“Okay,” Balfour said. His voice matched him perfectly. Gruff, but not too low.

“Okay what?” she asked.

He gestured with the gun for her to climb out of the truck. Chey studied his face. There was no smile there anymore. He’d had his fun, and he’d won his game. Now he was just going to finish her off so he could collect on his contract. It was over.

Chey lifted herself from the ceiling of the cab with her arms and legs. Then with a sudden inspiration she threw herself forward, against the windshield. She didn’t weigh all that much and she had little strength left to add to her momentum, but it was enough.

The truck screamed as metal tore apart from metal. Welds popped, rivets shot out like bullets. The whole massive multi-ton body of the trucks scratched forward. Broken rock tailings rolled away, out from under all that mass and the truck jumped forward as if it were moving on rails. Balfour’s eyes went wide and he fired right through the windshield, but the bullet went wild. A second later the truck rumbled forward, gaining speed, and smacked right into him. He was carried forward as the vehicle tilted down and fell right into the water with a noisy splash and one long extended bass note of metal folding in on itself.

The windshield had become the floor. Chey lay sprawled across it, hurt herself, but not in such a way that mattered—not in any way that could kill her faster than she was already dying. She rubbed her forehead and then opened her eyes.

Under the water, Balfour looked right back at her. His cap was gone and his sparse hair floated in the silver bubbles that streamed out of his mouth. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. His eyes were wide, very wide.

Then he slammed on the windshield with the flats of his hands, slapped at the glass as his mouth opened and toxic water poured in. Chey screamed as she saw the muscles of his face constrict, as he drowned while she watched. His muscles went slack—his hands drifted away—and finally, after far too long, his eyes lost their focus.

She had made no move to save him.

Frigid water gurgled in through the bullet hole in the windshield. It leaked around her body, soaked her clothes. The saline stink of the muck filled what little air there was in the cab. Chey jumped up, away from the touch of the water, and pushed her way back out through the open side window. At the last moment she reached back inside and grabbed her broken coil of spring, just before the water surged over the sill of the window and filled the cab.

In the water she kicked and stroked with her one good arm and struggled to get clear. Making all the noise in the world she scrambled out onto the shore and lay gasping on the bank, in pain, half-frozen, and still needing to get the bullet out of her arm.

In a second, she promised herself. She stared up at the stars. In a second she would start again, she would go back to digging in her flesh with a rusty piece of metal. In just a second.

Above her the aurora flickered and snapped like a wind-swept curtain. It was so beautiful. Green coruscations like waterfalls of pure light dazzled overhead. It was hard to look away. She didn’t want to.

She had to—but she could give herself a second, she thought. Just a second to look, to see one last beautiful thing. In a second, she would—

Then Chey passed out.

She had pushed herself far past human limits. She had pushed herself past the limits of wolf strength. Her body couldn’t go another minute, it was just that simple. Sleep, which had escaped her almost every night of the last twelve years, sleep which had been her greatest enemy, finally came for her and took no mercy on her plight.

She did not wake when the sun rose and warmed her chilled body. She did not wake hours later, when the moon came up too, and silver light transformed her.

Silver, silver, silver inside, silver.

The wolf stood up and panted into the wind.

Silver. Silver, silver, silver. The wolf knew exactly what was wrong. She felt weak, weaker than it had ever had before. It felt sick, and thoughts of food made her sicker. She felt hot and cold at once, and she knew she was dying. There was silver in her leg—how had it gotten there? She couldn’t even begin to imagine.

The obvious course of action presented itself. She lifted her hurt leg and grabbed it with her jaws. Pull it off. Bite it out and spit it in the poison water where it belonged. She had done as much before, to get out of chains.

Her teeth sank through her fur and then she was yelping and rolling on the ground, rolling her forehead along the hard ground, her eyes squinted tightly shut. Pain! Her teeth had touched the silver and her whole skull had erupted in pain, in agony. Her nerves sang a high thready note that buzzed in her ears and in her brains. She rolled and shook herself and warbled out a kind of muted scream until the pain had lessened a little, until she could think again.

She couldn’t bite off the leg. She couldn’t bite the silver out. Every fiber of her being cried out for relief, for comfort, but she had none to provide.

Silver, silver, silver, silver insider her, silver, poison silver!

She ran in circles. She ran in random directions as if she could get away from the pain. She tilted her head back and howled, howled and howled, yelped, mewled, roared. None of it helped. She heard the echo of an answer, a callback, from far away and she knew the other wolf must be nearby. Maybe—maybe he could help her. But would he? He had tried to kill her, hadn’t he? The facts of the matter were hazy to her, as everything in the past must be. He had tried to kill her. Would he try again?

It didn’t matter. He was the only possible source of help. She ran toward him and howled and followed his answering howls. They would meet, they would join together again, they would meet like packmates and he would help her, he would do something, something, something for her.

Before she’d even smelled him, though, a buzzing roar chopped up the night, chopped it to pieces. The helicopter came up over the far side of the junkheap and turned to come right for her.

The wolf ran.