The Better To Kiss You With

by Michelle Osgood

  “What’s the plan, Dee?” Nathan had to bend down to shout in her ear. Wordlessly, she shook her head. She wouldn’t know what to do until she saw crywolf.

  “The two packs with the biggest turnout tonight are the Bloodrose Pack and the Hollow Cave Pack.”

  The crowd went wild, yelling as the two packs stomped their feet and howled.

  “We’ve got a great new story to start telling with you, but first—the Hunt!” The cheering reached a fever pitch, and Deanna was beginning to think she’d be deaf by the night’s end. She still couldn’t pick out the two faces she was searching for, and the sweep of colored lights over the faces of the crowd distorted the ones she could see. A wolf mask looked as if it were leering at her; and as she peered closer, the man lifted it off his face so he could wave it in the air, and she saw it was just a kid excited about the Hunt. Frustrated, she kept a hold of Nathan’s hand and began to move forward through the crowd—maybe Jamie was up higher in the seats and out of the wash of the lights.

  “We’ve got seven of these hidden out in the surrounding woods.” Deanna turned back in time to see the DJ raise a mid-sized stuffed toy deer above his head and wave it around. A ribbon was tied around its throat. In the lights it was hard to tell, but Deanna thought it was bright red. “The first pack to bring back four of them wins. And let me tell you guys, I got a peek at what’s coming up next, and trust me, you want to win!”

  Deanna hadn’t thought the screams could get louder, but they did. She was glad for the leash and Nathan’s hand, because without them she’d clap her hands over her ears. As the DJ began to go over the rules, they continued to work their way through the crowd.

  “Absolutely no physical contact between players. Come on you guys, this is a game, and if anyone bullies a deer away from anyone else their entire pack forfeits, so play nice—”

  The longer the event went on without an interruption from crywolf, the more tension knotted Deanna’s shoulders until now they ached with it. She shoved through a particularly dense section of the crowd and wondered if she should have called in a bomb threat. They’d have had to cancel, and none of these people would be here, gathered—as crywolf had said—like sheep. She was pretty sure false bomb threats were a felony, but she wished she had thought of it earlier. She’d use Nathan’s phone to make one now, except that it was too late.

  “Jamie,” Nathan was yelling, using his height to look over heads. “Jamie!”

  “It’s no use.” Deanna’s resolve was crumbling, and angry tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “We’ll never find her in this mess. God, I don’t know how to stop this.”

  There was a momentary hush of silence as the DJ held up his hand and everyone with blue or orange wristbands tensed in readiness for the Hunt. In the sudden quiet Deanna heard, clear as anything:

  “Wicked contacts, bro!”

  Yanking her hand free of Nathan’s, she whipped around to see a pair of ghastly orange eyes glare at her from a black wolf mask that covered half of a man’s face. He was clean-shaven now, and when he saw her looking, his grin widened. Deanna felt her heart stop. She reached blindly for the bag on her shoulder, and then crywolf was swallowed up by the crowd.

  “There!” She grabbed for Nathan, pointing at where crywolf had just been. Onstage, the DJ gave the go-ahead, and, with another howl, the crowd exploded toward the trees. Deanna didn’t have time to decide what to do; she and Nathan and Arthur were swept up and moving toward the woods. She could just see the ears of crywolf’s mask in the crowd ahead and, making sure to keep a tight hold on Arthur and Nathan, she followed.

  Chapter Sixteen |

  On either side of the stage, checkpoints had been set up to ensure that the only players participating in the Hunt were members of either the Bloodrose or Hollow Cave packs, and Deanna sent a mental thank you to Ravi for insisting she get her wristband. She and Nathan were both part of Hollow Cave, and they were waved forward. Now that they were moving through the woods, Deanna lost track of crywolf, and she tried not to let show how much that scared her.

  “Seriously, Deanna.” Nathan yanked her to a stop at the side of the path. “What is your plan here? You can’t—” He broke off, rubbing his eyes. “If you find him, what are you going to do? If he’s actually a werewolf—I know, I know,” he waved a hand as she opened her mouth to protest, “I believe you, okay? But if he’s a werewolf, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Deanna snapped. “All right? I have absolutely no idea. But I can’t let someone get hurt.”

  “We can call the cops.” Nathan lowered his voice, and glanced around to make sure that no one was listening. “If we tell them that someone has a gun, that he was threatening people…”

  Deanna gnawed at her lip. It wasn’t the worst idea. She didn’t want to get Jamie in trouble with her pack, or the assembly, for exposing werewolves to humans; but none of the people here were prepared to be attacked. They were here to play a game, to have fun, not to have to fight for their lives against something they only knew from monster movies.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s do it.”

  Nathan reached for his phone just as someone burst through the trees beside them. They both jumped back, Nathan into a weird pseudo-karate stance and Deanna yanking the sports bag from her shoulder. Arthur, meanwhile, gave a bark of welcome and danced up on his back legs until Jamie gave him a pat on his head.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.” She was angrier than Deanna had ever seen her, and Deanna had to fight a twinge of guilt.

  “I couldn’t just leave you,” Deanna argued. “I mean, I did. But that was stupid, and selfish, and I’m sorry that—”

  “Deanna.” Jamie’s sharp rebuke cut through Deanna’s apology. “Not the time, yeah?”

  “Right.” Deanna pressed her lips shut.

  “He went that way.” Nathan gestured to the trees in front of them. “We were going to call the cops, unless you have a genius containment plan that you can put into action, like, now.”

  “No one is calling the cops. You two, and Arthur, need to leave. I’ll take care of this.”

  “I’m not leaving—” Deanna began hotly as Nathan argued, “How exactly do you plan on—”

  “Listen to me.” Jamie’s eyes were beginning to pale; the shift from whiskey-gold to cold, clear gray stole Deanna’s breath. Beside her, Nathan swore, low and reverent. “This isn’t your fight, and this isn’t your problem. Go home.”

  Deanna squared her shoulders, ready to argue though Jamie wasn’t saying anything that Deanna hadn’t said herself earlier, when a piercing howl rent the air. Jamie froze, and Arthur began to growl.

  On the path, players still headed into the woods, and Deanna heard one remark to her friend, “Wow, they have the best special effects! Allison just texted me to say she saw an actual wolf!”

  “We’re not leaving you,” Deanna said firmly, turning back to Jamie, as Nathan nodded in agreement.

  “Fine. Then you’d better keep up.” Jamie turned and began to run through the forest in the direction of the howl. Nathan gave a loud whoop and followed. Deanna unclipped Arthur’s leash and raced after them.

  It was fully dark now, and they weren’t running along the path, which was still packed with Bloodrose and Hollow Cave players. They had to run beside it, and Deanna was forced to trust her feet in the underbrush. Branches whipped past her face and tore her bare arms, and after a few minutes Deanna knew blood had been drawn in more than one place. Ahead of her, she could just keep sight of Nathan’s slender body pelting through the trees; his white T-shirt was a beacon she could follow. Arthur overtook him, hot on Jamie’s heels.

  As her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and the sound of her ragged breathing filled the air, a second howl echoed from the woods. A chill rippled down her spine. She didn’t know if it was crywolf or Jamie, and the uncertainty gave her an extra burst
of speed so that she nearly caught up with Nathan, even though his longer legs ate up the ground much faster than hers.

  “If we die,” Nathan’s panting voice carried back to her, “this is going to be an awesome way to go.”

  Deanna didn’t have the breath to tell him to shut up, but she was surprised to find that she agreed with him. She didn’t want to die, but there was a certain thrill in knowing that if she did it would be in trying to fight a murderous werewolf.

  The sports bag banged heavily against her back; the aluminum bat slammed into her with every jolting move forward, and she huffed her frustration but refused to drop it. She’d have nothing but her bare hands to fight with otherwise. Nathan had scooped up a large branch and held it aloft like a sword. Deanna bared her teeth as she leapt over a fallen log. They should have looked ridiculous, the pair of them chasing after a golden retriever in the forest in the dead of night, but she thought they looked fierce.

  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought they were pulling away from the path. Good, she thought, good to stay away from the humans. If it was odd that she’d started thinking of herself as something other than human, she didn’t have time to examine the notion.

  As she began to pant, and the stitch in her side started to scream with pain at every running step, Deanna realized that Nathan was slowing down. She caught up with him just in time to burst through the trees into a small clearing.

  The light of the full moon shone through the break in the trees, illuminating in stark white light the scene before them. Two crumpled bodies lay at the other edge of the clearing, and Deanna could just make out a stuffed deer with its bright red ribbon clutched in the limp hand of a teenaged girl. In the middle of the clearing, two snarling wolves, both the size of small ponies, tore at each other.

  Nathan’s eyes were huge in his pale face, and his hand shook before he clasped Deanna’s shoulder. “Jesus. You weren’t kidding.”

  Deanna shook her head numbly. She could recognize Jamie; the bridled gray-brown of her fur was washed out in the light of the moon but stark in contrast to the darker pelt of crywolf.

  Arthur hadn’t paused at the edge of the clearing as she and Nathan had, and by the time Deanna could yank her attention away from the two fighting werewolves, Arthur had jogged across the field to the two bodies and was nudging the girl.

  “Come on.” Deanna pushed Nathan. “I’ve got a first aid kit in here. I don’t know if it will do much good, but if they’re still alive…” She let the sentence trail off as they moved as quietly as possible around the edge of the clearing.

  In the center the two wolves bit and snapped at each other, leaping together with savage jaws open wide before falling back to bristle and circle on stiff legs. Deanna had to force herself to ignore them and tune out the deadly growls as she dropped to her knees beside the two strangers.

  Nathan hurried to the girl’s side and, when Deanna dropped the bag, he grabbed for it and rummaged for the first aid kit. “She’s still alive,” he told Deanna. The pads of his fingers were slick with blood from where he’d pressed them against the side of the girl’s neck to check her pulse. “I just need to stop the bleeding.”

  Deanna nodded, already running light hands over the body of the teenage boy to see what the damage was. His torso was a mess of blood, but as she hovered over it, not wanting to touch so much exposed flesh, his chest moved with a shallow breath and her panic eased. They were both alive, and as long as Jamie kept crywolf distracted, they would stay that way.

  Nathan tore several lengths of gauze before tossing the roll to Deanna, who caught it and stared blankly at the wounds in front of her. A handful of gauze wouldn’t be enough to stop the boy’s bleeding. “Give me your shirt,” she demanded, not looking up as she unwound a strip of gauze.

  Nathan complied, handing over his T-shirt before pressing his wad of gauze over the bloody wound on the girl’s collarbone. Deanna folded the shirt in half before pressing it over the boy’s chest and winced as blood began to soak through the fabric at once. She’d planned to tie it to him with the gauze strip, but realized she wouldn’t be able to lift him, and she wasn’t sure if lifting him was a good idea considering the torn mess of his chest.

  Arthur stood in front of the four of them. His chest rumbled with a low growl as he watched Jamie and crywolf. Deanna had no idea what to do next, or if there was anything more they could do.

  “We have to call 911,” she said to Nathan, keeping her voice down. “They need an ambulance. They need a doctor.”

  “I know.” Nathan’s eyes were grim. Blood smudged his cheek and his bare chest.

  Deanna looked at the two wolves, apart now and both panting. Because of crywolf’s dark pelt she couldn’t tell if he was injured, but Jamie seemed to favor her right front paw, and blood gleamed wetly along her flank. She wasn’t as big as crywolf, and Deanna felt like crying as Jamie lunged at him again.

  Nathan had worked his phone out of his pants, and was pressing at the screen awkwardly with his left hand as he kept the right pressed to the girl’s shoulder.

  “Wait,” Deanna stopped him. “They can’t come if—we can’t let them know what happened. They can’t see the werewolves.”

  Nathan stared at her. “What do you want me to do? Wait until they bleed to death? Dee, I’m calling.”

  Deanna knew he was right, but she could only imagine what would happen when the paramedics came with police and they saw two deadly animals and two injured humans. She wasn’t sure if Jamie could survive a gunshot wound, but she didn’t want to find out.

  “Jamie,” she called. “You have to get out of here! You have to take him and you have to go.”

  The moment of inattention was all it took. Jamie twisted to look at Deanna and that’s when he struck. Hundreds of pounds of fang and muscle slammed into the exposed line of Jamie’s throat. Deanna’s cry of horror was drowned out by crywolf’s victorious howl as Jamie crashed to the ground and didn’t get up.

  With a nimble leap, crywolf jumped over her body and began to stalk across the clearing toward them.

  Chapter Seventeen |

  Nathan reached for the roadside first aid kit, pulled out a flare and lit it before he grabbed his branch and rose to his feet. His face was hard with determination, but Deanna saw him swallow uncertainly. She stood with him, the baseball bat gripped tightly in both hands. As one they moved to stand in front of the two teenagers.

  Arthur crouched low before them, his muscles coiled as he readied himself to attack. What a good dog.

  Deanna met Nathan’s eyes. The red light of the flare made shadows dance wildly around them and reflected off the lenses of his glasses. She thought she should say something—I’m sorry, or thank you—but Nathan grinned, sharp and sudden, and Deanna found herself laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Both of them grinning, hands stained with blood that wasn’t theirs and holding what could barely be referred to as weapons, they faced the werewolf.

  “Come on, you fucker,” Deanna called, widening her stance. “You don’t scare me.”

  That was a lie, since alarm bells were ringing so loudly in her ears that she didn’t think she’d be able to hear anything over the sound of them, and her skin felt tight where it was exposed to the cool night air. But when she tightened her grip around the handle of the bat, her fingers stopped shaking. She might be scared, but she was still standing.

  Crywolf moved closer, his muscles rippling under the thick coat of fur. At this distance, Deanna could see the damage Jamie had done. She felt a fierce well of pride at the vicious slashes Jamie’s teeth had left in crywolf’s side. She couldn’t see if Jamie was still breathing, but Deanna refused to believe otherwise. She knew Jamie could heal—she had seen it with her own eyes, Jamie healing instantly from the odd hickey or minor bruise—and she hoped that a more serious wound only needed more time.

  Crywolf moved low to the ground. His muscles
bunched as he readied himself. Arthur barked furiously, and Deanna wished with an aching fierceness that she had left him in the car.

  Between one breath and the next, crywolf leapt. Deanna felt more than heard a cry of fury tear itself from her throat as she ran to meet his attack. But the attack never arrived, because just as crywolf’s feet left the air something quick and pale darted from the shadow of the trees to their left and drove him to the ground. A second shape followed as quickly, and before Deanna’s eyes could make sense of what she was seeing, a writhing ball of fur and fangs surged past them so that she and Nathan had to leap out of its way. Arthur was still barking, but Nathan abandoned their last stand and rushed to where his phone lay, dialing as the two new werewolves continued their vicious attack on crywolf.

  Deanna dropped the bat and moved in a stumbling run across the clearing. The adrenaline that had coursed through her veins only seconds earlier seemed to have fled, and with it any remaining coordination. She fell to her knees beside Jamie.

  Jamie’s eyes were open as she whined softly, and when Deanna pulled her hand away from Jamie’s furred side she saw that it was wet with yet more blood. Deanna wiped her hand on her thigh before cupping Jamie’s large head and easing it onto her lap so she could stroke the soft fur behind Jamie’s ears.

  “Shh, you’re okay,” she soothed, a thread of concern in her voice as she tried to sound confident. “Your pack is here. They’ve got him, and you’re going to be okay.” She didn’t know if the two gray wolves were a part of Jamie’s pack, but she figured it was a safe assumption. She could see that one of them had pinned crywolf to the ground. Its jaws locked around the darker wolf’s neck as the second wolf stepped away.