Ella pulled her collar tight around her neck, stepping under a row of bleachers. Above them a crooked spear of light bent down from the clouds, and when the first clap of thunder hit, several girls screamed and everything rattled. Some people put umbrellas up. Ella hunched into her jacket, wishing she’d brought a coat with a hood.
More lightning jumped from the sky, a twisted branch of electricity. Through the pounding of the rain and the chatter of the crowd, Ella heard the unified squeal of whistles as the players were hurried off the field. Streams of purple and blue uniforms fled to opposite sides of the stadium.
Ella craned her neck, trying to catch a glance of Brandt, but with their uniforms and the rain, all the players looked the same. Around her, people were gathering their soggy belongings and leaving.
Several more cracks of thunder followed quick bursts of light, and the screen of the scoreboard lit up with a cartoonish frowny face. It looked like the game was cancelled. Everyone was packing up now, even the diehards.
Ella pulled her coat collar tighter around her neck and threw her soggy hot dog into the trash. She had walked here. It was going to be a wet trek home. She stuck her hands in her pockets and started toward the exit when she heard someone call her name.
She turned around, thinking it was Brandt, but there in front of her was Jack—dripping in a thin jacket, his wet cheeks flushed like he was having the time of his life.
“You’re not walking home, are you?” he asked.
Ella shrugged, embarrassed.
“Here,” he said, coming up to her. “I’ll give you a ride. It’s not safe to walk in a storm like this.”
Ella shrugged again, but followed. Jack was even more gorgeous sopping wet than he was dry. Ella shivered in the car as Jack turned on the heat. He handed her a River High Royals blanket. “For that,” he said, “you can thank my brother. He gets me something football themed every year for Christmas.”
Ella wrapped the blanket around herself and snuck a peek at Jack’s profile. He was smiling.
Ella wondered if Brandt would text her later that night like he’d said he would. She wondered if that was what she wanted. She took a deep breath. The blanket smelled like Jack—his cologne, his shampoo, and something muskier underneath. It was all kind of confusing.
Controlling the winds had always been an easy task for the old woman. A few tilts and taps with her staff and she could bring a storm in or push one out.
Now that her staff was gone, it was so much harder. She had to connect herself to the earth, sway with the winds as she drew or deflected them. She had to dig for moisture, or reach for dryness. And she was so very, very old.
She caught a horrible cold the first time she’d done it without her staff, a cold no amount of tea had been able to soothe. This time she would catch more than that.
The Alpha was not pleased with her interference. He had thought that taking the staff would stop her. Now that he knew it wouldn’t, there was only one full-proof way for him to control her.
It wasn’t that she feared death. She had yearned for it in a way that only a person of her age and experience could ever understand. But her death could not come until her life was done. And that was a trickier matter.
Chapter 32
Brandt never texted her. She’d picked up her phone a couple times that weekend, and stared at it, wondering if she should text him first, but she hadn’t.
Now she was glad. That week at school, Brandt stalked through the halls ignoring her, and everyone else—angry, it seemed, that his precious win had been taken from him by the storm.
Ella still had the lollipop in her locker. She took it out and was going to toss it in the trash can when she walked past Lila and Nicole from her homeroom.
“Do you really think he’d date her?” Nicole was whispering to Lila who was fixing her lip gloss in the tiny mirror that hung in her locker.
“I don’t know,” Lila said. “He’s, like, so much hotter than she is, but he seemed kind of interested last Friday. He got her number.”
They could have been talking about any of the hundreds of students at the school, but for some reason Ella slowed down, gripping the lollipop tighter.
“He’s got my number too,” Nicole said, laughing. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
Lila puckered her lips together, evening out the gloss. “Seriously,” she said. “I mean, she’s really not good enough for him. I don’t even know how he noticed her? But whatever. Maybe he just feels sorry for her because her mom died and stuff.”
Ella stopped. She was a few lockers past them. Quietly, she wound through several halls and back to her locker. She put the lollipop on the upper shelf. Her mom would have told her the comment wasn’t worth crying about, and she didn’t. But now she found herself hoping Brandt would call after all.
Sam walked to school. He paused in front of the entrance, and then he kept walking. At the edge of the fence, the janitor stopped him. “Headed the wrong way, ain’t you?”
Sam looked at him. It was the same janitor who had called for help when Howard Simms got beat up. For all the good that had done. “I, um, forgot my homework,” Sam said. “I have to go back and get it.”
“You’re probably better off just heading to class and asking if you can call your mom to bring it.”
Sam had no doubt that he would be better off if that was the way his life worked. “She’s, um, not home.”
The janitor grunted, looking towards the school. “Still probably better off in class.”
Sam nodded, about to turn back to the school, and then hesitated. “Hey, um, sir, you know that kid that got beat up a little while ago over by the football fields?”
The janitor grunted again, but didn’t say anything.
“Do you know what happened to him? He hasn’t been back.”
“He a friend of yours?” the janitor asked, moving his mouth like he was chewing cud.
Sam shrugged, looking past the school in the direction of the fields. “No, I didn’t really know him at all. Just seems weird that he hasn’t come back to school.”
The janitor shrugged. “You know, kid. You’ll learn that a lot of weird things happen in life. Usually, it’s best not to ask too many questions about them.”
Sam bit the inside of his lip, tasting blood on his tongue. “But you do remember that kid, right? You know what I’m talking about?” Sam looked into the janitor’s face. The man’s eyes were blue, a little inky at the centers and lighter at the edges. “Do you know what happened to him?”
The janitor just moved his mouth, tucking what Sam guessed was a wad of chewing tobacco into his cheek. “I don’t know nothing,” the janitor said, almost spitting out the last word. “Now get yourself back to school before the final bell rings.”
The janitor stalked off, spitting into the grass as he walked.
Sam stepped outside the gate of the school property, stood there for a second, and then stepped back in. The final bell rang. Sam ran, then sprinted, taking the front steps three at a time. The janitor was right—so far nothing good had come from asking a question, nothing at all.
Chapter 33
Maybe Jones didn’t name the dogs, but Ella did—every one. She didn’t call them their names when Jones was around, but when she was alone with the dogs she called them with all the sweetness of a mother. Which was how she felt. Like a mother to dogs. Why was she such a freak?
What Sarah had said in Zinnie’s empty house bothered her—she and Sam were different and it was like they couldn’t be normal. Everything Ella did or cared about seemed different than what all the other kids did or cared about. Clearly, scooping dog poop on a random Wednesday was her idea of glamour. And she wondered why she only had two friends—one of them probably insane, and the other rebelling against her parents by hanging out with lonely kids on the fringe, hoping to become as nutso as they were.
It wasn’t working. Sarah was as normal as ever. She’d be picking Ella up to go get hamburgers at six o’clock.
Before then Ella was supposed to shovel and dump any poop that was in the yard, then bathe the dogs. In summer they might not have cared, but on this late autumn day, Ella could tell the dogs were all dreading it.
The sky was still blue and clear, but as the sun started to set, a smile of a moon made its way to the horizon.
It occurred to Ella, as she tied up the bag of poop and unwound the long hose, that she was going to end up smelling like wet dog just as much as the dogs were.
Ella got the bucket of soap ready and looked at the dogs. “Okay, who’s first?” she said, shaking her head.
None of the dogs moved, but she caught the eye of one she called Sheila. “Come on girl,” she said. “Don’t you want to smell nice?” Ella swore Sheila gave her the equivalent of a doggy eye roll—shaking her head and then stepping forward an inch, like an unwilling, but resigned volunteer.
Ella washed Sheila, then the others. At least two of them were filthy again by the time she’d finished the group.
“Seriously guys,” she said, looking at the now-dusty little pug and the muddy husky.
Ella dumped out the buckets and put them in the barn. Dusk was settling into darkness and the wind bent through the dry corn, murmuring and rustling. Ella couldn’t see anything clearly and she felt a little of the old fear come back to her. She hadn’t been at the farm at night since the corn maze.
In the distance, she thought she heard a howl. Ella looked up and over her shoulder. The memory of the werewolf and the scalpel were too close. She jumped up and ran toward the lighted windows of the farmer’s house.
She pounded on Jones’ door and he opened it quickly. “Are you okay?” he asked, clearly alarmed at her face.
“I just,” she said. “I was hearing things and I—”
The farmer ushered her in. “I don’t see anything,” he said, looking out the front door. “But Loco and I will look around after your friend comes to get you.”
Ella stood awkwardly in the entryway.
“Come on in,” Jones said, gesturing toward the living room.
Ella walked through the dark wooden door frame into a spacious warm room while Jones went into the kitchen. The couches were old blues and greens—outdated, but clean and comfortable. The walls and floors were made of wood in various colors and grains. But the most striking thing was that Jones’ house was filled with metal. There were small silver objects everywhere—belt buckles, bracelets, cufflinks, coins, spurs, and even crafts made from used bullet shells.
It was super tacky and Ella loved it all. She walked from end table to end table. Her mother would have swooned over each item, though a lot of it was surprisingly masculine for a bunch of silver stuff. Ella picked up two cufflinks and put them down again.
From the next table she picked up a picture frame made from used bullet shells. Jones came in with two hot chocolates and saw her holding the frame.
“Cool, isn’t it?” he said. “I take old metal and recycle it into different pieces—mostly silver, but also bronze and copper—like those bullet shell frames.”
Ella nodded, distracted. “Where is this?” she asked, squinting at the fuzzy picture.
“Oh, that. That’s in northern Montana—from my hunting days. I don’t hunt much now—just some rabbit or duck here or there. But when I was younger, I went after much larger game.”
Ella held the photo closer to her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but is that Mr. Witten?”
“Yup. We’ve known each other a long time.”
“He’s a hunter?” she asked.
“Pretty good one,” Jones said, setting down the mugs. “Though he doesn’t go out much these days either.”
“You made that bracelet he wears,” she said.
“Right again,” Jones said, sitting down to sip his chocolate.
Ella looked around. “Do you make anything for women?” she asked. “Anything more delicate?”
The farmer leaned back and looked at a distant point across the room. “It’s not my best stuff,” he said. “I don’t really have what you’d call a delicate hand.”
She nodded.
“Oh come on,” he said, setting his mug down. “I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
From inside a small box, he pulled an ugly linked chain, several pendants, and a long hair pin that was sharp at one end like a slightly clumsy lightning bolt.
Ella almost laughed. She’d thought Jones was just being humble, but he really didn’t have a delicate hand. Nothing reminded her even remotely of her mother’s taste in jewelry. However, some of these things might be the perfect fit for a goth-punk girl. Ella held up the chunky chain and a pendant that held a jagged slab of obsidian.
“How much?” Ella asked.
The farmer hesitated. “Oh, you’ve come almost every day this week; you can have that for free.”
“No, it’s okay.” Ella said. “The metal itself must be worth quite a bit—it’s heavy.”
“Bathing those dogs is worth more,” he said stubbornly.
“At least let me pay for your costs,” Ella insisted.
“Fine,” he said. “You can have it at cost—ten dollars.”
Ella pulled a twenty from her purse. “This is all I have.”
Jones raised an eyebrow. He put the chain and pendant in a small white bag, then slipped in the two cufflinks that she had first picked up.
Ella opened her mouth to argue, but Jones held up a hand. “Thank you,” he said, “for all your help on the farm this week.”
Chapter 34
Robert Calhoun paced his small bedroom, balling and relaxing his fists. He wanted to leave, his whole body itched to throw everything into the van, pick Sam up from school, and head out of town. But the body, he knew, was better preserved when it listened to the mind. And for now they had to stay.
For now they had to look like they were just normal folks with nothing to hide. The trailer park, their poverty—it gave them an advantage. Napper didn’t expect ex-members of The Pack to live like paupers, didn’t look for its retirees among the dregs of his own city.
To run would draw attention to themselves. To run would wave a red flag in Napper’s face.
But to stay was dangerous too.
Robert Calhoun had more to lose than Howard Simms, the boy who’d been beaten half to death, then institutionalized—all because his parents had tried to run. Unlike the boy’s family, Robert had not only left the Pack, but he’d left it to marry and then preserve one of the sisters—one of Napper’s most prized treasures. He’d hidden her so long and so well that Napper would never be able to get his hands on her. Calhoun had paid a high price for their hiding. He’d lost his wife. He was terrified about losing his son. And so they would stay in plain sight.
For now.
Sam had wandered through the last week in a haze, barely talking to Sarah or Ella. Seeing them just reminded him he was crazy. The fact that they were still nice to him only made it more embarrassing.
Sarah had asked him if he wanted to go to a movie that weekend, but he’d said he had to do a project for physics. It was a lie. What he had to do was find the picture, the picture of his grandmother with the inscription.
If he could just do that, if he could just read it and see that it said, “To my two beautiful daughters,” then maybe he wouldn’t feel so off-kilter. Maybe he could regain a piece of his old, sane self.
Sam stood in his living room for a minute, and then he started slowly—walking to each room, looking at each picture, then in the closets, behind furniture. With each less likely location, he felt his panic grow.
He started tearing open drawers, throwing out the clothes. He and his dad didn’t have much; a picture shouldn’t be hard to find. He looked between the mattresses, took food out of cupboards. He banged against the floor and then the walls.
When the house had been torn into bits, Sam still had nothing. He grabbed the knob of his father’s bedroom door and slammed it shut.
Then he found it.
The door—it was bottom heavy. Sam slammed it again just to be sure.
Yes, it was a cheap, hollow door, but the bottom seemed heavier. He knelt down and put his hand under it, then lay on his belly, feeling around. And there it was—a tiny latch that locked a tiny door.
When Sam opened it, several dollar bills slipped out. His father’s money-hiding spot. Sam stuck his fingers in and more bills came out—fives and tens, then a twenty. He wiggled his hand in, flat-palmed, pulling gently on the corners of the money. More twenties fell out and then a hundred.
A hundred dollar bill just lying on the floor of his trailer. It must have been bundled with more of its kind because the more he tugged, the more money came out, until he was sitting in thousands of dollars of cash.
Sam started to cry. Clearly he wasn’t the only one with a mental illness.
The picture was almost the last thing to come out—crumpled from being shoved into its tomb in the door. Sam turned the old photograph over and read, “To my two beautiful daughters.”
His dad was a liar.
The word seared through Sam’s skull in a way that made his head burn like nothing else ever had. He had loved his father. He had trusted him. Completely. He’d eaten canned beans and worn clothes with holes and hunted for coins on the sidewalk all on account of that trust. Now he stood, picture in hand, and the money fell off of him like dust.
And then he realized—maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was hallucinating it. He bent over and picked up a hundred dollar bill. He folded it into a tiny square and put it in his pocket. He wanted to see if it would be there in the morning.
When he looked up, his dad was standing at the front door.
Sam held his father’s gaze for a long moment. “Is this real?” Sam asked.
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