She laughed, though the sound held the whisper of a sob. “I learned to shoot a gun at the age of eight. By the time I was ten I could make my own silver bullets. Every night before bed I was drilled in the different categories of monsters. Nahual—” She lifted a finger. “—Mexican werewolf-wizard.” She lifted another. “Wulver. A Scottish fiend with the body of a man and the head of a wolf.”
“Alex,” he began, but she kept talking.
“My quizzes consisted of ways to kill each one. And I got one hundred percent on them, because if I didn’t, I knew I’d die.”
The flash of sympathy threatened again. Again he squelched it unmercifully. So she’d had a rough childhood. A lot of people did, yet they didn’t go around murdering innocent wives.
“Isn’t it illegal not to go to school?” he asked.
“Call a cop.” Her lips twisted wryly. “We never stayed in one place long enough for anyone to notice.”
Julian frowned. “Wouldn’t child services have come searching for you eventually?”
Now she laughed with true mirth. “You said you knew Edward.”
“We all know Edward.”
“Apparently not well.”
“If I knew him well, I’d be ashes.”
“Good point.” She drew in a breath and as she let it out, her smile faded. “Edward has J-S agents everywhere. Social services. Child services. FBI. How do you think he knows every damn thing?”
“He doesn’t know where I
am.”
“Give him time,” she said.
A flicker of unease trickled across the back of Julian’s neck. “What do you mean by that?”
She threw up her hands. “Edward’s been at this since the Second World War. He’s got funding up the wazoo. You think you can hide from him forever?”
“I’ve been at this longer than that. So yes, I think I can.”
“Okay.” Alex nodded, staring at the ground. When she lifted her hand to shove her hair out of her face, her fingers trembled. Maybe she was cold, but he didn’t think so.
Alex knew Edward. She understood, perhaps better than anyone here, how dangerous he was, how far reaching his influence, of what he might be capable. And he’d made her into the very thing Edward excelled at killing. He couldn’t blame her for being a little scared.
“You’re safe here, Alex. I promise.”
Her gaze flicked up. “You can’t promise that.”
“I’ve been promising it for a century. We’re still here, and he isn’t.”
“Yet,” she muttered.
“Yet,” he agreed, and she shivered. “Let’s continue this conversation back in town.”
“I’m all right,” she said.
“I’m not.” He pointed at his stocking feet. “Come on.”
Julian climbed on the snowmobile, and Alex joined him without further argument.
Which proved more than anything else just how not all right she was.
Barlow thought she was worried that Edward might show up and shoot her with silver along with the rest of them. She had to make sure he kept thinking that, which meant she had to behave like a frightened girl.