Pack Bound

by Holly Hook

  Last week?

  I backpedal across the morgue, dodging a desk that looks as if it belongs in an office. My back hits another door, one not locked from the inside which I push open to find a wide, unmarked hallway and a lone elevator at the end. This must be a back way where they haul in bodies.

  I close the door as more open back in the basement. Hitting the call button, I wait for the hum as the elevator drops to collect me. I pray no one's bringing cargo down.

  The elevator's empty. I board and mash the star button. which I hope is the main floor, and these doors close in just a second. As soon as they do, the elevator dings and the morgue exit I left bursts open with a bang.

  "Elevator," the guard radios. A crackle follows. They've found me.

  They're calling reinforcements.

  Someone will meet me at the top.

  For the first time in two weeks, a tug pulls at my insides, urging me to give in to the animal inside. I grip the railing of the elevator as my heart races. The Baltic Wolves were one thing. The guards are people. I'm in a hospital...

  The tug comes again, and another radio crackles.

  This one comes from above. I eye the buttons. The only options in this small elevator are the first floor and the basement. It's meant for service, not visitors.

  If I don't do what I have to do, I'll never get out of here and Olivia could die.

  Breathing out, I give in to the animal pull as pain explodes in my bones.

  Chapter Three

  The past two weeks have almost erased how painful it is to transform. No, it's agony. Dark blobs fill my vision as my muscles burn and ripple, changing shape, and a horrific cracking fills my being as if I've become a raging fire. I blink. The elevator buttons dance over my head and settle. I sniff, aware of dirt and soap wafting off the floor of the elevator. Electricity buzzes within wires and the light above. Anguish fades. My clothes lie ripped all around me, my car keys and drivers' license sticking out from my pants pockets. Olivia's records lie next to a blond paw.

  I hadn't thought of that.

  Now standing on all fours, I snap the folder up in my jaws, trying not to puncture the manila. It's not easy. I shove it up against the wall before I can maneuver and grab it. Then I look down and snap at my keys, dropping the folder.

  The elevator's hum slows. I've taken two precious seconds to transform and if I don't carry my stuff, there won't be a point to getting out of here.

  So I bite my keys, which poke at the roof of my mouth, and follow by snatching my driver's license by lifting it with a claw and sticking it to my tongue. Not graceful, but it'll work. Struggling not to swallow the keys and the card, I grab Olivia's records in my jaw again just as the elevator door slides open.

  Three shocked hospital guards, two women and one man, stand before me in a narrow service hallway far from patients' eyes. The man takes a step back and utters a curse. One woman presses against the wall and screams. Metallic fear fills the air. A blond wolf holding medical records and car keys wasn't on the list of expected culprits.

  I bolt from the elevator.

  The guards part and let me pass. Claws scraping polished linoleum, I reach the corner of the hallway and realize too late that I've left my phone among my ripped clothing.

  It's password protected, but police can crack that if they try long enough. But I can't go back now.

  Heart racing, I catch a whiff of shocked adrenaline as I turn the corner. Offices line the corridor. Somewhere ahead, a wall phone rings. Coffee hangs in the air. Sniffing, I detect the cool night flowing past me, sticking close to the floor and coming from a fork to the right.

  A door opens, and a nurse in scrubs steps out. She's an older, heavyset, no-nonsense type woman who lays eyes on me and freezes.

  "Aggie!" she shouts, looking back into the office. "Someone left the bay door open again!"

  I have to admire her guts. Bolting past her, I run on her words. The bay door. Funeral homes must need a back way to pick up bodies.

  No urge to hurt these people hits me. The fighting instinct has fled. Only escape fills my mind.

  I bolt past the woman, brushing her knees, and take the fork to the right.

  Double doors remain closed, but behind me, someone presses a button—maybe the nurse I passed—and the bay doors swing open with a loud clunk to let me out.

  "What are you doing?" another woman yells. "That animal has someone's chart!"

  "We can't have a wolf running around in here!"

  The smell of forest and garbage follow. Three ambulances wait in the back lot as I bolt out under the stars.

  Shouts follow from within the hospital but I don't stop. The smell of the surrounding woods fills the air and I face a tall wooden fence that separates civilization from the wilderness. My car's around front. I've left a bag of clothes in there just in case, and if I can get there and change back, I'll can drive away like nothing happened. Maybe I can go back inside and get my phone.

  "Where did it go?" a man shouts behind me.

  "I've called the police. They're on their way."

  Turning, I face the door to see the three security guards, led by the tough nurse, standing in the loading bay.

  A man presses a wall button to lower the door, shutting me out.

  And in the distance, police sirens wail. I hear one unit and first, and then two more join. They're coming to investigate the medical records break-in and they'll answer a strange call.

  I run around the hospital, bounding over concrete barriers, over shrubs, and jumping over the hoods of cars with the folder in my mouth. No one's in the parking lot. My thoughts turn to the Beater and I find it parked on the edge. Light from the ER pours onto the pavement and I eye the door, making sure it doesn't rotate. I stride over to the car, eager to have hands and opposable thumbs again, and duck down between it and a giant SUV that's since parked next to me.

  Setting the folder and my stuff down, I brace myself for the wall of pain I must face to get back to human form. No pull marks my body's willingness to change, so I have to grab for the ordinary Brie within. I find her cowering and grab on.

  Waves of pain explode over me in rolling, fiery avalanches as I growl, then whimper, and then bite in a human scream as the world tilts and my body pops and cracks. The only good thing about the process is that it only takes two seconds, but even those are eternal. I grasp at the pavement, fingers splaying on concrete. The cool night air wraps around my bare skin. Though I don't feel horror at being surrounded by other werewolves like this, my heart races at the thought of others finding me naked.

  I've spit my keys and everything else onto the pavement. Grabbing them, I unlock the door, toss in my license and Olivia's medical records, and climb inside. Still aware of the glass windows (and of another car pulling into the ER parking lot) I seize my bag of clothes from the back and lie down on the torn backseat, slipping them on and relishing taking breaths without pain. Once clothed, my confidence returns and I scramble to the driver's seat, catching my breath. Energy flows through my limbs as if pure life is zipping through me. Shifting has made me feel more alive. The past two weeks have shoved the feeling aside as I got used to my new senses.

  All alone, I got Olivia's medical records out of a secured room and got away with it. I should feel horrible at committing a crime worthy of prison, but none of that comes. Having to wait to see if she becomes a Savage Wolf and then letting her do damage is worse. If we find out the worst now, we might help her before she does anything. The pendant might even stop her from changing. It worked on me for the past seventeen years.

  The sirens peak. Red and blue flash in my rearview mirror. I shove Olivia's folder in the glove compartment, curling it. Three cruisers pull up to the main entrance of the hospital, the one I used before everything went down. Officers get out and head inside.

  But one of them is a K-9 unit.

  And the German Shepherd inside claws at the back window, barking in my direction with yellow eyes.

  I crin
ge as I think of how Cayden got that golden retriever to stand down. Even from within the car, the police dog senses what I am and soon the cops might come over here. Swallowing, I start the Beater and pull out of my spot before the police can come back outside. Nobody has a real description of me and the cops don't have my DNA to check against my clothes, but the hospital now knows the clothing of a teen girl is lying in the elevator a wolf jumped out of, holding a folder. If I'm lucky, they'll dismiss it as a prank.

  But with medical records missing?

  Cayden's still coming, so I can't leave yet. Instead, I pull to the farthest end of the lot. The dog stops barking. But Cayden can't text me now. My phone is password protected, but that won't help for long. The police will crack it, right? My only option is to tell Cayden what I've done.

  I don't know how he'll react, but the thought makes me nervous. He's alpha. That's sinking in and my subconscious can sense the authority he's supposed to have, even if he doesn't like to use it. I still have a lot to learn about my new state.

  I face the woods. Adjusting my top, I sniff, trying to see if Cayden's coming.

  But it turns out he drives here in the Lowes' SUV. He parks beside me. I pick up his forest scent and that of motor oil and gasoline. Cayden gets out of the SUV and climbs into the Beater to sit beside me.

  "I'm glad you waited," he says, leaning in for a kiss. He sends happy tingles down my spine. Then he runs his gaze up and down my body. "Wait. I thought you were wearing black jeans and a white top today?"

  "I had to go in. But mission accomplished," I say, sounding like a secret spy.

  "You went in?" Cayden's jaw falls. "Brie, you smell like fear."

  Great. "And," I say, heart racing. "I got Olivia's medical records, so we'll know for sure whether she got a bite and will be a threat to people in a week. And better yet, I gave her mother my silver pendant to give to her. If it kept me from turning for so long, it has to work on her, right?"

  "Only if she wears it at all times," Cayden says, eyeing the glove compartment as if he can read my mind. Or is it because he doesn't want to look at me? "It's worth a try, but Olivia has to accept the gift, put it on, and keep it on the way you and your Aunt May did. If she takes the necklace off at any point past the next full moon, she'll turn the way you did. And then we must deal with her." His last two sentences are strained.

  "I don't want to kill Olivia. My friend Noah is in love with her. Her death would break his heart. I even told Olivia's mom the pendant was from a secret admirer. I guess maybe she could think it's from Noah--"

  "Brie!" Cayden hits the glove compartment with his fist.

  I jump. "What's the problem?"

  "Olivia isn't into Noah. And if she is, and she gets close to him...it could be bad. He could be in danger."

  A sick feeling blooms in my stomach and spreads through me like a disgusting, algae-choked pond. "You think she'd hurt Noah?"

  Cayden's eyes are wide. "No Savage Wolf cares about human life. I know you don't want to kill her, but you've helped fight them before, and we're different in wolf form. We let go of human issues. We're not afraid of fighting or blood. Even your human side gets used to it after a while. At the full moon, you and I will do what we have to. And we have your fighting ability on our side.

  "Look, I don't know where it comes from," I say. "And there's something else. There was a guy in the ER who said he got a dog bite, and I got a whiff of rotting wood off him. It could have been that he was sitting on a log or something since he was in the woods when it happened."

  Cayden lets his hand slide off the glove compartment. He's wearing fingerless gloves today like a bad boy. They make him look as if he's sprouted fur over the backs of his hands. Fitting. His hazel eyes lock with mine. "Then the Baltic Wolves are finding another way to come back into Breck. It's what I feared."

  "I thought we drove them out?"

  "We did," Cayden says. "And once a pack gets driven from a location, they can't come back in without risking their lives. But that pack can linger around the edges of a territory. Breck is ours, and we've spread our scent a few miles around town to warn the Baltic Wolves out. But there's no rule stopping them from hanging around the edges, or from attacking people who wander out of our protection."

  "Like the guy in the ER?" I ask.

  "Yes," Cayden says, glaring into the woods. "We're not in our territory right now. Savage Wolves could kill or infect anyone they please out here. And if we break the code and hunt them, they might call for reinforcements."

  "What does this have to do with them returning?"

  Cayden breathes out. "If Olivia turns and there are no other Savage Wolves in the area, then her presence establishes a new pack. One we haven't driven out yet. It's the same for that guy you mentioned. For all we know, they could infect multiple people around Breck to get back at us. And if a new pack forms, we're back to driving them out all over again. And again, and again."

  My heart sinks and a chill sweeps over me. "Breck is our home, and if the Savage Wolves will keep launching attack after attack--"

  "I never said it was easy being a werewolf," Cayden snaps. He grips the door handle like he wants to leave. "We're not superheroes. And it's difficult being an alpha when no one even listens to you." His voice drops to a growl with each word he speaks.

  "Cayden," I breathe, feeling as if someone has punched me in the gut. "I had to go in. We had to figure out if we even need to worry about Olivia. It beats sitting around and waiting. I also had to leave my phone in the hospital after transforming, so we need to get it."

  "The police are here," he says, sighing. "You did something that attracted attention. Werewolf issues should stay with werewolves. Getting humans involved never ends well for them or for us. You saw what your mother and grandfather did."

  "Don't bring that up," I say, balling my fists. Savage Wolves took my family and half of Cayden's. I won't let them take anyone else. I can't believe you want to sit by and wait."

  "That's the best option. We have to lie low."

  "Cayden, this isn't like you," I say. "You faced down five Baltic Wolves by yourself and--"

  He punches the dash. "And I got Wyatt killed. I can't let anything like that happen again. Do you understand? I won't lose you, Brie."

  His outburst shakes the windows of the car. "Cayden! I'm trying to make things easier here and stop people from dying."

  Cayden takes a breath, trying to calm himself. "Brie, we're not a bunch of wild animals. Even Savage Wolves have rules. Every pack has an alpha who decides. I don't like deciding for you or anyone else, but the police being here and your phone being in their hands came from me not playing my role. Hate me all you want, but I won't see you killed or in prison. The rules exist for a reason. My dad might not have made the best decisions for the pack, but I'll do better than him."

  "Excuse me?" I ball my fists. "You're going caveman on me now?"

  Cayden opens the door. "I'm the alpha, and you will have to deal with that. Now, we get your phone away from the police and we get out of here. We'd better hope the hospital didn't catch you on camera."

  "I saw none." I speak to distract myself from the argument but it does little good. Now I'm seeing a side of Cayden he's kept hidden until now. Or a side that's developed after the death of half his family. It hurts to turn over his words.

  His declaration of authority.

  And that I'm supposed to stand down and listen to his orders.

  "Stay here," Cayden says, softer now. "I'll find your phone. Never mind that first part. Drive home. We'll catch up tomorrow and go over the records."

  "And then we'll get somewhere."

  "Please. Just drive home," he repeats. "I'll take care of this. We'll look at the records tomorrow. I'm sorry. But please, promise you won't go on any more adventures tonight. I worry about all of us. And you."

  I swallow. "Fine. I promise."

  Cayden faces me with sad eyes as he gets out of the car. "But other than that, great job, Brie. You
have more guts than I do."

  Breathing out, I change gears. The Beater clunks as I pull out of the spot and past Cayden, who watches me leave, and then drive past the K-9 unit with the barking, crazy dog. Before anyone can come out of the hospital doors to check on the noise, I pull out of the hospital and screech my tires as I pull onto the road. I don't know whether I'm fleeing from Cayden or myself.

  Chapter Four

  I don't even greet Aunt May when I get in the door. By now, my thrumming pulse has calmed, but a headache has formed, complete with fists of pain around my eyes. Stress. I hiccup and realize I'm holding back tears. Until now, Cayden has been my equal and we've stayed united by our loneliness. Now he's something different.

  Watching half his family die has changed him.

  Does this happen to all werewolves? Now I understand why my father never allowed himself to turn, why Aunt May did the same, and why my family didn't want me to experience the same fate. Maybe my father married my hunter mother and took her name to further erase the curse of lycanthropy.

  "Quiet tonight," Aunt May says as I open the fridge. She's standing in the kitchen doorway and she smells of meadows and mountain breeze. All werewolves have scents tying them to the wild.

  "It's been a long day," I say without facing her. Instead, I focus on a stack of cheese slices in the refrigerator door.

  "Were you and Cayden patrolling?"

  "Yes," I lie. "We detected none of the Savage Wolves."

  "I fear that girl will become one," Aunt May says.

  I wonder how I smell to Cayden.

  Or if my scent is weak.

  "You know about Olivia?" I ask, closing the door. My acting skill comes into play and I lapse into a Victorian lady, complete with perfect manners and zero outbursts.

  "The Lowes told me." Aunt May speaks with reluctance. She bites her lip during a pause. She's taken these past couple of weeks hard. The werewolf life is one she never wanted. And in her usual fashion, she often skirts around the subject, asking me about school instead.