Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2) by TJ Klune

Those dark eyes never left his. “People like… us. Who we are. We never live long. We’re not meant to.”
    I know.
    “You’ve done that before.”
    Heat flared in Lucas’s eyes. Yes.
    He wanted to know with whom. But he didn’t. “You’re a monster.”
    Yes .
    Cavalo took a deep breath and let it out. “And I don’t know that I’m any better.”
    To this, Lucas said nothing. He didn’t have to.
    “They’ll kill us. There are too many of them. And if not them, then someone else will come. It’s inevitable.”
    Yes.
    “I might even kill you myself. Or you’ll kill me.”
    That feral grin. Yes.
    The final words were easier. They felt inevitable. “We’re the same.”
    Yes. Yes. Yes.
    Cavalo kissed him then. Could feel the desperation behind it. The sense of relief. The sense of loss. The sense that finally, after years of wandering through a haunted wasteland, he had come upon a door that would lead to an escape. It was covered in bees, yes, and the legend upon it was that of a smeared black mask that could only bring death, but the door offered no resistance as it opened, and the choice was made.
     
     
    HE WOKE near dawn. Bad Dog curled at his front, Lucas at his back. He could feel the knife pressed at his side. Cavalo was not at peace, but he was closer to it than he’d been in years. Maybe the last rubber band had finally broken. Maybe he’d finally gone numb to the pricks of the stinging bees.
    He didn’t know that it mattered.
    They had work to do.
    Bad Dog watched him.
    “How’s your head?” he asked.
    Okay. He bumped his nose against Cavalo’s chin. It was cold. Huh.
    “What?”
    You smell different. Like Smells Different.
    “Oh?” Cavalo didn’t know what else to say.
    He smells like you too. He sounded strangely elated.
    “That so.”
    Bad Dog rubbed his head against Cavalo’s chest. Now you smell like me too. We all smell the same. Good smells. Not like yesterday. With the burning.
    No. Not like yesterday at all. Funny how quickly things could change.
    I had a funny dream last night.
    “Oh?”
    There was a rabbit.
    “You like rabbits.”
    Because they’re crunchy. And I bite them with my teeth.
    “Is that what you dreamed?”
    No. I was running for the rabbit. We were in the trees. In the forest. I was chasing the rabbit. It was really fast. There was a fire. It ran into the fire. I didn’t want to follow it, but I really wanted the rabbit.
    “What did you do?”
    Jumped into the fire. I thought I was going to get burned up! But it did not hurt me. And then you were there, and you told me I was a Good Dog, that I was a Good Bad Dog.
    “Is that it?”
    There were bees. On your eyes. They were really loud. I chased them away.
    “Things are happening.”
    Gonna be okay?
    “I don’t know.”
    Could we die?
    He wanted to lie, but he couldn’t. Not to his friend. “Maybe. Probably. There will be death. But there doesn’t have to be. We could leave.”
    We could?
    “Yes.”
    With SIRS? And Smells Different?
    “Yes.”
    And go where?
    “Anywhere you want.”
    Bad guys coming?
    “Yes.”
    For BigHank? AlmaLady?
    “Yes. But they’ve done things. Bad things.”
    They bad guys?
    Cavalo hesitated. Then, “No. They did the only thing they could.”
    Can’t leave.
    “No?”
    No. We’re MasterBossLord and Bad Dog. We get bad guys and make them pay! And no matter where you run, if bad guys are after you, they’ll find you. It doesn’t matter how far you get, they’ll find you. It’s better to turn and fight than get shot in the back with a boomstick. He licked Cavalo’s chin. And we don’t run.
    “We don’t run.”
    Never. Bad Dogs and MasterBossLords don’t run from bad guys.
    Cavalo didn’t have the heart to tell him that all he’d ever done was run. “Okay,” he said simply.
    We stay?
    “We’ll stay.”
    The bee-covered door with a dripping black mask closed behind them and disappeared.

everyone dies
     
     
    THEY WERE cautious as they approached Cottonwood.