Chapter 78

Malachi

Nine.

Teague gave me the number at sundown, standing in the doorway with rain dripping from the brim of his hat, and then he waited the way he always waited, as if numbers were simply weather and I would decide what to do about them.

Nine men.

Forty-three had been in that mountain when the moon rose four nights ago.

Some were under the rock. Some had died in the corridors with Moonhaven teeth in their throats. Seven, if Teague’s count was right, were sitting in Moonhaven’s cells. The rest had run, and men who ran from me once did not come back. Two more had slipped away into the trees since we reached the cabin. Teague hadn’t tried to stop them. Neither would I have.

Every girl was gone. Years of searching, of rumors chased through half the pac