A Forest So Deadly (Pioneer Falls Book 2)

by Heather Davis

  - Morgan

  She teased it from my shaking hands and said, “Nothing here? No note for you?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t see anything.”

  “Well, maybe at home. It’s not like his kind to take off without a good-bye.”

  “His kind?”

  “Proper gent from the British isles,” Maggie said, handing me my tea.

  “Oh, right.” I set the mug back down, the smell of the tea making my stomach queasy.

  Maggie sat next to me. “You knew that his leaving was a possibility,” she said gently.

  “But he told me he would stay a little while longer. I needed him here. We need him.” The weight of the coming weekend hit me at once. It was Dad and me against the hunters now. How could Morgan have actually left us to deal with them all on our own?

  “I know you really liked him,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry.”

  At least she wasn’t telling me some lame thing people say, like there’ll be another one better than him or something dumb like that. My heart hurt. It didn’t need that kind of pep talk.

  Maggie took a sip of her tea. “Is there any chance he’d come back?”

  “Well, his phone is disconnected. He wouldn’t do that if he wanted me to stay in touch.” I rose from the couch and grabbed my bag. “I’m gonna go cry at home now. Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”

  Maggie wrapped an arm around my shoulder as she walked me to the door. “We always tend to expect the best and then get hit with the worst,” she said. “The whole relationship thing is tough at any age. But that doesn’t mean you don’t keep trying if you believe in love.”

  My eyes watered anew. “That’s good stuff,” I said, giving her a hug. “Love you.”

  “Me too.”

  I trudged toward home, feeling so alone, so broken. The worst part was exactly what Maggie said. I’d known his leaving was inevitable. It’d always been there at the back of my mind, and I’d argued myself out of my fears. I’d believed him when he said he wasn’t leaving. That he’d tell me, at least, if he was. Say good-bye, something…

  The feeling that I should have known better washed over me. It seemed that anyone who loved me wouldn’t actually want to stick around. Even Morgan, who’d seemed so different. Maybe something had happened to him, maybe…but at the moment, I couldn’t see farther than my broken heart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Darkness filtered into town that night like black mist rising from the river. Overhead, the burgeoning moon peeked out from behind clouds as if it knew it was unwelcome. Dad had been supportive when he’d gotten home, careful not to rub any salt in the gaping wound that was my heart. Maggie had called him earlier to warn him, he told me.

  My sisters carefully avoided my room, understanding from Dad probably about everything that’d happened. Fawn dropped off a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, my favorite, but I left them on my dresser. Rose offered to braid my hair, but I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want to interact with anyone.

  Alone in my room, I moved from window to window like a phantom, waiting to hear Morgan’s SUV. Hoping to catch a glimpse of him peering from the cover of a tree. Missing him watching over me as he’d done when we first met. But he didn’t come. After a few hours, sick of helplessness, I got dressed in warm clothes. Maybe the only thing that made sense was to confirm this was really what it seemed to be. I wanted to know what had happened between the guys last night while I’d been at Cooper’s. That had to have tipped the scales for Morgan. Made him decide to run. Or something bad had happened to him at the hands of Nathaniel.

  Downstairs, I slipped keys from the hooks near the door as quietly as I could.

  “Where are you going?” Dad loomed behind me in the doorway of the mudroom.

  “You said we’ll be safe from the moon tonight.”

  “Should be. But that doesn’t mean you should go out courting trouble.”

  “I’m not courting trouble or whatever. I’m going to the bowling alley to see Nathaniel.”

  “No.” Dad blocked my exit.

  “It’s not normal, Morgan taking off like this with no message to me.”

  “Nothing about wolves is normal,” he replied. “You actually think Nathaniel’s going to know anything? Or tell you the truth if he does?”

  “He might.” My eyes welled with tears again, surprising me because I felt like I was done crying for the night. “I have to know if Morgan said anything to him last night. I need to know.”

  Dad’s stern look wilted. “You promise to be back in an hour?” he said, reluctantly. “If you’re not, then I’m driving over there. Sirens blaring, if need be.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed a coat and rushed out before he could change his mind.

  ***

  Frontier Lanes’ neon sign flickered, a buzzing sound accompanying the lumberjack’s bowling ball’s never-ending progress toward a strike. The parking lot, bathed in the red, white, and green glow of the sign, was nearly empty. From the looks of the darkened entryway, they weren’t open. Chains on the doors suggested maybe they never would be again.

  Nathaniel’s blue car was parked over near the side entrance. I pulled the truck in next to it and cut the engine. I knocked on the kitchen door. No one answered, and there were no cooking smells coming from inside.

  Maybe they were in the house, I figured. But I found it dark too, even shabbier than it had seemed in the daylight. The door had been recently been repaired from the kicking-in. Dark patches stood out on the porch. Blood stains. No one answered my knocking. Or my pounding. I started to get worried.

  “Nathaniel!” I yelled, as if someone inside might be ignoring me on purpose.

  But then it hit me. Ezra had taken his pack and run. He had done precisely what we should be doing. What Morgan had done. They’d left everything behind so they’d be safe. As far as I knew, they had no deep ties to this town. Nothing like what we had. A life. A community. It was probably easier to run when you had nothing to hold on to.

  A fresh wave of sadness about Morgan rippled through me. Was everything we’d felt for each other so easy to walk away from? I wouldn’t ever have left him behind. I sat down on the stairs of the porch, wrapping my arms around my legs. Oblivious to my tears, the night creatures whirred in the air around me. An owl hooted from a nearby branch. The wind trailed her fingers across my face, touching my tears, grazing my skin.

  Above, the moon had emerged from behind the clouds, the slightest edge of black keeping it from true fullness. Dangerous as it could be, I had the overwhelming urge to run in the nearby forest. To race into the trees and then to the top of somewhere to cry and scream and let it all out. Maybe this was a primal part of human me, or maybe it was my wolf that needed an outlet. I didn’t care what waited for me in the woods. I didn’t care anymore.

  I stepped into the nearest stand of trees, hoping the cool, piney darkness would soothe me. I took a deep breath and then another, trying to summon all the peace of the forest. Sweat pooled under my arms as my temperature continued to rise. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to change.

  I started undressing. I folded my clothes, nestling them inside my coat, and set them in the hollow of a tree. And I willed the transformation to take me. I wanted to feel the crunch of bones. I wanted to feel something outside of the emotional hurt welled up inside of me. I wanted to howl. But most of all I wanted to run.

  At last the familiar spasms of pain took me. For a few minutes, lost in that in-between, of neither human or wolf, I forgot about everything else. There wasn’t anything but the pumping of blood, the transmutation of cells, the unbreakable curse molding me like clay, sculpting me into something new and yet ancient. Something feral and beautiful and terrifying.

  A moment later, the rushing of my pulse subsided. The last of my follicles tingled with emerging hair. My claws sank into the dirt. My teeth were rough against my panting tongue. I lifted my head, taking in the unique hues of the darkness, the play of shadows thr
ough the trees. My ears perked at the sounds of the forest, its music delivered more perfectly than any headphones.

  Rodents gnawing rhythmically on twigs, owls and bats beating their wings as they swooped above them. A chorus of frogs added their voices to the flutter and buzz of insects. I soaked it all in, feeling as though I owned the night.

  I found an animal trail and took it at a gallop, the pads of my feet hitting the fir needles, the dirt, the rocks, my body feeling connected to the earth. To nature. I crested a small overlook and had a clear view of the glowing ivory moon. The urge to call to it overtook me. I howled. For all I’d lost. For feeling stuck between two worlds. For the other wolves. For the horror of what was coming our way. I kept howling until I felt like I had no voice left. The last of my cries felt lodged in my throat, half-formed between tears and rage. I sat down, beaten, drained of some of my pain.

  And then, I realized, I wasn’t alone.

  The creature moved slowly—a black shape against the lush greens of the forest and the stark gray of the rocks. It was canine. Ears pointed toward me. Moving closer. Cautiously. He must have heard my howl.

  The wolf was light gray with touches of charcoal, and his obsidian eyes were framed with white. He stood smaller than the males in Ezra’s pack. I barked out a greeting. Low. Questioning. But his approach was silent. I didn’t know if it was because he didn’t understand my vocalization, or if he felt I was a danger. His tail dipped as he advanced, now only twenty yards or so between us. My nose twitched with some kind of familiar scent, but I couldn’t identify it.

  More ebony and slate-colored flashes arose in the brush. We had company. A few of them had more doglike characteristics, fluffier tails, their coloring different than any wolves I’d seen. A makeshift pack had formed behind the gray one. I started thinking of him as Driftwood, since that was the color of his coat.

  I shifted my stance, trying to project confidence. These weren’t werewolves. These beasts had to be Ivan North’s lost hybrids. Cooper had said the house was ransacked, but nothing of real value was missing, besides his father. Whoever had hurt Ivan had made sure those animals would be on the loose. Half-domesticated, they weren’t like dogs that would turn up home eventually. They’d probably craved their natural freedom from Ivan’s compound, the wolf sides of them needing to run and howl as sure as I’d needed it.

  Driftwood, still at the front of the pack, took a step forward, lowering his head ever so slightly. A move of deference, I figured out. The rest of them gazed at me as if they knew I wasn’t one of them, but didn’t look me in the eye. As if they were unsure whether to trust me. Unsure what I’d do next.

  I stepped down from the rock platform I’d occupied. The circle of wolf-dogs swayed then stepped back, reading my movement as aggression. I wanted to tell them not to be afraid, but I was still learning how to communicate. The wrong whine or whimper might convey something I didn’t mean to.

  Driftwood gave out a woof. It seemed a prompt for something. I lifted my muzzle and woofed back, as if to say, we’re cool here, you can go.

  There were a few tail wags from the pack and several of them sat.

  I’m not your girl, I thought. I only wanted to howl alone in the dark.

  Driftwood put a paw over his eyes and nosed the air, as if to say, come on.

  Was this communicating thing actually happening? I didn’t know much about the rules yet, but maybe there was something about having dominion over other creatures in the same species.

  And then I saw something in my mind. A picture. A hunter with a gun. Driftwood was sending me a warning. And maybe he was also teaching me how to communicate with him.

  The pack let out a few yips and barks. Encouragement. If I could’ve cried tears, I would have. My canine eyes watered and I let out a few whines. These guys, so vulnerable here on the mountainside, were warning me. They weren’t running. They were banding together.

  And they were going to be caught in the crossfire when the ordinance went into effect. They were going to die. The woods would be crawling with gleeful hunters––werewolf hunters like Bowman and casual shooters who’d try to take them out and even drag them to their property so they could pretend they’d been attacked.

  I concentrated on a mental picture of Ivan North’s house. Of the kennels. If they could return and get securely locked in, there was no way that Bowman could shoot them. They’d be contained as pets, the cages themselves the proof that they were not out attacking anyone.

  Driftwood growled. A second later I got a clear picture of Cooper. He was afraid of Cooper.

  I nodded. I could understand why he’d be afraid. But I thought of a photo I’d seen in Ivan’s house, one time when I’d visited Cooper there. Of Ivan with his arm wrapped around Cooper in the barn, several of the wolf-dog pups gamboling at their feet. I still believed in that Cooper. I believed he loved his father and what he stood for.

  Driftwood tossed his head, a low rumble in his throat. He wouldn’t do it.

  I sent the visual of the photo to him, punctuating my thoughts with an emphatic mini-howl.

  The pack moved back from me, skittish now, not trusting. I gave them a reassuring bark, but that didn’t pacify them. My new friend Driftwood turned and bolted into the woods. The others scrambled after him. Their shadows blended into the night as they found refuge again in the woods.

  My heart still hurt with the loss of Morgan, but now it felt even heavier, weighted by the thought of bloodshed to come. Those wolves were going to die. My efforts at convincing them, just like my efforts in finding the real killer, and my attempt to bring Cooper to his senses, had all failed. I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t save anyone.

  A howl rose from my throat. A keening mournful cry that contained all my fear, all my sadness, all the horror. The moon would take us tomorrow. Any wolf, real or werewolf, without a lupine stone would heed its call.

  My lament resounded against the rocky cliffs, reverberated in the caves. But in its deep, soul-shaking sound, I found a faint shadow of hope.

  Those hunters were humans. We were supernatural. More powerful. Smarter. And we had a responsibility to defend our weaker brother and sister wolves who inhabited these hills.

  No, the Turners weren’t running for safety like the cowards in our midst. We’d run at the danger. Because there was no way I was letting this massacre go down. If I couldn’t stop the ordinance, I’d stop the hunters, once and for all. And I knew what I had to do—find a way to attack them before they could attack us.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “This is nuts,” Fawn said, pointing at the drawing in front of the three of us after school the next day. “You want to kidnap Alex? Are you joking?” She shared a worried glance with Rose, who reached for a bag of chips.

  “No, I’m serious. It’s the only way we can beat them. Grab Alex and hold him until they agree not to shoot wolves.” I tried to sound like kidnapping was totally normal, like I had the knowledge to pull this off.

  “And why is Dad not involved?” Rose crunched a chip, but then her frown deepened when she looked closely at the diagram.

  “I mean, we are talking about a felony here.” I drew a timeline at the bottom of the paper, then placed a dot and a notation. “You two are the only ones that have lupine stones, so you’ll be at festival like everyone else. Rose—at five p.m. you’ll convince Alex to leave with you and bring him to me.”

  “But, um, you’ll be a wolf, right?” Rose scratched at her nose.

  “Yeah, that’s why I need you guys to do the talking. Fawn—that’s where you come in.”

  “Who am I talking to?” she asked, taking the bag of chips from Rose.

  “Rick Bowman, Alex’s dad.”

  “Wait—I’m negotiating with the hunter? The one who wants to kill us all?” Fawn said. “Oh, that sounds like a grand plan.”

  “I can’t do it. All I can do is bark and whine and stuff,” I said, causing my sisters to trade a fascinated look.

  “Will we get to s
ee your wolf?” Rose said.

  “Please say yes,” Fawn chimed in, almost clapping with enthusiasm.

  I shrugged. “I guess. Guys, that’s not the point here.”

  “How do we keep Rick from kidnapping us?” Fawn chewed her lip, studying the plan.

  “He’ll want Alex back. Anything happens to a werewolf, wolf, or a wolf hybrid and he doesn’t get him.”

  “You’d hurt Alex?” Rose asked, panic edging her voice.

  I held up a hand. “Whoa—no way! We’d just tell Bowman that. We’d hide Alex somewhere and return him on Monday, when the full moon is over.”

  The twins looked at each other, seeming to exchange some kind of twin non-verbal thought that I was completely nuts. And maybe they were right, but it was the only plan I could come up with. If I shared it with Dad he’d say not to do it, so it had to be the twins and me.

  “I don’t know,” said Rose.

  “Alex will get to spend a whole weekend with you. He still has a huge crush on you. He’ll love it.”

  Rose didn’t seem convinced. “I think we need to talk to Dad.”

  “I told you he can’t find out.”

  Fawn sighed. “And all the other werewolves are gone? The other pack? Nathaniel?”

  I set down my markers. “Yes. Until we stop the hunters, this is going to happen every full moon. They’re going to kill a bunch of wolves, using this ordinance as a cover. And in a few days, if Morgan’s parents come back to take your stones away, we’ll all be targets.”

  Rose looked worried, like she understood how much trouble we were all in. Fawn on the other hand, looked dubious.

  “It’s not really kidnapping,” I said.

  “True,” Rose said, “if we can take the guys somewhere and hang out.”

  “Lewis’s family cabin,” Fawn said.

  “Right, perfect,” I said, glad the girls were finally getting on board. “You lure them away from the festival and take them up there. Then take their phones away. Fawn—you ask to borrow the Jeep and drive back down so we can bluff about the kidnapping to Alex’s dad. Rose—you’d stay there to keep watch.”