by Shara Lanel
“I probably won’t call again tonight—gets pretty noisy around here even before nighttime. I’ll call you first thing in the morning, though, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Love you.”
“Um, yeah.” She clicked the red button to end the call and sighed. Her feelings for Jake were intense and complicated and she just couldn’t bring herself to say she loved him, though she had the sneaking suspicion that she did.
Outside, the long shadows from the setting sun made for a premature dusk. The moon hung in a space between two buildings that Christine could see out of the apartment window. She leaned her head against the glass staring at it, thinking about Jake, when she heard something crash in Dean’s room. She opened the door just as he screamed.
“What’s wrong?” Her heart was in her throat.
“I don’t know!” Tears were coming down his face. His drinking glass was shattered on the floor, Coke soaked into the carpet. His chair and desk were flipped backward and his homework papers flung throughout the room. His body jerked and he cried out, “It hurts!”
She ran up to him. “Tell me where.”
“Everywhere.”
She hugged him and he felt like a furnace. She started checking his arms for breaks, and realized his skin was covered with hives, which he had scratched to bleeding. His eyes were tearing, he was panting, and his teeth seemed to grow long before her eyes. His finger nails lengthened and yellowed. Christine touched his cheek to turn his face toward her. His eyes were glowing.
“Christine, what’s happening?” He jerked away from her and screamed again.
The only time she’d ever seen someone in this much pain was at the last full moon. Jake. But he’d never said anything about Dean changing! And wouldn’t he have taken his son with him to this mysterious compound if he changed just like he did?
“Dean.” His whimpers were so loud she wasn’t sure if he heard her. “Dean! Um, I’m going to get my phone, okay? And call the ambulance, okay?”
In the kitchen, she tried to keep from hyperventilating as she scooped up her phone and called Jake. It went to voice mail. God, was he already out of reach? It was barely six o’clock. She dialed again. Voice mail. What if he never answered? What should she do? If Dean was really changing in the same way Jake did, then she couldn’t take him to the hospital. She dialed again. She texted. Then she dialed again.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” Dean’s screams were so loud she was afraid a neighbor would call the cops. She had to do something. She went back into the bedroom holding the phone to her ear. “What do I do? What do I do?”
Finally she heard Jake’s voice. “What’s wrong? Is Dean hurt?”
“Um…” She burst out crying, because the boy before her was in so much pain as his bones began to contort and his skin took on a red hue and he scratched it until it bled.
* * * * *
The laughter, boasting, and conversations filled up the hall, making it impossible to hear. Folks were starting to strip out of their clothes and move out onto the broad teak deck outside. Jake hadn’t heard his phone, just felt it vibrating, but the sudden panic was unmistakably Christine’s. And now she was sobbing in his ear.
“Christine, I’m starting to change. I won’t be able to talk to you much longer. Tell me what’s going on.”
“He’s changing. He’s changing like you! I don’t know what to do, how to help him!”
“He’s what?” Jake’s heart lurched and he sank to his knees. No, that’s wrong. He’s never changed before.
“He’s changing, Jake. What do I do? He’s going to hurt himself. The neighbors are going to call the cops. He can’t go to the hospital. What do I do?” The phone became muffled. “Come here, Dean baby. It’s going to be all right. I know it hurts.” Then her voice was loud in Jake’s ear again. “What…do…I…do?”
Saron came up to Jake and placed his hands on his shoulders waiting for him to look up into his questioning face. Jake covered the mouthpiece of the phone. The screen was now wet and smudged with his tears. “My son…” Then his own change bit into him. He hadn’t even realized the sun had set completely. “My son…”
He no longer heard voices coming from the deck. He heard howls, growls, and yelps. The wolves were launching off the deck into the forest to race and play and hunt. Jake was holding off his change as best he could, but soon it wouldn’t matter what he wanted.
Saron took the phone from him and told him. “Go. I can hold off longer.”
He heard Saron start to talk to Christine in a calming voice, but then pain racked him and in a few minutes, he no longer remembered what a cell phone even was.
Christine decided she didn’t have time to panic because she could feel Jake’s change coming on within her. She was about to lose touch with her lifeline because he was turning into a wolf too.
A strange voice said, “Christine?”
She put the phone back to her ear. She’d wrapped Dean in blankets, trying to stop him from scratching himself, but he kept thrashing so they’d fall off again. He wasn’t screaming now, just whimpering, horrible, pitiful sounds like a hurt puppy.
“Christine, I’m Saron. Jake’s mentioned me?”
“Yes.”
“I only have a few moments before I too change. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I know you’re worried about the boy and his pain and confusion, but the boy is most dangerous to you. He has to be restrained, quickly, before he’s completed his change. He’ll be hungry and you’ll look like food.”
“But Jake didn’t hurt me when he became the wolf.”
“Jake has been changing every month for years. The first time is the hardest and scariest and the wolf will react in fear. Do you have some place and some way to restrain him?”
“The closet.” She didn’t know if Jake had left it empty with the collar in there, but it was the only place she could think of.
“Use a low, calm voice and coax him into that closet. Then lock that door, leave the room, and lock the next door. Find yourself a safe place to hide where his claws can’t get to you when he breaks through.”
“When he breaks through?” What if he broke through and went out into the city? He’d be shot.
“Do it now. The moon calls me. I have to go.”
Dean’s eyes had lost any human quality. Christine reached for his hand, his paw, and said, “Come with me, sweetie. I’m gonna make it all better. It won’t be long now. You’ll be fine.” She kept up the litany as she guided him from his room into Jake’s.
“My dad…” Dean’s last words before his human voice left him. He looked more and more animal.
“I just talked to your dad. He’ll be back tomorrow. For now, I’m going to keep you safe. He’ll explain it all tomorrow.” She opened the door to the closet. Jake had hung some of his clothes on the rack, but the floor was mostly clear and the collar and chains were still attached to the wall. Dean was starting to react badly to her leading him anywhere, pulling back, growling.
“Come on, you know me. You know I’m not going to hurt you. This is the safest place, okay? I’ll get you some food and water. You’ll have a nice nap.” She got him fully in the closet, but then she had to maneuver around him so she was the one closest to the door. She was cooing to him as if he were a newborn. He was still responding to her voice, but she didn’t know if he was hearing her with his human consciousness or with the wolf’s. “I’m going to put this around your neck, okay?”
He growled.
“Really, it’ll keep you the safest.” She couldn’t leave him loose and worry about him crashing through doors. But what if he could tear the chain from the wall? She couldn’t deal with what ifs, just this one task. “I’m putting this around your neck to keep you safe.” She managed to get it on and was trying to buckle it when his long teeth locked onto her arm. Blood spurted. Tears sprang into Christine’s eyes and she tried not to struggle, not to scream. She just kept talking to him, gettin
g the collar buckled with one hand. She started backing toward the door, which meant letting her arm stretch farther since it was still in his mouth. God, would she have to lose her arm to save herself?
“Dean, drop it.” She tried for that firm alpha dog tone that she’d seen trainers do on TV, while doing her damnedest not to look at the blood, her blood, smearing on Dean’s fur. “Drop it. Be a good dog.”
He bit down harder, but he seemed confused, like the instinct for prey was there but not what to do with it. Suddenly he opened his mouth, which freed her arm. He sat on his haunches and howled, a long, loud howl. Christine fell backward into the bedroom, closed the closet door and turned the bedroom TV up full blast. Then she went into the living room and turned that TV way up. Then she tried to figure out which channel was Animal Planet, forgetting that she was getting blood everywhere. She just wanted to cover up the howling and she couldn’t feel her arm anymore anyway.
Once the TV was on, she ran to the kitchen and started rinsing her arm in cold water. The whole sink was red. Her skin was in slices. She could see the muscle beneath and in some places the bone. Suddenly feeling very lightheaded, she looked around for something to wrap her arm in. The paper towels were on the counter, easy access, but the blood kept soaking through when she tried to wrap them around. She switched to kitchen towels, but she couldn’t apply the proper pressure one handed.
I need a hospital. The thought flitted through her head. I’m going to bleed to death.
But she couldn’t leave Dean. She couldn’t risk him being found. Over the noisy TV she heard the door buzzer. She stumbled to the front door and looked out the peep hole. An elderly lady on the other side looked pissed. Christine opened the door the smallest crack.
“Where’s Jake? You don’t live here. Rude, thoughtless, blasting the TV like that. My husband and I are mostly deaf, and it’s still loud.”
Christine cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded hoarse. “I’m turning it down now, ma’am. Sorry for bothering you.” She shut the door on the lady mid-sentence. She turned that TV down to a normal level, didn’t hear any howling, so she went into the bedroom and did the same. She heard what she thought was digging or scratching at the floor.
“He needs food.” Still dripping blood everywhere, she went back to the kitchen. No jerky, so bologna would have to do. God, the smell made her want to pass out. She filled a saucepan with water. Back in Jake’s room, she opened the closet door a crack and thrust the bologna, still in the package, inside. Once the animal was preoccupied with figuring out how to get the meat out, she shoved in the saucepan of water. She shut and locked the door.
She found herself sitting in the same position, back against the closet door, as she had after Jake’s change. She closed her eyes for a moment, but that’s when her arm started throbbing again. She looked down at her towel-wrapped arm. The towel was red. Then she looked at the rest of the bedroom. Blood everywhere. Jake and Dean were both going to kill her when they saw what a mess she’d made of the apartment. She peeked under the towel at her arm and thought she was going to pass out, but it did look as if the blood was clotting in some places. At least she was already sitting on the floor. She patted her fingertips along her cheeks and forehead. She felt clammy.
Shock, you’re going into shock.
If she could get up, she could go look for bandages in the bathroom, but she didn’t think she could get up. First aid class said you treated shock by keeping the person warm and something about their feet. What was she supposed to do with her feet? She crawled her way to the foot of the bed and tugged until the bedspread, blanket, and sheet fell on top of her. She tried to arrange it some.
“Raise feet,” she told herself, suddenly remembering. She lay back on the floor and propped her feet against the bed and spread the heavy layer of covers over her as best as possible. It seemed counterintuitive to be sweating and covering herself, but she was pretty sure that was what she’d learned in first aid class, which she’d taken as part of her company’s disaster training.
She turned her head sideways—something about gagging—and listened to her far-too-fast breathing. She just needed to survive until morning. Then Dean would be Dean again and she could call an ambulance without risking his discovery. Her thoughts became less coherent and she blacked out.
Chapter Eleven
Jake didn’t know why changing back into human form was so much easier than changing into the wolf. Maybe the wolf felt more natural about it, or maybe the wolf felt the same pain, but he couldn’t remember it once he was human again. He woke up lying naked on Saron’s deck. The sun was struggling to come up over the trees, but it was definitely daybreak or he wouldn’t be conscious. He sat up trying to remember why he felt this sense of urgency. He was worrying about Dean? Why? His mother wouldn’t take him. Who did? Christine.
He shook his head to speed up the synapses. Why worry about Christine? She was extremely responsible. She’d take care of Dean.
Suddenly Dean’s confusion and fear came crashing through. Jake launched to his feet. He needed his phone. He remembered talking to Christine before his change. Where the hell were his clothes? He was too far away. It would take hours to get to him.
Saron loped in from the field. “I put the helicopter on stand-by last night.”
“You did?”
“Last thing I did before I changed.” He started looking around for his clothes as well, but his closet was here so the task wasn’t quite as hard. “We can be there in half an hour.”
Jake remembered everything about his conversation with Christine now and was beyond panic. He could sense how upset Dean was. He asked Saron about it as they, now dressed and equipped with their phones, loped to the large front drive where they could hear the whoop of helicopter blades.
“Any familial blood allows for that extra connection, but it’s usually not as strong as with your mate,” Saron said before it was impossible to talk anymore from the noise and the wind. They got into the helicopter, put on seatbelts and headsets, and were off the ground in seconds.
“But I’m only sensing Dean. I’m not sensing Christine at all.” His own voice sounded funny in the headset. He had been trying Christine’s cell, Dean’s cell, the apartment’s landline ever since he’d found his phone. All went directly to voice mail.
Saron turned to him with a grim look on his face. “Do you normally feel her if she’s asleep?”
“Sometimes even more than if awake.” It was starting to sink in. Why couldn’t he sense Christine? Why weren’t her thoughts and emotions, which had to be strong with Dean changing and all, strobing in his head? “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, do you think…?” He couldn’t even say it. “I didn’t hurt her at all as the wolf.”
“But you said you pushed her out of the closet during your change. A first change—the pain, the fear, the hunger.”
“Oh my God.” What were they going to find when they finally got to his apartment? What if Dean had gotten out of the apartment and was now waking up somewhere in the city, alone, confused and naked?
“Jake, concentrate on your son. Close your eyes. You may be able to see where he is.”
Jake obeyed his mentor’s instructions. Hazy, but that soon cleared. He was pretty sure he was now seeing through Dean’s eyes. “It looks like he’s in my closet.” The overhead light, a bare bulb, was on. There was an overturned pot and some sort of wrapper. The closet smelled like piss. Dean was struggling with something on his neck. Had to be the collar.
“Now see if you can send him some sort of message, not words so much, but calm. Let him know you’re on the way,” Saron said.
Jake decided to first concentrate on the collar. As a human, Dean could unbuckle it, but he was too upset by the prongs to figure that out. Jake pictured the collar and the buckle and hands unbuckling it. Dean seemed to get the message since he finally undid the buckle and pulled the collar off. But his panic rose again as he looked around him and realized there was blood everywhere, smeared
on the pan and on the bologna packaging, on the floor and the few clothes hanging in the closet. He’d been smelling that too, but hadn’t understood what it was.
Jake’s concentration broke as panic set in for Christine. He tried to connect with her, but there was nothing. The beat of the helicopter’s blades banged through his head, and he suddenly felt nauseous with its movement, though that wasn’t really what was making him feel sick. God, was she dead? Was his mate dead?
Had his son killed her?
How would his son live with that, knowing he’d killed someone, even if Jake never told him how important Christine really was?
Saron was talking to the pilot over the headset about Manhattan air traffic. Jake had no idea where they would land. He only prayed it was close so he could get to his son quickly.
He took several deep breaths and tried to focus in on Dean’s view again. He was banging on the closet door, which must have been locked.
Dean, calm down. I’m on my way. He mentally kept repeating that mantra, trying to project it to his son.
“Will he understand the link between us? I mean, does he sense that I’m there in his head?” he asked Saron.
“I think if it was a calm moment, he might have a sense of being watched, as I’m sure Christine did. With his confusing feelings at the moment, I’m not sure he’d notice.” Saron obviously empathized with Dean, even though his first change had been decades ago.
Jake was glad Dean couldn’t get out of the closet. He didn’t want his son to see what was beyond the door. Jake didn’t want to see what was beyond the door. Christine was not responding to Dean any more than she was her phone, so Jake was feeling less and less hope. Perhaps someone had heard and called 9-1-1.
“If Christine was unconscious in a hospital, would I be able to sense her?”
Saron cocked his head in thought. “I think it would depend on how deeply she was under.” The helicopter was banking, giving a good view of the city out of its side windows. Jake could see a helipad on top of a couple of the buildings. Looked like there was one on the West Side. It would still be several blocks’ hike north from the building they were landing on to his apartment.
