by Molly Harper
“You really are the worst,” I told him. “And how do you know he’s going to come for me?”
He smirked again. “Even if he doesn’t show up in time to save you, losing you will break him. He won’t want to stay in a place where he lost you. And when he’s gone, I’ll go after Nik’s Gigi and her sister. They’re very stubborn women, they won’t tolerate being limited. There will be an opening and I will take it. I’ll get Cal, Nik, Jane Jameson, Dick Cheney, her whole stupid so-called family. I’ve heard how her weird little family responds when one of their own in threatened. I can sweep the lot of them off of the board, set myself up a nice little fiefdom here in the backwoods.”
A wolf growl rippled out from my chest. The idea that he would attack my friends, take advantage of how much they loved each other for his own gain, his own convenience, was infuriating. How dare he? How dare he use people’s feelings against them? He was going to go after my family—my real family. The people that loved me for no other reason than myself. He was going to take them away. I had to make him think that there was nothing to gain in keeping me. I had to make him think that Alex didn’t care, that it was easier just to let me go. Or at least stall him long enough to work this stupid tape loose.
I thought of all I stood to lose—Alex, the love of my life, the only person I’d ever met who seemed to truly understand me and want me in spite of it. Dick, my surrogate father-slash-brother figure who would be so upset when he realized I’d been hurt. He would blame himself for not protecting me. Andrea, who would have to spend so much time comforting him. Jane, who had helped to give me a place, a family, a life of my own. If he killed me, I would miss out on that beautiful, chaotic life I’d started to build, and the thought of that was enough to make the tears burn my eyes.
I sniffled and to his growing horror, the tears tumbled down my cheeks in twin rivers. “Well, the joke’s on you because I’m not one of their own. I never was. They only kept me around because I was Alex’s and he lost interest a few days back. He said he was finished with me, bored.” I paused to give a bitter laugh that wasn’t entirely false. “And now that he’s done with me, I’m not even part of my pack anymore. You went to all the trouble of kidnapping someone you can’t even ransom.”
I giggled and I’m sure it sounded like madness. I wriggled my wrists, loosening the tape, flexing the muscles.
“But I saw them. I saw how they were with you. The smiling. The laughter. The disgusting amount of hugging.”
“They’re like that with everybody who dates within their circle, but once you’re out, you’re out.”
Greg shook his head. I guess I wasn’t selling my heartache well enough. I hadn’t found those words. “That whole group just folded you right in like there was a space waiting for you. How do you do that?”
So, selling my broken heart wasn’t going to get through to him. But his absolute bewilderment that violence and betrayal did not result in friendship? That I could work with. For a moment, I almost felt sad for him. I knew what it was like to be lonely, to want acceptance.
“I tried to be nice when I met them?” I suggested. “I listened when people talked? And I didn’t try to kill them or set their stuff on fire?”
“What’s your point?” he asked, shaking his head.
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to contain the urge to call him a litany of colorful names. I took a deep breath and kept my voice calm. “Honestly? I don’t know. It’s never happened for me before. Most of the time, I’ve been pretty lonely. I don’t fit in with my own kind, but I fit in with them. How do you manage to go like a thousand years without making a single friend? That’s the real question.”
Given the cold rage that swept over his features, I had definitely not found the right words. “Is this what you and your friends sit around doing? Talking about your stupid feelings? If that’s it, I don’t need any friends. I just want to keep running my life the way I want, without you and your idiot friends messing things up for me.”
He stood so quickly I didn’t have time to react and kicked me in the ribs, practically launching me across the room.
“I’m tired of waiting. I guess I’m going to have to send your boyfriend another photo, just to drive home exactly how serious this situation is.” He held up my phone and opened the camera function. “Smile pretty.”
I did smile, and I could feel the blood seeping between my teeth from biting my lip. It would heal quickly, but it definitely stung like a bitch. And the sight of my bloody grin made him pause, revulsion clear on his face. I laughed, twisted into a sitting position. I kicked off my shoes, freeing my feet.
He dropped the phone, the photo forgotten. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m going to guess you’ve only kidnapped humans over the course of your whole bullshit campaign of terror, huh?”
He scoffed, “So what?”
Inhaling deep, I used all of my strength to force my wrists apart, tearing through the loosened duct tape. His eyes bugged out like something out of a cartoon.
“Surprise.” I sprang to my feet, jamming the palm of my hand under his chin as I threw myself at him. I felt his jaw snap under the force of it. He howled, swinging out wildly at my head level, but I was already shrinking to four paws. I lunged, sinking my teeth into his ankle and sweeping him off of his feet. As he writhed on the floor, I used his leg as a sort of handle and swung him against the wall. He hit the cement block with a dull thud, hard enough that I felt safe to dash for the stairs.
But he was fast, scrambling to his feet and grabbing at my back left leg, dragging me into the basement. He flung me back, and I rolled, sinking my claws into the cement to slow my momentum. It made an awful screeching noise and left shallow furrows on the gray surface.
I sprang again, landing against his chest with all four paws, shoving him against the pile of food dehydrators. I lunged for his right arm, tearing at the wrist until I tasted blood. The foul bitterness of it had me dropping his limb and attempting to spit it out in my wolfy way. He kicked me in the muzzle, knocking me back. And then he threw a food dehydrator box at me.
Who throws small appliances?
He seemed to be running out of tricks. He didn’t know what he was doing once hitting me in the face didn’t knock me unconscious. He was used to overpowering someone quickly. And he seemed like the type of dick who would only target people who couldn’t fight back. Well, I’d grown up in a family where casual fistfights were a way of life. I had all of the tricks.
Game on.
I changed into my human form and scooped my phone off of the floor, scrambling through the menu options until I found the file the twins sent me. I pressed play, cringing as the horrific shriek of the highest-slash-most obnoxious violin note filled the room.
Greg shrieked, covering his ears with his hands and screaming at me to shut it off. I tried to run past him, but he slapped my phone out of my hand, shattering it against the wall. I grabbed a violin from the pile of instruments. With mental apologies to Alex and his students, I swung it up in a tight arc. The wood collided broadside against his cheek, exploding into splinters. I was left holding the neck of the violin, broken off to a jagged wooden point.
I swung the makeshift stake at him, and he ducked out of the way. He honestly seemed intimidated by me for the first time, but I wasn’t sure whether it was because he knew I was a werewolf, or because I was a naked woman attacking him with a sharp implement. He scrambled back and I made for the stairs again.
Technically, I had a stake in my hand, but I didn’t know if I could kill him, even with everything he’d done. I knew that members of my pack had shed blood in self-defense, in defense of the pack, but I didn’t know if I could. With a choice between sinking the stake into his chest and getting away, I just wanted to get away. If I could get out of the basement, I could run to the book shop, get help, tell Jane and Dick about Greg and his stupid plans.
Greg wrapped his arm around my waist, yanking me off of the stairs. I squirmed o
ut of his arms, repulsed by the sensation of his cold hands on my skin. He backhanded me, sending me flying into the pile of boxes again. He tried to grab the stake, but I clung to it as if my life depended on it.
“You don’t have to be alive when he gets here, you know,” he seethed. “It works either way for me.”
“Neither do you,” I panted.
“You don’t have it in you,” he said, laughing. “It’s why I picked you first. You’re not a killer. Every time I watched you, you let someone push you around. You’re not even fighting me with your full strength. I could probably let you go, and you’d come right back and tie yourself up again. You’re weak.”
My arms dropped and my shoulders slumped. There was a certain amount of shame in the fact at, at one point, he’d probably been right. I was weak. I spent far too much time letting people control me, worrying about whether I was loved, whether I would be accepted.
But I’d changed. I’d done things in the past months that I’d never believed I’d be able to do—establishing a real adult life of my own, loving the person I chose, making real friends. I was a hell of a lot stronger than the girl who had nearly been crushed by a falling bookshelf.
He’d stepped closer, watching my shoulders fall, thinking that he’d gotten to me. I gripped the makeshift stake and lunged forward, shoving it into his gut. “Not anymore.”
He screamed, dropping to his knees. He glared up at me. “It’s supposed to be the heart, you stupid bitch.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” I told him, kicking at the violin neck so it sank even deeper. He yelped and flopped to his side. “I just want to slow you down. I don’t want your dust on my hands.”
He rolled on the floor in agony as I grabbed one of the UK sweatshirts and threw it over my head. I ran up the stairs and out the unlocked door. By the time I’d reached the outside of the empty building where he’d held me, I had the time to be a little insulted by his not locking it. Did he really think I didn’t have a chance of getting out? Also, was this the business he just couldn’t stand to leave behind? An abandoned Circuit City where he stored a weird assortment of stolen merchandise?
Why was I even thinking about that sort of thing? Maybe he’d hit me a little harder on the head than I thought.
I glanced around the empty parking lots surrounding the former Circuit City. I was about a half-mile from the Half-Moon Hollow Mall, a dying collection of retail stores that was steadily losing traffic to the downtown area. But there were still enough cars circulating the dark streets that I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of walking through it, only wearing a sweatshirt.
Changing in the middle of town would definitely be noticed, I thought. Or someone would call Animal Control on the giant wolf running down the highway. As I mulled over my options, I heard my name called from behind me.
“Tylene?”
Alex was standing in the parking lot, his phone in his hand, surrounded by vampires. Dick was carrying a First Aid Kit the size of a microwave. I did not know where or how he’d gotten it. Gabriel appeared to be holding Jane in some sort of gentle wrist lock to keep her from running into the Circuit City. Andrea was carrying a baseball bat. Cal, Nik, Gigi, Iris, Meadow, Erik, they were all there. Hell, there were some vampires I didn’t even recognize. And then a black van marked Undead Emergency Response Team pulled up and some SWAT types came pouring out in full gear.
“Hi,” I said, waving weakly. “Does anyone have some spare pants?”
Alex folded me into his arms and I damn near collapsed against him. He kissed me and I could practically taste his relief. I was safe. I’d survived a nasty fight with a nastier man. And I was proud of myself, but I really just wanted to go home to my little apartment and have a bath.
“We’re here to rescue you,” Alex whispered against my neck.
“Too late,” I said shrugging. “He’s inside. I couldn’t kill him, so I just wounded him pretty good.”
“That’s my girl,” Dick said, patting my shoulder. He shouted to the UERT guys. “Go get him. Feel free to rough him up as you handcuff him. No holds barred. Maiming allowed.”
“Dick,” Jane sighed.
“Light maiming only!” Dick called as the men trooped into the storefront. Ray McElray tossed me a pair of sweatpants as he passed.
“Glad to see you’re all right, Ty,” he called over his shoulder.
Aw, that sweet mulleted goofball.
“No maiming!” Jane yelled. “Alex, do you think you could let her go long enough to let us take a statement?”
“Probably not,” Alex replied.
“Come on, Frenchie, there are other people who would like a hug and an assurance that she’s okay, too,” Dick chided him.
Alex growled.
“If you don’t let go, I will just drag him into this hug and it will get real emotional and real awkward, real fast,” I told Alex.
Sighing as if I was forcing a great burden on him, he relinquished his hold on me. I pulled on the sweatpants and felt more secure for it “I’m going to go help with the maiming.”
“No maiming!” Jane cried before pulling me into a hug. “I’m really, really glad you’re okay, Ty.”
“Thanks for coming to get me,” I told her. “I would like to fill out all of the paperwork and file all of the complaints, because this guy had some very bad plans.”
“Well, we’re just lucky Alex was with Cal and Nik when that psycho sent him the photo,” Dick said as he and Jane stepped away from me. “By now, we know how to activate the emergency group text.”
Suddenly, Gabriel rushed out of nowhere and threw his arms around me, almost bowling me over.
“This is unexpected,” I said, awkwardly patting his back.
“Gabriel, honey, she does need to breathe,” Jane reminded him.
“It’s just that she’s such a calming influence on the group,” Gabriel said. “And she was going to take over all the email promotions for the shop. You always curse so much when you have to do those.”
“I appreciate it, Gabriel.”
Dick was hanging back, his hands clutching the strap of the First Aid Kit. I opened my arms and he stepped into them. He pressed his face into my neck, and I wasn’t sure, but I thought I felt his shoulders shake. “We thought we’d lost you,” he said. “I didn’t like it.”
“I didn’t either,” I told him.
“I don’t know what I would have done if he’d…oh, Tylene,” he sighed. “I’m probably going to file official adoption papers after this. I’m a good late-in-life surrogate grandparent figure. Just ask Nola.”
“Okay, Dick,” I said, patting his back.
“I still don’t think Alex is good enough for you,” he said.
“Well, that’s your job as my late-in-life surrogate grandparent figure,” I said, making him smile.
“I’m going to go see to the maiming,” Dick said, kissing my forehead.
“No maiming!” I yelled after him, realizing that the other vampires, particularly Cal and Nik, were still waiting to check on me, arms open, ready for hugs.
Alex followed the UERT team has they hauled a bound and gagged Greg out of the store, his belly still bleeding where I’d stabbed him.
“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked Jane.
“Well, I’m going to consult the international Council muckity-mucks to determine what they want to with him,” Jane said. “But I don’t think he’s going to be anybody’s problem anymore.”
“And it’s probably better that you don’t know the details,” Dick told me.
I nodded. “I gladly accept that.”
“We’ll give you two a minute,” Jane said.
Alex wrapped his arms around me, pressing his face into my neck. “Do you know what you smell like to me?”
“Cement dust and nervous sweats?” I guessed, making him laugh.
“You smell like home,” he said, kissing me.
This was what Greg had tried to take from me. I had family. I had a li
fe. I had a pack.
12
“So much of the modern world is temporary and transitory. When you finally find a place where you want to spend a long time, do whatever it takes to stay there for as long as you can.”
—A Gentleman in Any Era: An Ancient Vampire’s Guide to Modern Relationships
* * *
I may have survived a vampire kidnapping, but the difficult-to-pronounce and even more difficult-to-assemble Swedish desk had almost broken me.
I stood, stretching my aching back, still twinging from sitting on the floor for hours. Completed, it looked nice in the corner of my living room and would give me a comfortable workspace that I didn’t have to worry about locking up every time I got up. I wouldn’t have to worry about someone rummaging through it to find private paperwork or if I did—well, I guess the person had already broken into my house and I would have more to worry about than privacy. That was the sort of thing I hadn’t had to worry about when I lived on the packlands, protecting myself, but I wasn’t afraid. It felt right to take care of myself, to see to my own security. I wasn’t at all sorry for leaving the packlands. I was only sorry that I hadn’t left years earlier.
So far, my desk, a nightstand and a brand-new bed were the only furniture I had assembled in the apartment—which was a shame because I had a lot of people coming over and there was nowhere for them to sit. Dick and Jane had insisted on doing a housewarming for me. They wanted to celebrate me taking steps towards my independence, knowing what a big deal that was for a young single werewolf.
A knock at my door startled me out of my deep thoughts. I put aside the tiny screwdriver that could only be used to build this stupid desk. I opened the door to find Alex, holding a vase full of tulips of all different colors. And because I’d stumbled on a guide to Victorian floral messages in Jane’s shop, I knew that yellow tulips meant cheerful thoughts. Pink tulips meant affection. Orange meant enthusiastic passion. Cream colored tulips meant “I will love you forever.” I was glad that he hadn’t given me lime blossoms because that was basically the f-word of floral meanings—which I had always found to be weird. What the hell were Victorians doing with limes?
