by Sofia Grey
The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were fitting together in my mind. “You said Paulie was going home. Where was that?”
“He lives near Bethnal Green. Did he get nicked?”
No, he got blown up. I couldn’t bring myself to care about him. The wolves growled again, and I shook myself. Focus, Olivia. “And Alun? What happened to Alun?”
“Fuck knows. I left him here. He was gone when I came back.”
My knees shook, and I sank to a crouch on the dirty floor. “You left him here. Was he hurt?”
“He wasn’t moving. I thought he was one of the pigs,” he whined, as though that would make any difference.
“You’re the pig,” My vision blurred, and I closed my eyes for a second. Sweet relief made me dizzy. Alun hadn’t been on the train at all. A thought struck me. “What did you do with his backpack?”
“Sold it. Guy in the pub.”
We needed the police. Not only to arrest this arsehole, but to tell us what happened that day. They had to have found Alun.
With shaking hands, I sifted through the phones for mine, only to find there was no signal. Duh. We were underground. “I’m going to call the police,” I told the wolves. Would they understand me? The smaller one walked to my side, and nudged my leg.
“What?” The guy sounded panicky. “You can’t leave me here. You said you’d let me go.”
I took two steps toward the entrance, and then paused. I stared at him over my shoulder. “I lied.”
Chapter Thirteen
The soft-furred brown wolf walked by my side, and bumped me when my steps faltered. I checked my phone. Still no signal. We walked farther, rounded the bend in the tunnel, and I stopped. Lying on the floor was a haphazard pile of clothes. I’d swear they weren’t there earlier. When I looked at them, I realized they were familiar. Luce’s puffer jacket and Tom’s fleece. Luce’s flat leather boots.
My gut knew, but my brain refused to accept it.
The wolf whined and nudged me, as though urging me to keep moving. I couldn’t. Not yet. I crouched down, and looked the beast in the eyes. “Luce?”
A shimmer of sparkles later, and my friend reappeared. Naked.
Everything I thought I knew about the world was wrong.
Luce took my hands and pulled me to my feet, and then enveloped me in a tight hug. “Jesus, Livvy. It nearly killed me, when we had to walk away from you.”
It was weird, but I felt completely detached. Dream-like. “What are you?” It came out a croak.
She released me, but caught my hands in her own. “You mustn’t tell anyone, Livvy. Nobody at all.” I frowned, but she carried on. “We’re born this way. You don’t need to worry about growing fur and claws.” An awkward smile played across her face. “You must have a million questions, but they have to wait. Right now, you need to call the police. I’ll wait with Tom, in case the others come back.”
Psychic dreams. People that morphed into wolves. It was too much to wrap my head around. I chose to ignore the craziness, at least for the moment, and just focus on Alun. Where he might be.
I found my tongue. “What about your clothes?” Was I really asking this? “How—when—will you…uh…change back?”
“Push them into the shadows for us. When the police arrive, we’ll run off, and then come back to get you.” She hugged me again, fierce and strong. “We’re closer to finding him, Livvy. You have to hang on in there.”
****
I‘m not sure what I told the police on the phone. I think I babbled about being assaulted and my friends being threatened, and finding evidence of my boyfriend being attacked. Now the initial shock had worn off, my arm and shoulder really hurt, and I couldn’t stop shaking. I staggered back to where Tom and Luce held the man down, and then I slumped to the floor and huddled into myself.
Sirens blared, followed by footsteps. Someone called my name. The cavalry had arrived. Luce melted into the shadows, reappearing as herself again, a couple of minutes later. As soon as three uniformed officers hurried in, Tom bolted up the tunnel, returning fully clothed.
I answered the questions as best I could. Tom and Luce chipped in too.
When the thug shouted about being attacked by giant dogs, the three of us just shrugged and looked puzzled. Yes, there had been a couple of strays in here, but in the confusion over the arrival of the police, I’d no idea where they went.
I didn’t particularly care about the assault; my sole focus was on finding the report about the original callout. The details about Alun. We ended up at the police station, where we had to tell our story all over again.
My patience snapped. “For God’s sake! My boyfriend may be lying in a hospital bed right now, while everyone thinks he’s dead. Please. Just tell us what happened.”
It worked. Half an hour later, a kind-faced female officer escorted us to the nearest hospital. I huddled in the back of the car with Luce, clutching her hands like a lifeline. What if it wasn’t him?
The day Alun disappeared, the police had raided the tunnel and arrested a number of people, before someone literally tripped over a young man lying unconscious in the shadows. He carried no ID, had no phone, and looked as though he’d been in a fight.
They’d made the assumption he was there to buy drugs.
He’d suffered a knife wound and a head trauma, and currently lay in a coma. Until he woke up—if he woke up—they couldn’t identify him.
We walked up endless brightly lit corridors, rode in an elevator, and finally had to wait in a side room, while the police officer talked to the medical staff. Tom paced up and down, his hands shoved into his pockets, his lips a tight line. Luce sat with her arm around my waist. I refused to let anyone examine my shoulder, until we had an answer. I couldn’t waste another minute, or have any other delay.
“What are they doing?” snarled Tom. “It doesn’t take this fucking long to find out which bed he’s in.” He glanced out of the window at the darkening sky. It was already dusk. “If they don’t come back in the next minute, I swear I’m going to look in every room I come to. This is driving me insane.”
I knew how he felt. I clung to my composure by the finest of threads. My stomach churned endlessly, and I knew—I just knew—I was close to breaking down, and howling. If this wasn’t Alun, if it really was some idiot doing a drug deal…
No. I couldn’t think like that. He hadn’t been on that train. He couldn’t have been.
A young nurse entered the room and looked at us. “Is Olivia Tanner here?”
“Yes.” I pushed to a standing position. “That’s me.”
She took a step closer, and I tried to interpret her expression. Her eyes were kind, and her smile was sympathetic. I felt, rather than saw, Luce stand up next to me.
“The patient you were asking about is in the HDU,” the nurse said.
I knew the letters, but my mind couldn’t make sense of them. I stared at her.
“High Dependency Unit,” she said. “He seemed to be stabilizing, but his condition deteriorated yesterday.”
I heard deteriorated, and very little else. “Please,” I croaked, my throat as dry as the Sahara, “can you take us there?”
“Of course. Follow me.”
My knees felt like jelly, but I knew Tom and Luce would keep me upright. Another set of endless corridors. Another elevator. And finally, two sets of double doors, and a nursing station. Our nurse spoke rapidly with someone behind the counter, and then beckoned us closer.
“He’s in this bay. You can look from the entrance, and see if you recognize him.”
Oh God. This was it.
Chapter Fourteen
Four steps.
My feet could have been encased in lead. I was terrified. There were so many possibilities. If it wasn’t Alun. If it was Alun, and he was dying. If it was Alun, and he never woke up.
I made deals with whatever deity might be listening. I didn’t care if Alun was different. If he was some kind of freaky werewolf. I still loved him anyway. I’d
accept him however he was, if he would just come back to me. I’d move anywhere he wanted. I’d marry him, at the absolute earliest opportunity.
The room was larger than I’d expected, with four beds separated by thick white curtains. The low light levels reflected back in the dark windows, and machines beeped and hummed everywhere. The nurse pointed to the second bed. My heart stuttered.
“Alun,” I whispered.
He lay motionless, wires connecting him to a bank of monitors. His face, normally tanned and healthy, was pale, and obscured by a ventilator mask.
He was alive.
I remembered Tom and Luce, and turned around, my eyes filling with tears. Luce clung to Tom, and they both stared at me, matching expressions of hope and fear on their faces. I couldn’t speak. Tears blinded me, but they were tears of happiness. Of utter bone-shaking relief. I nodded and smiled, and suddenly we were all hugging. Luce sobbed, Tom wiped his eyes, and I held onto Alun’s friends. His amazing, loyal, wonderful friends. God, how I owed them.
We surrounded Alun’s bed, and for the first time in way too long, I tangled my fingers through his. Luce pressed a soft kiss to his forehead and stroked his hair, while Tom squeezed his arm.
“Alun, baby.” The words stuck in my throat. “I’m here. We’re here. And we need you to wake up.”
“We need to tell his parents,” murmured Tom.
I nodded. “Will you? Please?” I couldn’t leave Alun’s bedside. Not now. Not after finding him again.
****
The night passed in a blur of interviews with the nursing staff and the police, and with phone calls. Tom broke the incredible news to Alun’s parents, while I rang mine. I also made a short and emotional call to Sasha. One day, I would have to thank him in person.
It would be good to do that with Alun. Having lost him, and then found him again, I refused to believe he might not recover.
“Comas are tricky,” explained the doctor. “Sometimes the brain just needs time to heal. Talk to him, play him music through earbuds, and touch him.”
I nodded. I would do all that anyway. No matter how long it took.
****
The hospital quickly became my new world. They moved Alun into a private room, since he now had a continuous stream of visitors. Apart from food and bathroom breaks, and sporadic attempts at sleeping, I didn’t leave his side.
Night after night, I fell asleep, but he didn’t visit my dreams. I clung to the belief that if he did, it would mean he was improving again.
We developed a routine, Luce and Tom and I, and our families. Long games of Scrabble played on the end of his bed, endless hours of listening to his favorite rock bands, and quiet time when I curled up in the chair next to his bed and just held his hand. I talked to him. A lot. Told him I knew about his animal side, and how it didn’t matter in the slightest. Over and over, I told him how much I loved him, how I wanted to marry him, how beautiful his gift to me was. How he needed to wake up.
I told Luce I didn’t want to know any more about the wolves. I hoped to learn everything from Alun, when he woke up, and she smiled and hugged me. “That’s as it should be, Livvy.”
My job interviews went on hold. Nothing else mattered right now.
We’d been there two weeks, when I heard a strange noise in the corridor. Singing? Christmas carols? The duty nurse appeared at the doorway. “The local church choir are touring the hospital, collecting donations for the homeless. Would you like them to come in to Alun’s room?”
It was Christmas already? The past weeks had all blurred together. I was there with Pam, Alun’s mum, and we looked at each other. She nodded and smiled. “He might enjoy it, and I think I would.”
They gathered in the doorway, and sang two traditional carols, their voices soaring, as though they carried all our hopes skyward. It was beautiful, and Pam and I both donated generously to their collecting tins. I sat holding Alun’s hand, and thought about our original plans for Christmas Day. We’d spent it the previous year at my mum and dad’s, and this year we’d planned to spend it with Alun’s parents in Tanygrisau. I might well be spending the holiday with them, but here in London instead.
I ran my fingers through Alun’s hair, and pressed a kiss onto his cool cheek. “It’s nearly Christmas, babe. The present I want most of all is for you to wake up.”
I played more Scrabble with Pam, read some stories aloud from the newspaper, and then we talked about leaving for the night. We were staying with some distant relatives on Alun’s side, and luckily it was just a short cab-ride away.
Pam yawned. She looked exhausted, and I suggested she go back early and get some sleep.
Alone in the room, I curled up in the chair, and held Alun’s hand. I’d stay a little longer, and then head out. Maybe I’d finally see him in my dreams tonight.
Chapter Fifteen
I knew I was dreaming when I looked up to see Alun sitting cross-legged on top of his bed. No longer dressed in a backless hospital gown, he wore jeans and a faded T-shirt, sneakers on his feet.
“Hey.” He quirked one eyebrow. “I thought you’d never go to sleep.”
“Alun.” Raw delight filled me, and I stared at him, hungry for every detail. “Babe, I’ve missed you so much.”
“Come on, then.” He held out a hand, and wiggled his fingers. “Shall we go?”
I’d go anywhere with him. I clasped his hand, and blinked. We appeared on a rocky outcrop in the middle of a winter storm. Snow fell steadily, creating a thick carpet for our feet. I never felt the cold, even though I should have been freezing. The sun was completely obscured by clouds, but it had the feeling of early morning.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Smiling, he led me a few steps to a gentle slope, covered entirely in pure, untouched snow. It could have been a blanket, freshly laid for us. I’d never seen so much pristine snow before. “If you look over yonder”—he pointed in the distance—“you’ll see Tanygrisiau at the foot of the hill.”
“Beautiful.” I twirled round and admired the view from every angle, then realized Alun was watching me.
“Yes,” he murmured, intensity burning in his eyes. “But it’s time for the angels.”
“What?” An icy hand clutched at my heart. Was this Alun’s way of saying goodbye? Bringing me to his home one last time? “No.” I stumbled into his arms. “No, baby. Please, don’t go. I don’t want to be without you. I only just found you again.”
He held me close, and stroked my hair, kissed my eyebrows and cheeks, and then chucked me under the chin. “I heard you singing about Christmas.” That was right; the choir had been singing carols. “And yeah, it made me think about angels.” I burrowed into his arms. I wasn’t letting him go. Not again.
“Come on,” he whispered into my hair. “It’s time.” He moved back, creating a tiny gap between us. I clung to his hand so tightly, our fingers would have to be pried apart with a crowbar. “Are you ready, Cariad?”
Fear rushed in. If I died in my dream, would I die in real life too?
Alun cocked his head to one side. “On three.” Huh? He led me forward, to the start of the brilliant white slopes. “One, two, three.”
He leapt, pulling me with him to land on our butts in the snow. All the air rushed out of my lungs, but I heard Alun whoop in delight.
“Snow angels,” he shouted. Lying on his back, he flapped his arms, and scissored his legs in the snow. “Let’s do a double.” He squeezed my hand, where it lay on the snow. “Perfect snow, perfect angels.”
I laughed so much, so hard, my stomach hurt. Perfect Alun.
****
I lurked in the not-quite-asleep fog of pre-waking, and smiled at the crazy dream I’d just had. We’d made snow angels and played together like children, as the flakes fell around us, creating fresh fields of white at every turn. Magical, silly, and fun. I’d also been aware that Alun had drawn me into a dream. Was it a sign he was getting better?
A squeeze on my hand dragged me awake. Had the
nurse come in? I opened sleep-filled eyes, and lifted my head, only to find the room empty.
I glanced at Alun. I didn’t dare to hope.
Our hands rested on the bed, fingers linked. I lifted them to my mouth, and pressed a kiss onto his knuckles. This time, I didn’t imagine the squeeze. His fingers moved in my hand.
“Alun?” I leaned over the bed, and stroked his hair. Please wake up. He squeezed my hand again, harder, and his eyelids fluttered. “Alun, baby? It’s me, Olivia.” I could barely speak over the crashing of my heart. I held tightly to his hand, and forced myself to take a deep breath. To speak more clearly. “Are you going to wake up now?”
His nose twitched, and then his lips moved. This was it; he really was waking. Common sense finally kicked in, and I stretched up and hit the red alarm button over his bed.
The world went a little bit crazy. Nurses flooded in, a couple of doctors, and the quiet evening calm was replaced with noise, voices, footsteps, and chaos. And in the middle of it all, Alun opened his eyes and smiled at me.
****
The hospital finally agreed Alun would be able to go home on Christmas Eve. He was cranky, and tired of being confined, and had nagged non-stop to be released, but now he had a date, he was focused on getting well.
Luce took me for coffee one afternoon, while Alun was undergoing his physical therapy exercises, and she tried to explain. “It’s our animal side. It needs to come out, and he’s not allowed to shift here, in the hospital. Can you imagine what would happen?”
In the last two weeks, I’d had very little time alone with Alun, and I looked forward to some privacy with him. I wanted to know everything, and I wanted him to teach me.
We’d talked in my dreams, of course. I knew Alun, his family, and his friends from Snowdonia called themselves Shifters. They were born with an animal side to them—a wolf that emerged during puberty. For their mental health, they needed to shift at least every other day, and they preferred to live near wild open spaces. It was a secret way of life that had been around so long, nobody knew where or when it had started. I also knew they Mated for life, and once they found their soulmate, they could communicate in their dreams.
