window. “They are both in Illinois. How are we going to get there before he dies?”
Rocko growled but did not have an answer for that.
Trent’s eyes rolled in his head and closed against his will. He had no control of himself … Trent felt his brother’s hands on his face.
Troy pried one of Trent’s eyes open and peered at him while they bounced around in the speeding, sand-spewing truck. “Stay with me, Trent! Don’t you fucking die on me, do you hear me? You just hang the fuck on.” He looked out the back window, then let Trent’s eye flop closed.
“It looks like you lost him,” Troy said to Rocko. “When you find a road, head into Glen’s Village. I know where there’s a hospital.”
Trent felt his consciousness slipping away, he felt the darkness coming in fast. The last thing he heard before all went silent was Rocko saying, “Isn’t Glen’s Village hostile?”
That didn’t sound good.
6 - Meadow Hospital Meadow
Trent didn’t float this time, unsure if he was conscious or unconscious. Instead, he passed out in one world, then landed in a heap in another world. He actually bounced in the dirt once, then rolled to his back in one swift motion, searching the area for enemies. He heard nothing but wind and saw nothing but trees and sky and airy clouds.
Trent lay still for a moment, trying to catch his breath, trying to gain some sense of where he was and what was going onnow.One thing was certain, he was not enjoying being jerked around in time, space, or dimensions, or whatever was happening to him.
There was no moon in this sky, no stars either, not that Trent could see. It was night-time but it was not completely dark and Trent could not tell where any light would come from. He stared at the sky, trying to figure it out, noting that his wolf was still not with him.
