Midnight by Ellen Connor Read Free Book Online Page A

cool and white, thanks to the nearby limestone and salt flats. A while back, they’d loaded the trucks with enough supplies to make whitewash for ten more years. The rugs on the adobe floor, she’d woven with her own hands. Each one told a story, not that she expected him to notice that. Or care.
    Her furnishings were simple: a hand-carved rocking chair, a table with two dining chairs. She’d made the place comfortable with patchwork cushions Singer created out of old clothing and buckwheat hulls for stuffing. Doubtless Dr. Welsh would be surprised to learn they had a garden of edible desert plants, filled with barrel cactus for the yellow fruit, beans from mesquites, paloverde trees, yuccas, and agaves. Most times they cooked communally to ensure no one went hungry.
    Rosa wondered what he thought of her simple home, with one room for living and one for sleeping. Like everyone else, she used the latrine and the public showers. In all honesty, it was nicer than where her family had lived in Guatemala. There, after each storm season, they’d needed to rebuild the palapa .
    Jaw clenching, she told herself to forget those days, since they were lost and gone. She unstrapped her rifle and propped it against the wall, still within easy reach.
    “It’s very nice,” he said, as if surprised.
    “We live well here. Or as well as any since the Change.”
    “I’m beginning to see that. You wanted to talk to me about—”
    “Yes.” She indicated he should take a seat at the table, and then, being a good hostess, she set it with a ceramic plate of sliced prickly pears drizzled with honey. Then she poured two cups of agave wine and joined him.
    “Down there, you said we’re probably ten percent skinwalker.” The very idea sent a shiver of horror through her, but she hid it. “Explain.”
    That couldn’t be right. But to defend her people properly, she needed to hear him out. Listen to the crazy man, so she could dismiss his claims. Their system worked. No nonhumans made it past their defenses. Rosa was almost sure of that. Almost. Tension shriveled her belly.
    He stared at the plate as if it held writhing maggots instead of pretty rounds of peeled fruit. “You don’t use a scientific method. There are two kinds of . . . skinwalkers, as you put it. The bad ones, like the hellhounds we just fought, have no self-control. You can tell them on sight because they attack instinctively. The good ones—”
    “The only good skinwalker is a dead one,” she said flatly.
    “Do you want to hear this or not? If you’re going to waste my time, then I’d rather get a good night’s rest, finish my business, and be on my way.”
    “Sorry.” But she wasn’t. Not really.
    By the sharpness of his look, he knew that. She wasn’t used to men who met her eyes without glancing away. It made her feel bristly.
    “The good ones,” he continued, “retain their humanity. They control the change. Just putting them in the dark won’t tell you if they’re wholly human.”
    No. That couldn’t be true. Her hands curled into fists. “How do you know this?”
    “A long time ago, a lifetime ago, I had a friend named Jenna who was also a wolf. You’d need to torture someone she loved to make her change if she didn’t want to.”
    So they weren’t safe. No matter what they did. Anybody could be hiding an animal in his skin. Rosa met Chris’s gaze. Including you.
    She ought not let him out of her sight, since he called skinwalkers his friends. Instinct told her to kill him before he caused further trouble, but violence gave lie to the promise of sanctuary—a pledge she didn’t take lightly. If the men believed her word was worthless, even to an outsider, she would lose their support. If she lied to one man, what would stop her from doing it again? That was the first spill down a long, slippery slope.
    “You don’t tell anyone else,” she ordered.
    He shrugged. “It’s not my business what folklore you disseminate. I’m just passing