Free The Killing Season by Meg Collett Page A

had kept us from noticing the odd shape of the base’s roofline. Inside it though, a huge ball of fluorescent heat lamps sat on a track running across the length of the curving roof.
    “It mimics the sun,” said a voice from behind us. Ollie and I spun around. Nyny stood behind us; we’d been too busy staring to hear her come up the stairs. “We mirror its path through the shape of the roof and the sun’s position during a normal day. Helps the plants grow.”
    “Wow,” I repeated. Now that Nyny had arrived, Ollie crossed her arms and tried to look unimpressed.
    “Come on. I’ll show you the inside.”
    The roof consumed most of our attention, but when I looked around more, I noticed there were indeed walls on the fourth floor; it wasn’t as wide-open as I previously thought. The walls were just made of solid sheets of glass fused together at the steel beams. Nyny walked over to an airlock door between two thick beams and punched in a code. By the way Ollie casually watched Nyny’s fingers fly across the buttons, I knew she was memorizing it.
    The door beeped, and Nyny pushed against it. Today, she wore baggy cargo shorts and a vintage blue tank top. She’d piled her lavender hair on top of her head in a slightly sideways ponytail. A whoosh of air released from the interior of the greenhouse, and, as we followed Nyny inside, a gust of wind blew down onto our heads.
    I understood Nyny’s warmer weather clothing choices when we stepped inside and she sealed the door shut behind us.
    Barrow, Alaska had its own little tropical paradise inside this greenhouse. It was hot and balmy, fans circulating above us that rustled our hair and made the moisture bead up on the back of my neck. Inside the glass room, the giant heat lamp ball above us truly felt like a sun, warming my skin until I began to sweat just standing there. I took a big, wet breath and laughed. It was heaven.
    Nyny grinned at me. “Welcome to the most dangerous place in all of Alaska.”
    At her words, a shiver worked up my spine. This was my kind of danger—the kind without snapping teeth. In front of us, numbering into the hundreds of thousands, were rows upon rows of flowering wolf’s bane. The bluish purple blossoms gave off a dizzying aroma.
    “Seems a little overrated to be the most dangerous place,” Ollie commented.
    Nyny turned to a workbench beside the door and handed me a pair of heavy-duty leather gloves before pulling on a pair herself. She nodded toward the flowers over her shoulder. “Go ahead and touch one then, hunter. Or if you’re feeling really bold, munch on some of the roots. See what happens.”
    Before anyone said anything else, I gave Ollie my gloves and held out my hand for another pair, which Nyny gave me after letting out a low laugh. With Ollie bringing up the rear, Nyny led me down the center row of flowers.
    “Aconitum,” she said, brushing aside the petals reaching too far into the row as she passed. “Ovid claimed the poison of these flowers came from the drool in Cerberus’s mouth.” She paused and glanced back at Ollie. “In case you didn’t know, Cerberus—”
    “Guards the gates of Hell,” Ollie finished, smiling sweetly back up at Nyny. The smile was as sweet as the wolf’s bane around us.
    “More importantly,” Nyny continued on like Ollie hadn’t said anything, “the Aleutian hunters up here in Alaska used to put the poison on the tip of their spears and hunt whales. One man in a tiny canoe could take out a giant whale. We started using the poison in the same manner, coating arrows, spears, and bullets in the toxin to bring down the ’swangs quicker. Less ammo. More efficient kills. Hence the large supply we have to grow up here.”
    “Can it turn someone into a werewolf?”
    I cringed at Ollie’s question; she was just trying to piss off Nyny. But, surprising me, the scientist laughed. “Centuries ago, people on the outside thought we were hunting actual wolves with the flower so they