Page 190 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Why am I trying to think now?

Plans A through D disappear immediately, and I search the backseat, scrambling for something to break the grasping hand's hold. The talon digs closer to my skin and threatens to tear furrows through me.

A dull roar shakes the car on its tires.

I’ve got nothing.

Audra stops tugging my hips and grabs at her crutches, sliding one through the broken window. It bounces off the icy wrist.

Outside, Wren’s yelling grinds to a halt.

She pounds the crutch against the being. “We can’t do this much longer! Helene.”

Instinct. Gut feeling. Body recall. What would I do without the panic? Without the strain to my knees from trying to keep myself from being flung out of the car?

The creature gives another tug, and my tendons tighten hard enough to snap.

My system has been primed from years of struggle. The burden of existence. So what’s left when you’re out of options?

Eyes watering, I glance around the piles of useless things we’ve packed. The layers of detritus I’ve had on my list to clean for two straight years.

“Helene! Hold on. We’re coming.”

Nicholas and his worry filter away under the throb of my pulse. There has to be something.

I’ve seen Audra succumb to her medical condition most of her life. The disease has robbed her of freedom, of choice, no matter how hard she’s always tried to rise above it.

Even when she fails, even when those seizures get worse and leave her gasping, I’ve watched. I’ve stood my ground.

And now, when she can barely lift her body, she’s still fucking rising above it.

I won’t let anything happen to her.

My gaze sharpens. A short, stinging breath makes it past my frozen lips. There.

The claw gives a fourth sharp tug, my ass and hips out the window. “Audra! The hairspray. The lighter. The fucking lighter!”

Thoughts fly a million miles an hour and blur together. They mean nothing.

My sister shakes her head, her eyes black with worry before the words penetrate. She doesn’t question. She drops the crutch to grab the frigid cylinder of hairspray from the floor.

Clutching it close to her chest, she scrambles for the lighter in the center console, the one nearly out of juice and there for emergencies.

I’m not the kind of girl who begged her parents to let her join scouts, the one who wanted to go camping or to build a little treehouse in the backyard for sleepovers.

I have no gift for those things, and we never stayed in one place long enough for me to try.

Now Audra flings the canister at me, and I thrust my hand out to grab it.

The creature pulls me free another inch and my body hinges at the waist, glass tearing at my jeans and coat.

How does one handle a giant ice wolf who’s stepped right out of their dreams? Something coughed up from the nightmares of Nightshade Hollow?

“Helene, please.” Tears pearl at the corners of Audra’s eyes.

I’ve got one shot.

I lock my knees and hold out my other hand. In the tense seconds before the creature pulls me entirely free of the car, Audra shoves the lighter into my palm. My mouth twists in triumph before a final brutal yank rips me through the broken window.