by A. J. Downey
I looked him over, shirtless, barefoot, I think his jacket was long gone and I shook my head.
“We need to find you some clothes,” I eyed his pants and shook my head, “Some clothes that fit,” I amended.
“I wear ‘em big on purpose,” he said, frowning. “I can’t transform in clothes that fit properly.”
“Yeah, well, it makes us stand out. I’ve seen that fancy credit card of yours. You can afford more clothes if you tear the ones you’ve got on, so come on. You need to get some serious coin off that card and we need to go.”
The smile returned, “On my side now huh?” he asked.
“No, I’m on my side, but for now that seems to be your side too,” I shook my head, “I want to call my father, let him know I’m okay.” Even if he doesn’t care I want to get some answers of my own. I thought, but I didn’t say that out loud.
“I don’t know about that,” he said.
“Yeah, well, you don’t really get a say in it. You kidnapped me, I’m agreeing to come with you despite everything, so I get this. Okay?”
He nodded, hesitantly, “Okay.”
We got into the car after clearing it off and I hugged myself, rubbing my hands together. I was chilled, not cold, but still couldn’t wait for it to warm up.
“How can you not be cold?” I asked, eyeing William and his state of undress, which, not going to lie, helped heat my blood some. He looked like some kind of underwear model, a nice physique. The claw marks in his shoulder, which had looked really bad the night before, were scabbed over and looked days old, I was pretty sure in a few hours they would be the pink of shiny new scar. It was impressive, unbelievable, but I went with it. I was pointedly ignoring the fail safes in the back of my brain that kept screaming repeatedly at me about just how fucked up this whole situation was.
“Wolf-kind run hot,” he said and I nodded just a little too quickly. He continued on, however, filling the awkward silence that would have ensued with a biology lesson on werewolves, wolf-kind, or whatever. Apparently the amount of calories they expended from their transformations and high body temps is what required him to pack away food like a starving man as he’d been doing since I’d met him. Since he kidnapped you.
“So yeah, our average body temperature is like a hundred and three degrees as opposed to a human’s ninety-eight. It unfortunately makes it easier for the Hunters to identify us as time goes on.”
I quirked an eyebrow at that and he explained.
“Thermal imaging. A wolf-kind’s body will show up hotter on thermal cameras than a humans. It makes it harder and harder for us to hide.”
I stared out the window for a long minute and sighed. Swallowing hard, I jumped when his hand found mine where it rested between us. He gave it a squeeze and I stared at them, his hand around mine, a gesture meant to comfort. I looked at him and he swept me with a concerned glance, returning his vision to the road, glancing at me, the road, me, the road…
“It’s a lot to take in,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “So, um, what do we do now?”
“We get me some more clothes, all I have is the dirty set but it should be enough to get into a store if you can get me some boots, those I don’t have any extra of.”
I frowned at him, “Didn’t exactly think this through did you? The whole kidnapping thing.” I raised my eyebrows and he smiled, I think my heart did a backflip in my chest. His hand tightened around mine slightly and I was startled to realize he still held it.
“Kidnapping isn’t something I’ve ever done,” he admitted.
“What did you do before?” I asked.
He shifted uneasily in his seat, but he answered me, “Usually I just killed whoever, no need for grand plans full of sustainability when all you do is rip someone’s throat out,” he said quietly.
I faced the window, feeling a little green, “I suppose not,” I said quietly and sighed, “Is that what you were planning on doing to me?” I asked, taking back my hand. He let me and I was grateful he didn’t push. I felt further chilled despite the warm air pouring from the car’s vents. I had a feeling I knew what his answer was going to be… the debt must be paid…
“Yes,” he said quietly, “But I don’t think it will come to that anymore. Not with what you know. As for the others? Before I mean, in my defense they were usually people that’d done very bad things. I’m not an indiscriminate murderer, you know,” he said, all of a sudden very defensive. I didn’t say anything and after a while he muttered morosely to himself, “Just thought you should know that.”
“Why do you care what I think?” I asked softly, sobered beyond belief.
He looked me over, “I just do,” he said honestly and it was puzzling.
We drove into the next town in silence, and William found a bank so that he could pull cash funds off his credit card. They would only allow him a certain amount, not nearly enough for what he wanted to do which was get us all the way through the whole trip, but it was enough that we could make some purchases. Clothes, food, another hotel room, gas… enough to get us through the next day, maybe two. So that we could stop, and potentially get more, as we traveled westward, ever onward, tomorrow.
After he’d secured funds, he gave me money to buy him some shoes and turned me loose in front of a discount shoe store. I went in while he sat in the car, watching me nervously. I went to the work boot section and selected the size he’d asked for and paused.
I could run, go out the back, but I knew now, he could track me. With that nose of his, he could literally smell me out. I didn’t know what was going to happen, where we were going to end up but… but those twins, those twins with their cold, coal black eyes from the night before had just oozed menace. I believed William, they would kill me or worse, while he was trying to at least keep me alive, to protect me. For now. I thought, but still, it was my only chance and better than any I had with his brothers.
I purchased the boots and returned to the car and saw, from the corner of my eye, his shoulders visibly sag in relief as I opened the door and sat in the passenger seat.
“You didn’t bolt,” he said and his tone held some disbelief.
“Here I am,” I said in a dubious tone, pulling the seatbelt across my body.
“Great, yeah, okay,” he started the car and we got back on the highway, the afternoon wearing on into evening.
“Clothes, food, hotel?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
We drove in silence, found a Walmart and dispensed with the clothes shopping, picking up a pre-paid cellphone while we were at it.
We made the calls from the Walmart’s parking lot, William standing outside the car, speaking intently into the line with someone from his family, or Pack, or whatever. I waited impatiently in the passenger seat of the car for him to come back, to let me call my dad.
Finally, he ended his call and got in the car, handing me the cellphone. I stared at his somber face and chewed my bottom lip.
“A little privacy?” I asked quietly.
“I could hear your conversation from across the lot if I wanted to, but if it makes you feel better,” he reached for the door handle and I stared at him, incredulous.
“No,” I said before he could get out of the car, “I mean, I guess it’s fine then…” I looked down at the rectangular glass and plastic brick in my hand and brought the screen to life. I entered my daddy’s number and pressed the call button and put the phone to my ear.
“Can I drive?” he asked as it rang and I nodded. He started the car and my dad picked up on the third ring.
“Yes?” my father asked imperiously.
“Daddy?”
“Chloe? Is that you? Where are you?” he asked, voice tinged with the cold hardness that was so familiar.
“I’m okay Dad. It’s okay…” I said and I realized I didn’t know what to say. I mean my father was an accountant for Christ’s sake.
“Where are you?” he demanded, “Are you with somebody?”<
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“Yes! Yes, Daddy I’m with somebody,” I looked at William who was searching my face carefully, before turning back to the road. I hated it when my dad was mad at me. He always managed to say just the right thing to inflict maximum damage, you know? One slight remark from my dad and it was like he pulled the loose thread that had me coming totally apart. Maybe calling him really was a bad idea.
“William is taking very good care of me,” I assured my dad lamely.
Silence on the other end of the line, dead silence. Oh shit. My father was so quiet, that I pulled the phone away from my ear to check and make sure the call was still connected.
“William Reese?” my father asked and I blinked. William nodded beside me, eyes fixed on the road, and I could tell that he could hear both ends of the conversation. Damn that was freaky.
“How… how do you know William’s last name?” I asked my dad, as my whole world began to shift on its axis. I didn’t even know William’s last name. Oh, God… was William right?
“Never mind that, Chloe. Tell me where you are.” he said, his tone was angry, but I couldn’t tell if it was at me. I didn’t want it to be at me. My father had never laid a hand on me growing up, he was worse. Much worse. When I did something wrong he withheld affection. Made me feel like an abject failure. Made certain I knew just how big of a disappointment I was. To say that my dad and I weren’t exceptionally close was an understatement, but I hoped. I’d always hoped…
One of my dad’s biggest things was honesty. To be an honorable person. You said you were going to do something then you damn well had better do it. If you didn’t you weren’t worth shit. Truth, honesty, integrity, and obedience. My father demanded all of these things and more out of his only daughter. Set the bar so high it was impossible to reach, then didn’t hesitate to make sure I knew that failure wasn’t an option.
“Daddy, don’t lie to me, please don’t lie to me,” I closed my eyes. “How did you know William’s name?” I asked again and there was another strong silence. You fucking hypocritical bastard! I thought. I felt anger, resentment, a lot of things swirl in my breast. None of this is happening, none of this is real; this can’t be happening, my dad…
“Where are you?” he asked, imperious tone, deathly still and I knew. I just knew… Oh my god. It was true. The whole thing, all of it, it was true. I squeezed my eyes shut tight against the flood of hot tears as the last vestiges of what I’d thought was real crumbled.
“Did you do it?” I asked, “Did you kill William’s father? Are you what he says you are?”
William grabbed my hand, his fingers finding the spaces between mine, and gave it a firm but gentle squeeze. A life line in this whole tumultuous mess of fracturing reality and swirling fantasy. It was ridiculous, the man who’d kidnapped me, who openly admitted he was going to fucking kill me, was suddenly the rock that I could cling to, my shelter from this total shit storm I found myself chillin’ in. This was so fucked up.
“Chloe…” my father’s voice was low with the threat of anger but I just suddenly didn’t care. I didn’t care anymore. My entire life had been nothing but a bunch of fucking lies!
“Answer me, Daddy!” I spat and probably wouldn’t have been half so brave if my father had been standing right in front of me.
“You want an answer? Okay fine. I haven’t killed anyone,” my father said shortly and my shoulders dropped in relief. I sniffed, and William let my hand go so I could wipe at my tears.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I said, voice tremulous and shaking. I let William retake my hand. My father was quiet for a moment on the other end of the line. Something just didn’t feel right, he was being too quiet. Finally he sighed.
“I know Chloe, I know, just tell me where you are and I’ll send somebody to come get you,” now that was weird. Really weird. It was probably the kindest most understanding thing I’d ever heard come out of his mouth in my direction. That was so not my father. By now I should have expected at least one acerbic remark about stopping my crying.
“I’m fine, I’m really fine. I’m going to take a few days, help William and then I’ll call you,” I said, decision made.
“No. Absolutely not! You tell me where you are, you tell me right now!” I blinked bewildered by the sudden heat in his voice, the anger. I wasn’t doing what he wanted, his manipulation hadn’t worked. This is all real. Everything William’s told me is real. I just knew it deep down, in my gut, everything in my subconscious was just screaming at me to wake up!
I looked at William who was giving me side long glances, and I dropped my eyes to our entwined hands. His thumb stroking in a comforting gesture back and forth across my skin and I saw myself at a crossroads, with myself, with my dad, with a lot of things. I took a fortifying breath and did what I knew in my heart was the right thing. I willfully defied my father for the first time since… well since I could remember.
With a bravado I didn’t actually feel I braced myself inwardly and said, “Daddy, I’m a grown adult, I…”
“I said no, Chloe!” he cut me off. Just like I was eight years old and I froze, just like I was eight years old and had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar before dinner.
“Now, where are you? Where is that animal taking you?” I gasped. Holy shit. There was no way that was an accident, or a slip of the tongue.
“Daddy?” I asked, not really wanting to believe what I had just heard.
“I’m waiting Chloe.” His voice was cold, wintery on the other end of the line. I glanced at William, whose lips were pressed into a grim line so tight they vanished behind the short curtain of his goatee.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Chloe…”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“Chloe, now I mean it, you tell me–”
“You killed somebody, you killed William’s father,” I took the gloves off, “You killed their Alpha.”
Silence, although this one crackled with an electrified tension.
“They aren’t human. I didn’t kill anyone. To kill someone they have to be human. Now tell me where you are.”
I hung up the phone, numb. I ended the call and rolled down the window, pitching it onto the freeway rushing beneath the tires. I hoped the damned phone would shatter into a million pieces, just like my life, just like everything I had ever believed to be true. So many things about my father made sense now with this new light shining.
Somber brown eyes with deep flecks of amber in them met my own, briefly, before he had to turn his attention back to the road and I found myself clinging to William’s hand with the both of mine. At least William was proving to be something solid, at least he was real. He may not have told me what was going on in the beginning, withholding it from me, but at least he had never outright lied to me. Don’t even get me started on William’s lack of being a hypocrite, not like my dad… All this time. All those lessons on integrity were just so much bullshit!
“Chloe…” William’s voice was as somber as his expression, yet still gentle.
“Just don’t ever lie to me William. Please?” I asked abruptly. “Just promise me.” I looked at him, fixed him with my gaze that I knew was too wide, a face that I could feel had gone pale, “You haven’t so far, and I really need you to promise me this. No matter how bad it gets, no matter what it is, just please don’t lie to me. Just tell me like it is, help me understand but no more lies. No more withholding information.”
William’s face shut down into lines of grim resignation before morphing into sheer determination. He nodded once, a gesture of finality and raised the back of my hand to his lips, brushing them across my skin.
“You’ve got it,” he said and swallowed hard. We drove another sixty miles or so before pulling off and hitting a drive through. He ordered his usual mountain of food and then some and took us further down the road to a roadside motel. I told him to eat and went to go to the front desk to check us in.
“You have to have ID,”
he called and I returned to the car and dropped back into my seat dejected. I felt stripped of everything now. My life and now even my identity. This sucked so fucking hard. I closed my eyes and let my head drop back against the seat. He finished chewing and swallowing and went in to get us a room while I polished off a burger and fries that tasted so much like sawdust but I forced myself to eat them anyway because I needed to. I sucked down some Coke and he returned and took us around the building to our room.
“Take the food up, would you?” he asked and popped the trunk of the car. I nodded and he handed me the key card. I went up with the food and he brought up our things. I was grateful he wanted to finish eating in the room instead of in the front seat of his car.
“You shower first,” he said, and with as much food as he still had to go through, I didn’t argue. I just gathered my things and let myself into the bathroom. I showered, the temperature near scalding but I didn’t care. I was tired. I was a raw, open, and broken. I was wounded. My heart vulnerable and aching. Mostly because I knew I had to let go. That there was going to be no fixing this one when it came to me and my dad. It was just too fucking much on top of everything else.
I went through the motions, shampoo, rinse, condition, wash body, rinse. Stepping out of the shower I dried carefully and slipped on my nightgown, using the hotel’s little hair drier to defog the mirror and the brush William had bought for me on my hair until I could see to dry it evenly.
When I stepped out of the bath, William was coming back in through the motel room’s door.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
“Moved the car several blocks down, parked behind a bar. Didn’t want to advertise we were here.” I nodded and he sighed. We looked at each other for a long somber minute.
